Weekly Morsels: A Few Things That Might’ve Slipped Through the Cracks
By Ken Reed
Hockey Championship Ends in Tie for Safety Reasons
This year’s state high school championship hockey game in Ohio was declared a 1-1 tie after seven overtime periods for safety reasons.
The decision was made after conversations between Dan Ross, commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association and the athletic directors from both schools. Ohio high school rules don’t allow for shootouts which are used to end prolonged ties at many levels of hockey, including the Olympics and NHL.
“During the conversations, the safety and health of the kids rose to the top, and that made the decision very easy,” Ross said.
At the time of the decision, the fans and players wanted to keep playing but some feelings mellowed after a couple days of reflection.
“I was upset they stopped the game,” said David Marsh, a participant in the game. “I wanted to keep playing. That changed today. I realized I’m a state champion.”
The administrators made the right call. Now they need to work on putting a shootout in the state rules in order to prevent a similar situation in the future.
Companies Trying to Develop Impact Sensors for Brain Safety
Reebok and other companies are working hard to develop impact sensors that could eventually be commonplace in collision sports like hockey, football and soccer. The sensors measure the force of an impact to the head.
The question is do they do any good?
Experts say the new tools are imprecise and insufficient by themselves to indicate a concussion. The other major problem with relying too much on these sensors is the fact that an impact that leaves one player concussed may have little effect on another. Also, younger athletes can respond to hits in a different way than adults because their necks aren’t as strong. The whiplash effect of a hit that would be relatively mild for an adult can result in a concussion for a 13-year-old.
“There is not a known threshold for concussions,” said Kevin Guskiewicz, an exercise and sports science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who studies concussions. “Parents are going to buy a product that’s potentially going to protect their kid, but it can be very misleading. The science hasn’t evolved to the point where we can interpret these metrics.”
That’s the big issue here. Corporate marketers will sell these devices as making collision sports safer. It’s similar to what some football helmet manufacturers have done in the past with safety claims for their helmets. Those claims have been threatened by lawsuits and the testimonies of medical experts.
Parents and coaches beware. First of all, these sensors don’t prevent the collisions that lead to concussions; and second, the readings may give players, coaches and parents a false sense of confidence.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
Follow on Facebook: @SportsForumPodcast
More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books