The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have developed some very good resources for sport coaches on head injuries.


A concussion is a brain injury caused by a bump or blow to the head that can change the way your brain normally works. Even what seems to be a mild bump or blow to the head can be serious. As many as 3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions are estimated to occur in the United States each year.


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—a type of traumatic brain injury—to coaches, parents, and athletes involved in youth sports. The “Heads Up” initiative provides important information on preventing, recognizing, and responding to a concussion.


CDC wants to equip coaches, parents, and young athletes across the country with the "Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports” tool kit, which contains:

a fact sheet for coaches on concussion;
a fact sheet for athletes on concussion;
a fact sheet for parents on concussion;
a clipboard with concussion facts for coaches;
a magnet with concussion facts for coaches and parents;
a poster with concussion facts for coaches and sports administrators; and
a quiz for coaches, athletes, and parents to test their concussion knowledge.


Go to Heads Up: Concussion in Youth Sports to order your free tool kit and other material.

NEW NATIONAL COACHING REPORT STRESSES
IMPORTANCE OF QUALIFIED COACHES
FOR EVERY ATHLETE


WASHINGTON, DC, August 6, 2008 – The Institute for Sport Coaching recently reaffirmed its commitment to quality coaching education, and is one of only 15 youth sport organizations profiled in the National Coaching Report, the only comprehensive report addressing both youth and interscholastic sport coaching education requirements in the United States. The report was released today by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) in partnership with the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). With over 50 million children under the age of 18 participating in organized sport programs, the purpose of the report is to educate the American public about the training and qualifications currently required to coach athletes whose quality sport experience is of number one concern.


Released only days before the start of the 2008 International Olympics in Beijing, the report stresses the importance of qualified coaches for every athlete. Many Olympians’ positive athletic experiences were a result of the influence and impact of their coaches.


“An optimal sport experience requires caring and professionally trained coaches,” says NASPE President Fran Cleland, P.E.D., professor of kinesiology, West Chester University (PA). “Parents across the country send their children to practices and events with the expectation that adult supervision will bring positive sport outcomes, maximal learning and skill development. Yet horror stories persist about dramatic increases in winning-obsessed parents, sport injuries, over-specialization of young athletes, and children quitting sports because they simply aren’t fun anymore.”
North Carolina Congressman Mike McIntyre, Chairman of the Congressional Youth Sports Caucus, stated, “Quality coaches are key to a successful youth program. We should all work together to make sure that every young person has the opportunity to be positively influenced by a qualified coach. The lessons of sportsmanship, individual and team effort, dedication, and working toward a goal are key to youth sports and key to a successful life. Good quality coaches can and should be a part of that formula.”


The National Coaching Report provides a baseline of what is being done to train coaches at the youth and interscholastic sport levels. Sport officials, State Board/Department of Education administrators, legislators and parents can now view the requirements set forth by state legislation, mandates, or sports organizations for coach preparation in each state and the District of Columbia.


Jody Brylinsky, Ph.D., professor of sport studies, Western Michigan University, and chair of the National Coaching Report Task Force, presented the results today at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. According to Dr. Brylinsky, “The National Coaching Report clearly illustrates the need to increase the quality of training adults receive prior to engaging in coaching responsibilities. It also serves as a resource and advocacy tool for developing policy and legislation that requires coaching education.”


This small portrait of youth sport organizations suggests:

• There are youth sport organizations earnestly seeking ways to design and implement training for adults who wish to serve as coaches.
• Most youth sport coach training is currently designed for entry level coaches with emphasis on athlete-centered coaching philosophy, ethical conduct of coaches, and maintaining a safe environment.
• There is a strong trend to require background checks for all coaches in youth sport.
• Volunteer-dependent youth sport organizations are willing to mandate some form of coach education or training as an incentive to coach.


Recommendations for Action


NASPE recommends that all coaches be required to complete a quality coaching education program prior to working with athletes. In addition, NASPE recommends that decision makers:


• Recognize that the role of the coach requires specialized skills and knowledge that must be developed through formal training based on the National Standards for Sport Coaches
• Promote communication between the local sport leagues and quality coaching education providers
• Develop an infrastructure to track and record the number of youth sport coaches and the number of coaches who have completed coaching education programs
• Develop recruitment and selection procedures that identify persons with high moral character and integrity for coaching positions.


As a public service, NASPE is providing a full copy of the report online on its website. Printed copies of the report may be obtained by calling 800-321-0789. The price for the 156-page publication is $24.


Methodology

In late 2007, NASPE requested information on coaching education mandates and practices for high school sport coaches from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data pertaining to interscholastic coaching requirements was gathered from published documents provided by the state activities associations, state Boards/Departments of Education, and the NFHS. Each state profile includes among other things: participation rates, legislative requirements, teaching and coaching education requirements and adjustments, timeframes and recommendations for action.


Youth sport organizations that had either initially endorsed the National Standards for Sport Coaches (NASPE, 2006) or were part of the coaching education database developed and maintained by NASPE were contacted in an attempt to gather information on coaching education/training criteria in youth sport organizations.

