|
 |
|
|
|
by Tim Murphy
Ridgefield Press
February, 15 2010
RIDEGEFIELD, CT -- On the field, the football season may have officially ended with the Super Bowl. But off the field, things are reaching a fever pitch -- at least in Ridgefield.
In a span of 10 days, the town's youth football and cheerleading organization, Ridgefield Youth Football, was asked to leave the league it has played in for the past five years; a former board member formed a new board and applied for re-admission to the league; and three members of the current board, including the president and vice president, decided to resign.
The unexpected developments have left the roughly 350 children who participate either as players or cheerleaders and their parents asking the same things: Why did all this happen, and will Ridgefield have a league to play in next fall?
by Stephanie SmithFor more than 20 years, former San Francisco 49ers lineman George Visger has lived his life out of hundreds of small yellow notebooks. In them he scrawls the minutiae of his daily life: "4:45 am left house. 2 stops to find coffee and a roll. Paper work till 9:25. 10:05 Ed called."
The notebooks are the last vestige of his memory.
"I always have them. They sit in my back pockets," said Visger, 51. "The movie '50 First Dates,' this has been my life for 28 years. I get up in the morning and I have no clue what I have to do that day. If it's not written down it doesn't exist."
Visger said his memory began fading in 1982. During his brief, injury-shortened career playing for the 49ers, he said, a jarring tackle caused a concussion.
"I went into a coma and almost died," said Visger. "At one point I was given last rites."
It was the culmination of a life using his head -- to tackle -- that almost killed Visger. His is one of several cases of ex-NFL athletes struggling with memory loss, depression and sudden, frightening bouts of rage. Experts believe the reason for the brain damage is concussion.
by Maureen Nolan
Syracuse Post-Standard
February 04, 2010
Roland Grimes moved away from Central New York a few years ago, but he's reaching back to help organize a town hall meeting about ethics and accountability in sports.
Its particular focus is on sports and youth in the black community. He wants to get local people talking about the subject.
The idea is for the town hall, scheduled for Feb. 24, to bring together all facets of the community involved in youth sports, for instance parents, coaches, trainers and educators, for a discussion. Grimes said organizers do not yet have a time and location for the meeting.
He played football for Syracuse University in the 1980s and lived in the area for years, during which he was active in a number of ventures. In 2007, he moved to the Washington, D.C. area, where he is currently the director of guidance and counseling at Bishop McNamara High School in Forestville, Md.
Grimes is working with a colleague and former Orange football player, Bryce K. Bevill, to organize the forums in several cities, including Washington, D.C. They've written a book about youth, sports and development, with a focus on black youth.
by Kay Lazar
Boston GLobe
February 2, 2010
There was the nasty concussion Ben Price suffered from an eighth-grade skiing accident. Then the countless jarrings from wrestling and baseball. By senior year, he was plagued by nagging headaches after football practices at Wayland High School.
His mother, Wendy Price, did not connect the incidents until a chance conversation last year with another parent at a youth soccer game. That parent, Dr. Ann McKee, is studying a form of early dementia that was once thought to develop primarily in boxers. Now McKee and her colleagues think the disease may be silently destroying the brains of athletes in a variety of sports after years of repetitive blows to the head.
"You don't know who is going to be the unlucky one,'' said Price, who asked McKee to speak at a forum in Wayland.
The turnout - 200 parents, coaches, and students attended - was a sign of the success of the nation's first center to study chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. Created by McKee and three partners 17 months ago at Boston University Medical School, the center has quickly spread awareness about the dangers of repetitive head injuries, largely by targeting the National Football League.
Recommendations and Guidelines
To safely and sufficiently acclimatize in the early season and improve the safety profile for each player, teams should use graduated repeated exposure to heat stress,
training intensity and volume, and the football uniform, combined with appropriate alterations of practice intensity and duration, equipment cover, and betweenpractice
recovery time. This will allow players to adapt more safely and effectively.
ESPN.com - Associated Press
New York, NY
January 28, 2010
NEW YORK -- Robert Johnson from Mission Viejo High School in California has been chosen the NFL's high school football coach of the year.
Johnson will receive $5,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl, and a $10,000 grant from the NFL Youth Football Fund will be awarded to his school's football program.
The award was announced Thursday.
Johnson was nominated by Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez and Seahawks defensive end Nick Reed. He was picked from a pool of nominations that came from more than 75 NFL players.
The high school coach of the year award was created in 1995 to honor coaches who made a positive impact on the athletic and personal development of NFL players.
ABC News 11At least a half-dozen states are considering measures that would toughen restrictions on young athletes returning to play after head injuries, inspired by individual cases and the attention the issue has received in the NFL.
