SportsLetter

Parents suspect concussion the cause of teen suicide

Eleven months ago high school senior Austin Trenum committed suicide in his bedroom, just two days after experiencing concussion-like symptoms following a Friday night football game.  His parents firmly believe there is a connection, according to an Associated Press story.

Austin had had "his bell rung" in football games before.  His parents thought nothing unusual of his "grogginess" after his last game, but they took him to a hospital anyway.  They were told to watch for bleeding and have Austin rest.  Two days later he was dead.

Austin and his family have no history of depression.  The popular student was in the top six percent of his class and was planning to attend college.  His parents were stunned by his suicide and were looking for answers.

They donated Austin's brain to Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy(CSTE).  CSTE does brain research on, among other things, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE),

a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head.

According to the AP article,

CSTE found that Austin had a multifocal axonal injury — structural damage to the brain. Among the areas affected was the portion of the brain that affects judgment and impulse control. The doctors can't say for sure why Austin killed himself, but there is strong circumstantial evidence.

"We know that a concussion can be followed with depression," said Dr. Robert Cantu, clinical professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the center. "And depression can be serious enough that hospitalization is required in a small number of cases. We also know that in his brain there were structural abnormalities — and (we are) clearly very concerned that there was cause and effect because of that. Do I know it with 100 percent certainty? No. Can I put what percent certainty I know it at? No. Do I think it's more likely that not? Yes."

Austin's father, Gil, is a member of the Prince William County (Virginia) School Board and has since worked to implement new guidelines for all athletes at the county's schools:

New return-to-play criteria. Concussion training for trainers. A seminar that includes an eye-opening video, with attendance mandatory for students and their parents as a prerequisite for participating in any sport, not just football.

Says Austin's mother Michelle,

“... with Austin, we would like his legacy to be that other people were helped, that other parents don't have to go through this, that other teammates realize when a teammate has a traumatic brain injury, they realize it and bring it to the attention of the coach."

Running clock rule debuts in California high school football games

This fall high school football teams that are behind by 35 points or more going into the fourth quarter, or any time thereafter,  will see a running clock the rest of the game

On April 29, the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Federated Council approved the mercy rule that once had been up to a mutual decision of both coaches. 

Ron Nocetti, senior director of the CIF,  said that in the past there have been game situations where

"there was an environment that was no longer educationally productive.  I'm sure many times teams were doing their best to keep the score in check, but that is not always evident to the opposing coach."

Not all coaches agree with the decision, according to the San Jose Mercury News:

"I hate it to be taken out of the hands of coaches," Campolindo coach Kevin Macy said. "A coach might have a reason for wanting to play the normal clock.

"If you are demoralized and defeated, run it."

"It's just one more level of bureaucratic intervention into managing the outcome of athletic contests," said Mt. Eden co-head coach Paul Perenon. "It was legislated in place as a means of helping us take care of ourselves."

Bad behavior by adults leads to cancelled youth season

The football season for one Maryland youth team has ended before it started. The Bel Air Terps Under-12 team saw its football season cancelled by the governing Bel Air football program after two parents affiliated with the U-12 team "scuffled" last Saturday during a scrimmage against another team, according to the Baltimore Sun's exploreharford.com.

From exploreharford.com (all sic):

A physical confrontation took place at the scrimmage between a man and woman, both affiliated with the Bel Air team. The other bad behavior from adults, the two who were in Saturday's altercation were not at Tuesday's meeting, was from parents angry to find out the Terps 12U Red teams was being shut down and their children might not have a place to play football this year.

Based on the actions and the subsequent investigation by the Bel Air Terps Review Team (in consultation with the Bel Air Recreation Council and Upper Chesapeake Youth Football League) the 2011 season for the Bel Air Terps 12U Red is canceled.

Said one parent,

"The boys did nothing wrong," said Terps 12U Red parent Bill Pritchett, whose son has been playing in the Terps program since he was 6. "The kids are scrambling, they don't know what to do." Pritchett says there are 22 boys on the team.

