CTE report raises more football safety questions
Coaches must face difficult task dealing with parents’ fears
Three of the most feared letters in football — CTE — are reigniting the debate about how safe the sport can be.
Research by Boston University School of Medicine and the VA Boston Healthcare System discovered 110 of 111 brains donated by families of former NFL players showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
That alarming statistic, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is ammunition for parents who are considering not allowing their children to play football at the youth and high school levels and affirmation for parents who don’t allow it.
It’s another question high school coaches have to answer when trying to calm fears about the safety of the game, too. Educating parents and preventing concussions are as much a part of the job as breaking down film these days.
“It’s becoming a little more difficult because there are some good kids that want to play football but their mother won’t let them because of the possibility of getting hurt,” Seven Lakes coach Lydell Wilson said. “All we tell them is ‘Hey, if you really want to play, have your parents come in, talk to us and we’ll try to make them feel as comfortable as possible with the situation.’ ”
Of the 202 deceased players whose brains were examined in the study, two played football before high school, 14 played only in high school and 53 played through college. Neither of the pre-high school players had evidence of CTE, but 21% of the high school players did, and 91% of the college players did. In its most severe cases, CTE can result in depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts or attempts, explosive anger and similar problems.
The information suggesting football is dangerous is constant as the technological advances to keep the game safe try to keep up.
At Deer Park, if a player shows the slightest hint of concussion symptoms, he must go through
“We’re trying to prevent stuff, not deal with it after it happens. I would say if there’s anything we preach to parents, it’s that.” Travis Bell, Silsbee offensive coordinator
protocol.
But coach Chris Massey said it takes more than that. He’s relying on technology this year with Riddell’s InSite system. It’s a program trainers and coaches can use with helmets that registers how hard a blow a player takes.
“Hopefully I don’t have to use them, but if a kid does get a concussion and he goes through the process of the protocol, when he comes back he’s going to have one of those units in his helmets for a while to monitor post-concussion activity,” Massey said.
If Silsbee had the InSite system last season, it wouldn’t have been used much. Offensive coordinator Travis Bell said the Tigers had one player go through protocol on varsity last year and that player didn’t miss the next week’s game.
A little luck might have been involved there, but Bell said Silsbee takes the matter seriously, especially when it comes to educating parents. Bell said it’s not uncommon to see players skip football for a year or longer for fear of injury, among other reasons.
“We’re trying to prevent stuff, not deal with it after it happens,” Bell said. “I would say if there’s anything we preach to parents, it’s that.
“If we can get them in and get them seated down at that parent meeting, we feel like ‘All right, we’ll put their mind at ease to a certain extent obviously.’ A lot of them, their minds are made up.”
Different perspectives
Those are the parents coaches can’t win over — the ones adamant their son won’t be involved in the sport.
Some parents are welleducated and accepting of the fact it’s a collision sport and injuries are going to happen while trainers try to prevent and treat them.
Cypress Ridge coach Gary Thiebaud doesn’t run into much resistance.
“From our perspective, we try and train our kids to recognize those issues but No. 2, trying to train them physically to help them prevent those issues,” Thiebaud said. “It’s not been a big problem with us.”
In the most recent statistics by the National Federation of State High School Associations, 163,998 students played high school football (11-man) in Texas in 2014-15. That’s down from 168,680 from 2010-11.
The University Interscholastic League teamed with UT-Southwestern last year to launch a concussion-tracking program that collects data from volunteering schools to contribute to concussion research and gauge whether rules or equipment changes are needed to improve player safety. UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison said this week at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention that the league hopes to make participation in that program mandatory. Changes discussed
But there is the issue of not every district being able to afford full-time trainers as well, which continues to be a problem.
UIL executive director Charles Breithaupt said there are ongoing talks about reducing the number of contact days teams can have in spring practice.
“We’re just in the discussion phases and have been for some time,” Breithaupt said. “But it’s important for us to get it right.”