NASPE


The preeminent national authority on physical education and a recognized leader in sport and physical activity, the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) is a non-profit professional membership association that sets the standard for practice in physical education and sport. NASPE’s 16,000 members include: K-12 physical education teachers, coaches, athletic directors, athletic trainers, sport management professionals, researchers, and college/university faculty who prepare physical activity professionals. The mission of NASPE is to enhance knowledge, improve professional practice, and increase support for high quality physical education, sport and physical activity programs through research, development of standards, and dissemination of information. It is the largest of the five national associations that make the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (AAHPERD).
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Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
All Rights Reserved
The Boston Globe


July 27, 2008 Sunday
THIRD EDITION



HEADLINE: Getting played -- The risks to children - particularly girls - in increasingly competitive sports

BYLINE: Bill Littlefield - Bill Littlefield hosts National Public Radio's "Only a Game."


BOOK REVIEW

Game Plan: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children

By Tom Farrey

ESPN, 383 pp., $24.95

Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury

Epidemic in Women's Sports

By Michael Sokolove

Simon & Schuster, 308 pp., $25




In the old days of college athletics, there used to be something called a walk-on.

Lots of colleges had them. They were kids who'd played a sport in high school and figured they'd give it another shot when they got to campus.

Anecdotal evidence suggesting that walk-ons have become nearly extinct comes from a coach at Skidmore College. I asked her how many walk-ons would make her soccer team. She told me she didn't think there would be any. She'd recruited everybody she needed.

Youngsters who've impressed college coaches enough to make recruiting lists stand a far better chance than less athletic counterparts of gaining acceptance at virtually every school that fields teams.

As a result, parents and coaches have been pushing children to specialize at younger and younger ages. The "new thinking," according to Tom Farrey, author of "Game Plan," is that "it's never too early to train children as competitors." "Five-year-olds play soccer year-round," he writes. "Two-year-olds have custom golf clubs." Parents who don't want to risk choosing the wrong sport can have their infant's DNA tested by a company that identifies the appropriate game for that child's genetic predisposition.

The dream of an athletic scholarship or, at least, an edge in the admissions derby isn't the only motivation for parents to push their kids toward mastery of one sport. Kids in elementary school encounter a system that rewards early athletic promise. Travel teams and elite teams are standard in most places. Like Little League, peewee hockey, or CYO basketball on steroids, these ambitious entities reinforce the notion that children's sports must include regularly scheduled practices, uniforms, adult coaches, officials, clocks, scoreboards, and, of course, tryouts and cuts. According to Farrey's research, the result is a decrease in the number of children playing games for fun and an increase in burnouts - kids who've been playing so intensively for so long that by the time they're 13, they're sick of the sport toward which they were steered, if not all organized sports.

Citing those reasons and others, Farrey makes a case that there is "something structurally askew with the whole setup" of youth sports in the United States, home to "the fattest children in the world," in part because the system rewards "early bloomers, leaving the rest behind."

In his epilogue, Farrey suggests various ways the broken system might be - if not fixed - nudged toward sanity. He urges parents to suggest strongly that sports programs in their towns be organized around the needs of kids, not adults, meaning all those who want to play, rather than the parents of the kids who already play well and aspire to play at a higher level.

Michael Sokolove, author of "Warrior Girls," would certainly agree that the system is broken, but his focus is more specific. "The way children play sports in America is not particularly good for either sex," he writes. "For the girls, though, it is all too often disastrous." Nobody who's paid any attention to women's sports can fail to have noticed that women suffer more knee, back, and head injuries than men playing the same sports. At the most competitive levels of soccer and basketball, girls and women suffer anterior cruciate ligament tears about eight times as often as men do.

Sokolove understands that the suggestion in the subtitle of his book that female athletes need to be "protected" will lead some to conclude that he's an enemy of Title IX, women's sports, and perhaps women in general. But he believes the greatest danger to women's sports is not backlash over teams eliminated by colleges trying to establish comparable opportunities for female athletes, or fatheads who believe the games the women play are intrinsically inferior. "What does threaten women's sports," he writes, "is that far too many girls and young women are leaving the playing field broken up and in chronic pain." He makes his case with statistics, interviews, and powerful stories about women who might have been stars if their knees hadn't exploded.

Like Farrey, Sokolove offers potential solutions to the problem he identifies. He urges coaches of women's teams to recognize the value of exercise and training programs that teach girls and women to run, jump, and land in ways less likely to damage their knees and back. He cautions parents about the "warrior" mentality valued by many coaches, since it often leads athletes - sometimes with the blessing of a coach and a trainer or physician - to return before they have healed. Like Farrey, he advocates cross-training, whereby kids play several sports rather than specializing in one, since specialization means more stress through repetitive motion on the same developing muscles and joints. He encourages parents to resist the "bullying" of coaches who argue that without a full-time, year-round commitment, a 10-year-old athlete will fall behind her peers.

The call for a saner sports culture for the members of both genders represented by these thoughtful, thorough, and compelling books is convincing and welcome.