Announcing the First Statewide Training Network
for non-School Youth Coaches & Parents

The story of youth sports in America has entered a new chapter. For most youngsters, it’s no longer home to neighborhood games and energetic self-governed play. With family management, safety, and skill development as its driving force, youth sport has become a form of adult-driven organized play. With roughly 35 million children playing organized youth sports and untrained adult involved at every turn, this model has significantly increased the incidence of injury as well as changed the type of injuries children are receiving.

With 3.5 million children under 14 receiving medical treatment annually and high school athletes adding 2 million visits to hospital emergency rooms, sport is the leading cause of adolescent injury. (1) Combined healthcare costs for treatment youth sports injuries is approximately $2.5 billion with an additional $3 billion for an injury that becomes chronic.(2) Leading pediatricians are alarmed over the acceleration in the rate, type and severity of youth sports injuries.“Pro-athlete type” injuries, once seen only in adults, have become common in skeletally immature children. (3)

Yet the games children play and their physical engagement in those games, are important components of a healthy life. Magnified by the health-challenges of childhood obesity and diabetes closer to home, the ‘organized youth sports model’ that replaced player-organized games is under increasing scrutiny by health, athletic, educational and community leadership.

Heads Up: Concussion

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 | Print | Permalink

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC

September 24, 2012

Each year, U.S. emergency departments (EDs) treat an estimated 173,285 sports- and recreation-related TBIs, including concussions, among children and adolescents, from birth to 19 years.  (MMWR October 2011) Children and teens are more likely to get a concussion and take longer to recover than adults. CDC has created free tools for youth and high school sports coaches, parents, athletes, and health care professionals that provide important information on preventing, recognizing, and responding to a concussion.

Read more at CDC.

Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports

Posted on Apr 5, 2013 | Print | Permalink

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC

May 29, 2012

To help ensure the health and safety of young athletes, CDC developed the Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports initiative to offer information about concussions to coaches, parents, and athletes involved in youth sports. The Heads Up initiative provides important information on preventing, recognizing, and responding to a concussion.

Read more at CDC.

USA Football Expanding 'Heads Up' Safety Program

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Gary Mihoces -- Athletic Business

March 4, 2013

Class is in session in the new school of football. The focus is on teaching kids a safer way to tackle, easing the fears of parents alarmed about concussions and ensuring that the thriving game has a future.

The faculty began taking shape over the weekend. It includes Chuck Kyle, who in 30 seasons as coach at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland has won 11 Ohio state titles and twice was named USA TODAY Sports' national high school coach of the year.

"All of us feel that football is under attack a little bit right now with the concussion situation," Kyle says. "It's a game we all love, and I think there are a lot of coaches that say we're not going to stand back. We're going to fix it. We want to make sure that parents feel safe when they're sending their son to play the game."

Kyle was among 19 invitees, most of them current or former high school coaches, who attended a weekend workshop to become master trainers in the Heads Up Football program being expanded this year by USA Football, a national youth organization based here.

Read more at Athletic Business.

Another Lawmaker Proposes Anti-Hazing Legislation

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Kerry Lester -- Athletic Business

March 1, 2013

For the second time in a week, a suburban lawmaker has introduced legislation to combat bullying and hazing in schools.

U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, a Highland Park Republican, along with Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, Thursday announced the "Safe Schools Improvement Act," which would require schools that receive federal funding to adopt codes of conduct specifically prohibiting bullying and harassment and encourage them to implement effective prevention programs to respond to incidents of bullying and harassment.

Kirk noted in a statement that he was proud to work to help "schools prevent bullying before it starts and to provide guidance supporting proper behavior."

According to the legislation, which is supported by the Illinois Education Association and the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning, the code of conduct schools would have to adopt must address bullying based on a student's actual or perceived race, color, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion. The bill also would require states to collect information reported by school districts on incidents and report this information to the Department of Education. This data would have to be readily available to the public so that parents and the local community could know what is happening in their schools.

Read more at Athletic Business.

Alternative HS Fielding Team in Adult Hoops League

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Alex Riley -- Athletic Business

March 4, 2013

CHEYENNE - Terren Gallegos had just about had enough.

There were about 15 minutes left in last Monday's game, and the point guard let his Triumph High teammates know what he thought of his teammates' effort.

"Quit playing lazy," the senior yelled.

Triumph was down 41-19 after a pair of free throws by the opposing team. A slew of turnovers and missed shots by Triumph caused the game to spiral out of control.