Washington state led the way last year, passing what is considered the nation's strongest return-to-play statute. Athletes under 18 who show concussion symptoms can't take the field again without a licensed health care provider's written approval. Several other states, including California and Pennsylvania, have similar bills pending.
by Around Town - Dave Kaplan and Fred Mitchell
Chicago Tribune
January 21, 2010
Robbie Gould has been "money" for the Bears most of his career.
Now Gould is assisting a local youth football team make a trip for a game in Miami. The American Youth Football Organization national champion Naperville Patriots, a group of 12-,13- and 14-year-olds, are scheduled to play a team from Texas led by Deion Sanders on Feb.6, the day before the Super Bowl. When anticipated funding from the NFL for hotel rooms in Miami fell through at the last minute, Gould offered to help.
"I will gladly help raise the funds and talk to some of those people who are close to me to raise the money," said Gould on Thursday. "We are working to get as much money as we possibly can. I think the kids will enjoy it and it will be a chance of a lifetime."
Greater Tulsa Reporter - GTR Newspapers
Tulsa, OK
January 27, 2010
USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, announced today that Seattle Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu has donated $10,000 to the independent non-profit to assist in its work of establishing American Samoa's first youth football program. With USA Football's financial assistance, bolstered by Tatupu's gift and support from Riddell, youth football is being played by youngsters aged 11-14 on the island territory for the first time.
Tatupu is the son of Mosi Tatupu, the first native-born American Samoan selected to an NFL Pro Bowl (1986) as a fullback for the New England Patriots. The younger Tatupu's pride in his American Samoan ancestry and respect for the island's people and their affinity toward football compels him to further strengthen the sport there.
Since 2008, USA Football has worked with American Samoa football leaders to establish organized youth football on the island, providing the latest equipment and USA Football's coaching education resources to serve the new league's volunteer coaches. USA Football is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, the NFLPA, and the league's 32 teams.
by Anthony Alessi
Norwich Bulletin
Jan 26, 2010
Aside from the physical benefits, youth sports are an effective means of shaping a child's work habits and character. Approximately 30 million children under the age of 14 participate in organized youth sports throughout the United States.
The problem is that many of these activities are unsafe. And the statistics are staggering:
-- Approximately 8,000 children are treated in emergency rooms each day for sports-related injuries;
-- 62 percent of injuries occur during practices;
-- There are 5 times as many catastrophic football injuries in high school athletes as opposed to college athletes;
-- Cardiac and neurologic injuries account for the predominance of sports-related deaths.
READ MORE...
ConTACT Act designed to reduce head injuries in youth and prep sports
by Paul Tenorio
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
As the handling of concussions and head injuries has moved to the forefront in the NFL this year, Congress now is seeking to step in with legislation aimed at reducing the frequency of those injuries in youth and high school sports.
In a news conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) outlined the Concussion Treatment and Care Tools (ConTACT) Act, which aims to establish guidelines in schools for the treatment and diagnosis of concussions and emphasizes the importance of base-line diagnostic testing at the youth levels before athletes participate in contact sports.
Representatives from the NFL Players Association, including two former NFL players and two student-athletes who suffer from the long-term effects of concussions, were there to back the bill, which Pascrell hopes can develop mandatory guidelines within the next two years.
Golden Valley High, SC Youth Sports Association score $1,000 each
The Signal - Santa Clarita Valley, California
Dec. 16, 2009
USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, has awarded football equipment grants to youth leagues and high school programs throughout California, including Golden Valley High School and the Santa Clarita Youth Sports Association.
USA Football is awarding $1 million in equipment grants to more than 800 football programs across the United States in preparation for the 2010 season.
USA Football is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, its 32 teams and the NFL Players Association.
by Neil Rudel
Altoona Mirror
nrudel@altoonamirror.com
Troy Benson figures his youth football team in the Catholic League near Pittsburgh is being coached in part by the wisdom of Foge Fazio.
Benson, the former Altoona Area High School standout, became a three-year starter at Pitt and 1984 team captain before spending six NFL seasons with the New York Jets.
He's now coaching two of his sons.
"This was my first year of coaching, and some of the things I'm trying to teach little kids are things I learned from Foge," Benson said Thursday.
Fazio, who coached Pitt from 1982-85, died Wednesday from leukemia at the age of 71.
He and Benson remained close, especially after Benson's playing career concluded.
by Celeste E. Whittaker
Courier-Post November 10, 2009
GLASSBORO, NJ -- Rowan junior defensive end Matt Hoffman enjoys the football rivalry with The College of New Jersey a great deal.
The Burlington Township High School graduate has a former high school teammate at TCNJ -- senior wide receiver Cameron Richardson.
The New Jersey Athletic Conference rivals will meet in the season finale for both teams at noon Saturday at Rowan, but there's a very good chance Hoffman won't play.
The Rowan football team joined a bone-marrow donor registry in the spring, and the 6-foot-3, 207-pound Hoffman was a match for a 51-year-old man who has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Print
