The N.C. High School Athletic Association board of directors is expected to receive recommendations in December on how to make high school football safer.
Three high school students in North Carolina have died from football-related activities since Aug. 14.
Chapel Hill’s Atlas Fraley is believed to have died from heat related causes while Winston-Salem Reynolds’ Matt Gfeller and Greenville Rose’s Jaquan Waller died from head injuries.
Charlie Adams, the executive director of the NCHSAA, said he planned to invite the University of North Carolina’s Kevin Guskiewicz, a national expert on brain injuries, to speak to the board during its winter meetings.
Adams said any recommendations Guskiewicz makes will be endorsed by the NCHSAA staff and will be presented to the board for action.
“We are committed to making high school athletics in North Carolina as safe as we can make them,” Adams said.
Guskiewicz, who was in Chicago this week for a conference, said he needed time to prepare, but he expected to recommend that every football player receive a baseline exam before the season and that a campaign be started to put a licensed trainer in every secondary school.
The baseline tests would measure a player’s cognitive ability before an injury and give trainers another tool in accessing an injury.
Comments
Heat related problems
Sat, 09/27/2008 - 10:36 — timstevens (author)In addition to hearing from brain injury experts, the NCHSAA also is bringing in Dr. Fred Mueller, the national expert on heat-related problems. The NCHSAA already has guidelines for activities in the hot weather and the NCHSAA board is expected to consider changing those as well as examining if anything can be done to help prevent brain injuries.
They call it 'voluntary practice' all summer
Fri, 09/26/2008 - 22:06 — Anonymous (not verified)The coaches have 'voluntary practice' during the summer - but it's not really voluntary because the players have to go if they want to play. 7-on-7 scrimmages are held ALL day long in the heat and the students have to attend if they want to play during the season.
I wish they would pay
Fri, 09/26/2008 - 18:33 — Anonymous (not verified)I wish they would pay attention to heat-related injuries! I don't understand how the sports departments get away with starting practices as early as they always have, even though the schools can't, by a law passed in 2004, start before August 25th. There's no waiver in the law for sports-related activities! I know, I know, it's all about scheduling, but is that more important than a young person's health - or life? Check out question #5 on a poll just released this week: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/SchoolCalendarMemo1.pdf Parents aren't going to just sit around and do nothing about this any longer - and neither should the NCHSAA!