"We get down sometimes," Gallegos said. "We need to get each other motivated for us to get a higher tempo in the game.

"When I said, 'Don't get lazy,' it was to help bring them up."

His message took. The Spartans put in some points, came up with some steals and made some stops.

But it wasn't enough in the 52-35 loss, just the team's second of the season in the Cheyenne Parks and Recreation's adult league.

Read more at Athletic Business.

Opinion: Virginia HS League Realignment a Good Idea

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

Bill Leffler -- Athletic Business

March 3, 2013

The Virginia High School League is on the threshold of its first major changes in 43 years. And the man at the helm, Ken Tilley, offers these words of wisdom:

"Give it a chance!"

As speaker at the Portsmouth Sports Club Jamboree luncheon, held at the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Tuesday, the VHSL executive director laughingly referred to a new classification system as "my favorite subject."

Tilley has been executive director of the VHSL since 1994.

He previously served as program supervisor and athletic director there since 1986.

Changing the league from a three-classification system to six divisions has placed him on the hot seat. But he's firmly convinced that most of his 313 member schools support him.

Read more at Athletic Business.

AB Newswire

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Michael Popke -- Athletic Business

February 28, 2013

The sentencing this week of a youth hockey coach to 15 days in jail for tripping a 13-year-old player from the opposing team in the handshake line last June reminded me of just how far we, as a sporting society, still have to go. The lawyer for Martin Tremblay, whose action in a British Columbia ice rink was caught on video, argued that the coach was off his anti-depressants at the time. But the judge didn't care and called Tremblay's behavior a "cowardly sucker punch." Hooray for Canada's judicial system!

Read more at Athletic Business.

World's First Smart Basketball Bouncing into Market

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Michael Hiestand -- Athletic Business

March 1, 2013

A new regulation-sized, normal-looking basketball that can transmit 6,000 bits of data per second is being billed as the world's first smart basketball, meant to turn even a simple layup into a pile of information.

The 94Fifty ball, named for the dimensions of a basketball court, and its data-retrieval system will go on sale online in April for $295. It supposedly feels like a regular ball even as it conducts its on-court surveillance. The ball needs to be recharged but can be done so wirelessly.

Founder and CEO Michael Crowley of Dublin, Ohio-based InfoMotion Sports Technologies says the six sensors embedded in the ball's exterior can transmit data within 100 milliseconds to Android smart devices up to 90 feet away. The system includes an app that offers suggestions on how to improve your form.

Read more at Athletic Business.

Illinois Officials Debate Proposed Tackling Limits in Youth Football

Posted on Mar 4, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Hannah Douglas -- Athletic Business

February 28, 2013

SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois High School Association is blowing the whistle on a measure that would limit the amount of tackling at youth football practices.

The proposal, discussed in an Illinois House Committee on Wednesday, would ask school districts across Illinois to adopt a policy cutting the amount of contact during practices to once per week in order to reduce the number of concussions suffered by players.

But IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman said state legislation would be excessive because his agency, which oversees prep sports in the state, plans to continue its own work in addressing the issue.

The proposal, sponsored by state Rep. Carol Sente, D-Vernon Hills, would build on a 2011 state law made to help Illinois student-athletes recover from a concussion. Any high school student suspected of having a concussion is required to be checked and cleared by a certified medical professional before re-entering the sport, under that law.

Read more at Athletic Business.

Neck Strength Predicts Concussion Risk, Study Says

Posted on Feb 22, 2013 | Print | Permalink

By Sean Gregory -- Time Sports

February 21, 2013

For years, biomechanics researchers have suspected that girls had higher concussion rates than boys in sports like soccer and lacrosse because of gender differences in neck strength. The weaker your neck, the more likely your head will bob around on impact. And concussions are caused by the brain shaking inside the skull.

For the first time, new research backs up this conclusion. Before practices and games, athletes shouldn't just be stretching and strengthening their legs and backs. They should be working out their necks as well.

At the fourth annual Youth Sports Safety Summit in early February, Dawn Comstock, associate professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, presented the findings. During the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 academic years, athletic trainers collected measurements of head circumference, neck circumference, neck length, and four measurements of neck strength -- extension, flexion, right lateral and left lateral -- on 6,704 athletes nationwide across three sports; boys' and girls' soccer, lacrosse and basketball. These measures were taken before the start of the season; during the season, athletic trainers reported injury data -- including concussion incidence -- for each athlete.

Read more at Time Sports.