SportsLetter

More on Congress, the NFL and youth football-related concussions

On October 8th SportsLetter referred readers to a GQ article on repeated concussions and memory-related diseases in pro football players.  Also mentioned was Congress' intention to hold formal hearings on head injuries among NFL players.  Well, those hearings have begun; and as today's New York Times puts it: “how the N.F.L. evolves from here will invariably influence safety at the youth football level.”

While the NFL and Congress sparred over pro football’s influence (or lack thereof) on the way coaches and administrators handle head injuries at the youth level, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did agree to consider some action by the NFL on this topic.  Congress pressed Goodell, for example, “to create public-service announcements to educate the public about the seriousness of concussions.” And, “in a conversation after his testimony, Goodell told Chris Nowinski, co-director of the Sports Legacy Institute and a fellow witness, that he would consider helping that organization educate coaches and players nationwide about the risks of football brain trauma.”

Some numbers cited in today’s article: 

*About 400,000 concussions occurred in high school athletics during the 2008-9 school year — more in football than any other sport

*15.8 percent of football players sustaining a concussion severe enough to cause loss of consciousness returned to play the same day, which is considered particularly perilous

*Only 42 percent of high schools have access to certified athletic trainers, let alone the doctors and neurologists employed by N.F.L. teams

SL Interview: Sociologist Reuben A. Buford May talks hoops, hope and the American dream

Reuben A. Buford May is a self-confessed basketball junkie.  He played the sport as a young boy and, later, as a student-athlete at Aurora University.  While working as a sociology professor at the University of Georgia, he spent years as an assistant coach with a high school basketball program located in a metro area outside of Atlanta.  This experience led to his second book, "Living Through the Hoop: High School Basketball, Race, and the American Dream" (New York University Press / Amazon). 

In "Living Through the Hoop," May examines the appeal of basketball among youth at Northeast High School.  (May has changed the actual name of the school, as well as the names of the students and other coaches in the book, for confidentiality purposes.)  At the predominantly African-American school, May observes the players' lives, on and off the court, and chronicles their triumphs and failures.  And, as documented in the film "Hoop Dreams," May notes that the promise of NBA riches and fame continues to exert a powerful and, at times, dangerous pull.

"Basketball offers young black men . . . a chance to hope for better in spite of their dismal starting point," May writes.  "These young men should no more be derided than any of us who invest our lives in long-shot dreams.  After all, such dreams are conceived in a society that says to all, 'you all can achieve whatever you want if you work for it.'  The sad reality is that young black men continue to be disproportionately blocked from achieving alternatives to hoop dreams."

Part memoir, part ethnography, "Living Through the Hoop" was the co-winner of the Book of the Year award from the Association of Humanist Sociology.

May is a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University.  Currently, he is a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

SportsLetter recently spoke with Professor May by phone. 

--David Davis

Sports Illustrated's Must-See Video

In the October 12, 2009 edition of Sports Illustrated, Chris Ballard writes of seeing the University of Florida's Tim Tebow receive a concussion in a September 26 game, and the conflicting emotions surrounding his concern for Tebow's health and his desire to see Tebow return to the field in time to play against LSU this past Saturday:

"Perhaps as fans all we really want is for sports not to be complicated. The rest of life is complicated enough; on weekends we just want to see a tight end get lit up by a safety and feel guilt-free. Just let me know if it's O.K. to cheer or not. And please don't force me to extrapolate too much -- to think about children's sports leagues or the hundreds of teenage athletes, even more susceptible to concussions than adults, who watch the hasty returns made by countless college stars and NFL players and use them as their own guideline.  Because the more I learn about head injuries, the more torn I become. Which is to say that while I'd really like to see Tim Tebow play this weekend, it's going to be hard for me to enjoy it if he does."

So, imagine our surprise this morning when SportsLetter went onto the Sports Illustrated website and saw what SI labeled as a "Must-See Video" of a "Pop Warner player" getting "laid out with a bone-crushing block."  The lasting image as the video stopped was of the young player lying immobile on the field.  We're hoping to see a Chris Ballard follow-up, but we won't hold our breath.

Newest Olympic sports golf and rugby in the high schools

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced today that golf and rugby sevens will be added to the program of the newly awarded 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.  How popular are golf and rugby at the high school level?  According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), very and not so much.

