Straight Talk on Head Trauma
May 6, 2013
Bill Heinz is the handsome square-jawed, plain-speaking medical orthopedist from Maine who chairs the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee of the National Federation of State High school Associations. Here, in my words, is what Dr. Heinz had to say about concussions last month in Indianapolis in a ballroom full of staff members and attorneys for statewide athletic associations from across the United States.
About Prevention –
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No equipment can prevent concussions in any sport. What can reduce such head trauma is to diminish the frequency and severity of contact to the head.
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In football, that requires officials’ strict enforcement of current rules, coaches’ teaching of blocking and tackling consistent with those rules, and rules makers’ continuing search for ways to reduce the frequency of the game’s most dangerous situations.
About Aftercare –
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No pharmaceutical remedy exists for concussions. The remedy is time. Only complete rest – from both academic and athletic activity – begins the recovery process; and then return to such activity must be gradual, and under the care of trained health care professionals.
That has been and will continue to be our message to our constituents in Michigan.
(Click here for our recent communication reinforcing the state laws that take effect in Michigan on June 30, 2013.)
Not Acting Like Grownups
December 26, 2015
Take a look at Fox Sports Detroit today, the second of two days replaying the 2015 MHSAA 11-Player Football Finals at Ford Field.
What I’d like you to see – what I’m most proud of – is the behavior of the players.
Score a touchdown? Then hand the ball to the official, without any childish end zone dancing.
Sack the quarterback? Then head back to the huddle, without any ridiculous pointing and prancing.
So different from the professional game.
But sadly, some of that bad behavior is settling to the college level; and sometimes, there’s even a hint of it in our high school games.
But for now, the players behaving most maturely are the youngest, and behaving least maturely are the oldest.