Some of the changes from the Ohio High School Athletic Association:
Any athlete who exhibits signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion (such as loss of consciousness, headache, dizziness, confusion or balance problems) shall be immediately removed from the contest and shall not return to play until cleared with written authorization by an appropriate health care professional. In Ohio, an “appropriate health care professional” shall be a physician (doctors of medicine (M.D.) and doctors of osteopathy (D.O.), or a certified athletic trainer.
Coaches are to review and know the signs and symptoms of concussion and to prohibit any athlete who displays these signs or symptoms from participating in a practice or a contest.
Coaches are not medical professionals and have no authority to determine whether or not a student has sustained a concussion. The coach is responsible for insuring that the student’s parents are notified and the student is referred to a medical professional.
Officials are to review and know the signs and symptoms of concussion and to direct immediate removal of any athlete who displays these signs or symptoms.
An official shall not permit the athlete who has been removed under this rule to return to competition without written medical authorization presented to the head official.
If a contest official is aware that a student has been permitted to return to competition without written authorization from a physician or licensed athletic trainer, that official shall immediately stop play and remove that student from competition and report the incident to the OHSAA.
Athletes can’t return to play on the same day as they receive a concussion.
SOURCE: Ohio High School Athletic Association
High school coaches, athletic directors, athletic trainers and parents are applauding changes made by the state association geared toward reducing the risk in football for concussions and head impact exposure.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association has joined dozens of states in adopting recommendations from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Concussion Summit Task Force. The recommendations were approved by the OHSAA’s Joint Advisory Committee on Sports Medicine and presented to Commissioner Dan Ross and staff. The OHSAA Board of Directors recently unanimously approved the changes.
Since last year, the OHSAA has banned student-athletes from returning to play after a suspected concussion without a release from a doctor or athletic trainer. Starting this school year, that permission must be written and submitted to the official before a player can return to a game after leaving with a potential concussion, Ross said.
The state also instructed schools to limit full contact on consecutive days; a student-athlete is limited to 30 minutes of full contact in practice per day; a student-athlete is limited to 60 minutes of full contact in practice per week; and a student-athlete can be involved in full contact in a maximum of two practices in a seven-day span.
“We want kids to have a great experience,” Ross said. “We want to protect our kids.”
The state rule regarding return-to-play after concussions applies to about 350,000 high school athletes, Ross said.
An estimated 3.8 million sports concussions occur in the U.S. each year, said Dr. Stanley Herring, of the University of Washington, a concussion expert and the team doctor for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners.
The changes became effective immediately, beginning with the start of football practices in Ohio on Saturday. The NFHS is the governing body of high school sports in this country and Ohio follows its playing rules.
“With the support and leadership from the football coaches association, we have been out in front of concussion awareness and education, and these changes will now bring Ohio up to a place as a national leader in this area,” Ross said. “Like many of our regulations, these guidelines are to be followed and monitored by member schools and coaches, but we are fortunate in Ohio that many coaches have already been following these safety measures.
“There will always be a risk for concussion, but football is safer now than it has ever been, and these guidelines will make it even safer.”
Representatives from area high school schools agreed.
Steve DeWitt, coach at Springfield Catholic Central for the last 38 seasons, said the changes “take the burden off our shoulders” and put it into the hands of professional medical staffs.
“Anytime you can make the game safer, that’s vitally important,” DeWitt said.
He was asked if the changes will lessen the hard hits typically seen every Friday night on football fields around the state. DeWitt said contact will continue, but with proper techniques, football will be safer.
“We just have to create techniques that allow the players to be more effective,” he said.
Bill Tenore, coach at Badin High School in Hamilton, said he remembers 20 years ago — before there was much research on the damage caused by concussions — when players were encouraged to lead with their heads, now an unsportsmanlike penalty.
“When you saw stars, that meant it was a good hit,” Tenore said. “That was something to be proud of. That was just the mentality back then.”
For the last 45 years, since he was a third-grader, Chris Roark has been around football. He played at Springboro High School, then at Otterbein, and later coached at Kettering Alter and Middletown Fenwick. He’s beginning his second season at Dayton Jefferson High School.
He called concussions “definitely real, definitely a problem.”
He was asked if the game is safer today than 20 years ago.
“That’s a great question,” he answered. “Back then, concussions, well, many of them went unreported. Players got hit, went back in the game, got to the line and didn’t know the play.”
Roark said the No. 1 priority is the safety of the players.
“You are not going to put a kid in jeopardy,” he said. “You err on the side of the kid. Everybody wants the kids to play, but if it’s not in their best interest to play, they’re not going to play. But I also understand that they don’t want to say they’re hurt. That’s not cool. You don’t want to tell coaches you’re hurt. You don’t want to come out. That’s the competitive nature of being an athlete.”
While players are better coached, and told how to use the right technique, Roark said there’s no denying athletes are bigger, faster and stronger than ever.
“Is that a trade off?” he said. “I don’t know.”
Steve Channell, who coached at Trenton Edgewood for 30 years, one season at Middletown and the last four at Miamisburg, said he has seen an increased presence of medical professionals on the sidelines.
“They take the decisions out of our hands,” he said. “We are football coaches, not medical professionals.”
Ed Carlisle, manager of the athletic training program at Atrium Medical Center that serves 11 area schools, said all student-athletes go through baseline testing during a preseason exam conducted by trained health care professionals.
Baseline tests are used to assess an athlete’s balance and brain function as well as the presence of any concussion symptoms, he said. Results from baseline tests (or pre-injury tests) can be used and compared to a similar exam conducted by a health care professional during the season if an athlete has a suspected concussion, he said.
He called concussions “brain injuries” and the overall goal is to reduce the number of incidents.
“You always have to worry about the accumulative effect,” he said.
Gary Lebo, Middletown’s athletic director and a former athletic trainer, said the rule changes “absolutely make sense.”
Then he added: “The safety of our student-athletes is the most important thing.”
He said once a member of the medical staff determines an athlete has a concussion, and removes that athlete, “the decision is final.”
“There were times when you got dinged a little and you went back in,” he said. “Those days are gone. There has been too much research on the long-term effects from concussions.”
Two years ago, the life of a high school student and his family changed forever when he suffered a concussion during summer football camp. His mother wanted to remain anonymous, but she agreed to talk about her son’s injury.
“Anything to make it safer for the players,” she said.
She said her son, then a sophomore, was injured on Aug. 3, 2013, and he didn’t tell anyone for about one week. After three days of vomiting, his mother took him to the doctor and he was treated for a stomach virus. Then when he returned to football practice for the first time since the injury, he couldn’t run around the track without vomiting.
Later that month, he started school, then dropped out because of the effects of the concussion. He spent countless days sitting in the dark, his mother said. Then last year, he transferred to a new school, and repeated his sophomore year.
He has taken up golf, but his neck injury kept him from trying out for the team, his mother said.
She hopes her son’s slow recovering with allow him to live “a normal life.”
She paused, then added: “As a mother, that would be awesome.”
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