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Hat Trick

July 31, 2017

When asked recently to identify the most important work of the Michigan High School Athletic Association at this particular time in the history of school sports in Michigan, I paused only briefly, because there is one initiative that scores a hat trick. It’s the MHSAA Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.

  • It is a forum for helping us define and defend educational athletics.

  • It is helping us focus on the future of school sports – on the junior high/middle school level, and even younger athletes and their parents, where attitudes are being formed and decisions are being made.

  • It is helping us focus on THE most serious health and safety issue in all of youth sports, which is specialization in one sport that is too early, too intense and too prolonged, leading to overuse injuries that tend to cause a lifetime of chronic injuries and related health problems.

The Task Force has convened five times over 15 months. It is moving now from the phase of identifying issues and challenges to developing tools for administrators and coaches to promote the multi-sport experience for young people.

Injuries and Specialization

December 29, 2017

Editor's Note: This blog originally was posted July 6, 2010, and the topic continues to be of prime concern today.

There’s an excellent website to which we now link from the health and safety page of MHSAA.com. It’s stopsportsinjuries.org.

Under “Sports Injury Prevention,” in each of a dozen categories from baseball to volleyball, are numerous articles about injury prevention and treatment and additional resources.

The website is the most public presence so far for a campaign begun in 2007 by the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM).

Sports Illustrated in June quoted AOSSM’s president, Dr. James R. Andrews, as saying the focus is really on youth sports and overuse injuries. “I don’t think epidemic is too strong a word,” said Dr. Andrews. “We’re seeing kids hurt before they even have a chance to become athletes.

“You just have this enormous pressure nowadays on kids to play that one sport year-round.

“Encourage your child to be involved in more than one sport. Cross-training helps develop their bodies. Don’t allow your child to play in more than one league in the same sport in the same season. That’s how they get burned out.”