Speak Up initiative targets head hits

Are you a coach, administrator or team captain in Canada? And do you care about the health of your players?

Here’s a great way to prove it and maybe save someone’s life some day.

Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada, for the second consecutive year, is promoting a campaign for team leaders at all levels of sport nationwide to take one minute to help rid once and for all the lingering neanderthal culture that promotes the misguided, potentially life-threatening idea that a head-struck athlete somehow shows his or her toughness by playing through a possible concussion.

Wednesday is Team Up Speak Up day in Canada, as endorsed by the Canadian arm of the American-based non-profit group dedicated to preventing concussions in sport through medical research, educational programs, advocacy and other ventures.

What the foundation is hoping for is that by Wednesday coaches, trainers, medical staff and captains across the country at all age levels will give a brief speech to players emphasizing three simple, but vital points:

We’re a team and we look out for each other.

A teammate with a concussion needs your help.

It is your responsibility to speak up to a coach or athletic trainer if you think a teammate might have a concussion.

And as always, when in doubt, take them out.

Former hockey stars Eric Lindros and Hayley Wickenheiser are among this year’s Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada ambassadors.

The foundation has expanded this year’s Team Up Speak Up initiative into Canada’s francophone market. Universite Laval students are operating this initiative. What’s more, all of the Concussion Legacy Foundation prevention strategies are now available in French.

Some four million athletes across North America in 2016 and 2017 heard a Team Up Speak Up speech. Among the more than 200 participating organizations were Major League Lacrosse, USA Hockey, USA Rugby and NASCAR.

Tim Fleiszer, a CFL defensive lineman from 1998 to 2007 and the executive director of the foundation’s Canadian arm, on Friday said that among this year’s participating groups in Canada is the University of Ottawa.

“What’s been gratifying has been the involvement of students at the university level,” Fleiszer said. “Every single varsity student-athlete there (in Ottawa) is going to hear the speech and participate in the speech. Our original partner is Western University (in London, Ont.) They’ve been fantastic.”

Detailed advice on how to craft the one-minute speech, along with submitted video examples of coaches delivering it to their athletes, can be found at TeamUpSpeakUp.org. That’s where Canadian teams can sign up and submit videos, too.