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.”
Valuable Volunteers
July 18, 2017
One of the most encouraging aspects of the job I have enjoyed for more than 30 years is what I see on display whenever I attend regular-season contests and Michigan High School Athletic Association tournaments. It's the many volunteers who make the events run smoothly.
From parking lot supervisors, to ticket sellers and ticket takers, to concession stand cooks and servers, to program sellers, to the dozens of people needed to time and measure and otherwise administer large meets in individual sports ... volunteers are the blood pulsing through the veins of school-sponsored sports events.
They work in numbers that amaze me; they work with consistency and longevity that humbles me. They show up years after their own children were participants. I can attend the same event several years in a row and see most of the same volunteers serving year after year. Serving with enthusiasm and with joy, and with no more compensation than a T-shirt, sandwich and soft drinks.
Appropriately, our trophies and medals go to the top-performing student-athletes. But my gratitude goes to these many behind-the-scenes adults.
Thanks for another great year.