Robust Benefits
February 6, 2015
Here are some research-based opinions that track with the personal experiences of most of us who have given our careers to educational athletics. The words are those of Kevin Kniffen, who teaches leadership and management at Cornell University (from NYTimes.com [Oct. 22, 2014]):
“Research shows that people who play high school sports get better jobs, with better pay. Benefits that last a lifetime.
“Those lessons presumably help to account for the findings that people who played for a varsity high school team tend to earn relatively higher salaries later in life. Research to which I contributed, complementing previous studies, showed that people who played high school sports tend to get better jobs, with better pay, and that those benefits last a lifetime.
“Hiring managers expect former student-athletes (compared with people who participate in other popular extracurriculars) to have more self-confidence, self-respect and leadership; actual measures of behavior in a sample of people who had graduated from high school more than five decades earlier showed those expectations proved accurate.
“We also found that former student-athletes tend to donate time and money more frequently than people who weren't part of teams.
“In other words, there are clear and robust individual and societal benefits that appear to be generated through the current system of school support for participation in competitive youth athletics.
“With respect to whether youth athletics should be part of educational institutions, it’s certainly true that there’s no necessary relationship between the two; but, what would happen if schools were to drop all of their interscholastic sports programs?
“Any policymakers who took such action would effectively be privatizing – and, in turn, limiting – an important set of opportunities that schools presently provide in a significantly more democratic and open fashion than likely alternatives would. Beyond raising a basic barrier for anyone to gain the kinds of experiences that appear to be rewarded in the workplace, the privatization of competitive youth sports would also create the largest barriers – and cause the greatest long-term losses – for those whose families are not able to bear the costs of participation outside of the public school system.”
Counting Concussions
December 9, 2016
Member high schools of the Michigan High School Athletic Association are in the second year of required reporting of concussions that occur during practices and contests in all levels of all sports served by the MHSAA. In year one there were 4,452 confirmed concussions reported. Less than two percent of almost 300,000 participants sustained a concussion, about half of which caused the student to be withheld from activity for between five and 15 days.
Not surprisingly, approximately half of the confirmed concussions were reported by Class A schools, which typically sponsor more sports and have larger squads than smaller schools. Class B schools provided almost 30 percent of the reports; Class C schools nearly 15 percent; and Class D schools less than six percent.
As we transition from fall to winter season, we can begin to make comparisons between years one and two of the mandated reporting. At this point, schools are reporting 1.6 percent fewer concussions this year than last.
This is surprising, because sideline personnel of member high schools have become more alert to the signs and symptoms of concussions. We anticipated that this would lead to more concussions being reported.
It is possible that these early stats are a sign of real progress in reducing head injuries in school sports. And, grabbing our attention most from the early reports is that 11-player football is reporting 3.9 percent fewer concussions as of Nov. 30, 2016 compared to the same week in 2015; and boys soccer is reporting 10.9 percent fewer than on the same date last year.