Writing rulebook on youth sports safety

Such protection changes tend to happen only after someone gets hurt. Such is the nature of sports, and politics.

The essence of how America’s most popular sports are played doesn’t change all that often.

Most athletes are still refining the same skills as predecessors of generations past. The baseball still has to be hit with a bat. The basketball still has to pass through a hoop. A touchdown still requires crossing a line.

Yes, there are rare shifts in rules. Instant replays were once only a way to rile fans. Now they can change calls in several sports (because that’s what we needed, longer baseball games). The shot clock was shortened in NCAA basketball games. Playoff games are added and subtracted. Shootouts were introduced to prevent NHL games from lasting to infinity and beyond. PGA officials finally made a call on what to do when the wind moves the ball on the putting green.

There are even a few rules to protect the health of the athletes, such as eliminating collisions at home plate and the so-called “Brady Rule,” which prohibits defenders on the ground from lunging at a quarterback’s legs. Even drug testing, introduced to shield the integrity of the given sport, is in the interest of the health of the athlete.

Such protection changes tend to happen only after someone gets hurt. Such is the nature of sports, and politics. In Connecticut last year, high school hockey player Teddy Balkind of New Canaan died in the ice after a blade caught him in the neck, fueling a debate over whether to make neck guards mandatory for youth players.

That didn’t happen, in part because of cautions from medical experts that the guards themselves could hurt some youths. But the discussion broadened, which doesn’t happen often enough in Hartford. The bill evolved into the idea of creating a task force that would challenge experts to identify and address issues that could put young athletes at risk.

Like a lot of late scrambles in the General Assembly, it came too late in the game to succeed. But it’s a new season, and lawmakers are seizing another chance to make the task force a reality.

The rulebook isn’t even official yet, but is already poised to be rewritten. A Norwalk environmentalist testified this week that such a task force should be in a position to revive and address the debate over the potential hazards of crumb-rubber artificial athletic fields.

State Rep. Liz Linehan, DCheshire, co-chairwoman of the legislative Children’s Committee, noted that the proposed legislation would need to be rewritten to add an environmentalist to a deep lineup that would also include experts in sports medicine, psychology, neuroscience and leaders from various youth sports leagues as well as the state Department of Health and the state Department of Education.

It’s a reminder that for all of their commonalities, each sport has unique challenges when it comes to safety. Either way, the rulebook will surely need constant tweaking in years to come. But lawmakers should get this team in place before the clock runs out again.