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 –
-
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.
-
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 –
-
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.)
Our Drop in the Ocean
December 18, 2015
It has been difficult, recently, for us to get too worked up over the complaints submitted to this office about officials’ calls, coaches’ decisions, students’ ineligibilities and tournament times and venues. All of this seems petty in light of the terrorism in Paris and other places, and the worldwide refugee crisis as innocent people flee from atrocities in their homelands.
Try to imagine the pain in Paris and other places of recent mass execution. Try to imagine the horror that refugees have faced in their native countries and their ongoing agony in the camps that contain them for years while more “civilized” nations struggle politically and economically with decisions that define their humanity.
But now, as often before, we remind ourselves that the job we are paid to do requires our focused attention and best efforts as we try to make our small niche in the world of sports – our drop of water in the ocean of the world’s concerns – a little bit better each day.
And also now, as often before, we try to interpret how the worldwide human condition affects us and might be affected by us. Affects us, for example, with the need to improve tournament venue security. Is affected by us, for example, by delivering programs that help create in young athletes those qualities that will make them good citizens of their future world – adults who are respectful, tolerant and compassionate.
When I traveled in Northern Africa recently, I encountered immense admiration for the United States – what our hosts always referred to as “America.” People elsewhere look past the shallow or spiteful political rhetoric of our so-called leaders and candidates for leadership to see a disciplined freedom exercised by the citizens of our country that is still, in spite of our shortcomings, the world’s best hope for peace and prosperity.
This country is unique in the world. And school-sponsored sports exist in this country like no other place on earth. There just might be a connection. Which is why – even when the world’s problems seem too large for us to impact – by doing our best every day to deliver these programs, we actually may be performing a vital role.