Golf is the 10th most popular sports for girls with 69,223 girls participating, although it's still well below Competitive Spirit Squads' 117,793 participants. 157,062 boys participate in high school golf nationwide, making it the 9th most popular sport for boys; below tennis but above swimming and diving.  Hazard a guess which state has the most schools and athletes playing golf in high school?  Texas, with 20,029 total participants in 2,342 schools.  California and Ohio had the next highest number of total participants.

The NFHS survey doesn't reflect what type of rugby is played at the high school level, but the numbers are pretty low whatever version is played.  The survey lists the nationwide total number of schools and participants at 29 and 779, respectively, with only two states reporting rugby as sanctioned high school sports.  California has 14 boys teams with 633 participants and 13 girls teams with 46 participants.  Vermont was the only other rugby-playing state in the survey, reporting one boys team with 46 participants, and one girls team with 54 participants.  Who do these teams play? 

Those nationwide total numbers differ slightly from USA Rugby's Youth & High School 5 Year Strategic Plan; part of their Youth & High School Year-to-Date Review presented this past June.  In that plan, USA Rugby states the number of "High School Varsity Teams" as "at least 10 girls varsity teams with 250 registered players (10 fold increase), [and] 15 boys varsity teams with 450 registered players."   Like the data in the NFHS participation survey, these numbers don't reflect the number of high school-aged kids in the US actually playing rugby (which USA Rugby puts at 25,000 registered players), just the number of teams (and players) sanctioned by high school athletic associations.  To put it another way, most kids now playing rugby are doing so in a club setting. 

Ultimately, the current reality for rugby in the US is printed on page eight of USA Rugby's June 2009 presentation material:  "42% growth in [youth and high school] membership since 2006 but ... not enough youth."  It will be interesting to see if becoming an Olympic sport has an impact on the participation levels of the sport in the years leading up to rugby's reappearance on the Olympic stage.

Congress, the NFL, high school athletes and football-related concussions

The October GQ published correspondent Jeanne Marie Laskas’ profile of scientist Bennet Omalu, who reported that repeated concussions in pro football players can lead to a deadly condition he named CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.  Omalu published his finding in 2005 in the journal Neurosurgery.  The NFL disputed those findings.  A more recent study, commissioned by the NFL itself and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, found that memory-related diseases, while rare among retired pro players, was 19 times higher among former NFL players ages 30 to 49 than among the general male population in that age range.  Meanwhile, Congress announced that it will hold formal hearings on head injuries among NFL players.

Reports about NFL players and head injuries have led some to speculate about the possible risks high school players face.  Arizona Cardinal receiver Sean Morey responded to the Michigan study, saying, “This is about more than us — it’s about the high school kid in 2011 who might not die on the field because he ignored the risks of concussions.”  On Monday, October 5, the GQ blog ran an interview with Julian Bailes, chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the West Virginia University School of Medicine.  Bailes says that an examination of the brains of three high school football players who died as a result of injuries sustained playing football found that one player had incipient CTE.

SL Interview: Author Buzz Bissinger discusses LeBron, youth sports and Friday Night Lights

In 1988 reporter H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger journeyed to West Texas to write a book about the town of Odessa and its mania over the storied football team at Permian High School.  Published the next year, "Friday Night Lights" was a reportorial triumph that, at once, captured the glory and the ignominy of youth athletics.

"Friday Night Lights" was an instant bestseller and, twenty years after its initial publication, remains a cultural touchstone.  In 2002, Sports Illustrated ranked it as the fourth best sports book of all time.  In 2004, it was made into a successful film; currently, it serves as the basis for a television show that airs on NBC.

Bissinger won the Pulitzer Prize while he was a reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer; he now contributes to Vanity Fair magazine.  He has also written "Three Nights in August" (2005), a journey into baseball strategy as seen through the eyes of St. Louis Cardinals' manager Tony LaRussa.

Most recently, Bissinger has co-written "Shooting Stars" (Penguin / Amazon) with Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James.  The book chronicles James' successful and controversial high school basketball career in Akron, Ohio, and the enduring friendship he continues to share with four teammates-friends (collectively known as the "Fab Five").

SportsLetter spoke to Bissinger about LeBron James and "Shooting Stars" as well as the legacy of "Friday Night Lights."

--David Davis