High school sports participation increases for the 22nd straight year

Statistics released yesterday by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) reveal that high school sports participation increased for the 22nd consecutive year with a record-breaking total of 7,667,955 participants.  Based on survey results from NFHS member high school athletic/activity associations from 50 states and the District of Columbia some 55.5 percent of students enrolled in high schools participate in athletics.

Said Bob Gardner, NFHS executive director,

“While the overall increase was not as much as we’ve seen in the past few years, we are definitely encouraged with these totals given the financial challenges facing our nation’s high schools. The benefits of education-based athletics at the high school level are well-documented, and we encourage communities throughout the nation to keep these doors of opportunity open."

Some highlights from the survey:

--Cross country and outdoor track and field gained the most participants in boys sports last year, with increases of 7,340 and 7,179, respectively.

--Among girls sports, the emerging sport of lacrosse led the way with an additional 6,155 participants – an increase of nine percent from the previous year. With 74,927 participants nationwide, lacrosse cracked the girls Top 10 listing for the first time as it moved past golf (71,764).

--The top 10 participatory sports for boys remained the same from 2009-10: Eleven-player football led the way with 1,108,441, followed by outdoor track and field (579,302), basketball (545,844), baseball (471,025), soccer (398,351), wrestling (273,732), cross country (246,948), tennis (161,367), golf (156,866) and swimming and diving (133,900).

--Outdoor track and field was the top sport for girls again last year with 475,265 participants, followed by basketball (438,933), volleyball (409,332), fast-pitch softball (373,535), soccer (361,556), cross country (204,653), tennis (182,074), swimming and diving (160,881), competitive spirit squads (96,718) and lacrosse (74,927).

Elite youth sports has gotten out of hand

For those out there riveted by the breathless broadcast of 11-year-old boys playing baseball for god and country (i.e. the Little League World Series on ESPN), Tim Keown of the aforementioned ESPN would like to have a word with you.

From Keown’s article,

Judging by the direction we're taking preteen youth sports, it appears we have completely lost our minds. Gone crazy -- collectively and individually ... The days of simply playing ball with your friends is over. It's a different world out there for the preteen athlete, with "Elite" and "Select" commonly turning up in the names of our youth sports teams and leagues. We're having tryouts for 10-and-under traveling baseball teams, and we've got 10-and-under basketball teams traveling the country playing against other fourth-graders at God knows what cost to the parents' bank accounts and the kids' psyches. All in the name of … what? Trophies? Exposure? A leg up on a college scholarship? The egos of the parents?

and

This is the age of the special child. This is the age of the parent who believes his or her kid playing Little League for the neighborhood team is beneath them both. (Despite the talent you see at the Little League World Series, make no mistake: Little League has suffered enormously at the hands of the folks who peddle dreams to the parents of the preteen set. Local independent teams -- most of them touting the supposed benefits of year-round play -- skim top players out of neighborhood Little Leagues.) This is the age of the youth-sports industrial complex, where men make a living putting on tournaments for 7-year-olds, and parents subject their children to tryouts and pay good money for the right to enter into it.

An overreaction?  We'll give the coach of a Northern California 10-and-under AAU basketball team -- which recently has won six of its last seven tournaments -- the last word:

"Some parents claim they're the best team in [the county]. I must agree with them."

Do we mention it was a 10-and-under team?

Youth football dad takes a bite out of crime fighters

A 27-year-old Indianapolis man was arrested Saturday on two felony counts each of battery and resisting arrest and misdemeanor counts of trespassing and disorderly conduct after he allegedly bit two police officers at a pee-wee football game.

According to WXIN News the mad dad, Dejuan Wells, became upset after the team opposing his son's team scored the game-winning touchdown.  Wells then stormed the field shouting obscenities before being asked to leave by the league commissioner.  Wells began throwing chairs onto the field and threatening referees.  Off-duty police officers asked Wells to leave and then tried to arrest him.  Wells allegedly bit one officer on the upper arm and bit another officer's finger.

Said one officer,

'"It is just a game.  There is no child in first or second grade [that] is going to sign an NFL contract."

It was the first game of the season.

It does a young athlete's body good

Milk is more effective in countering dehydration in active children than sports drinks or water, according to a study done at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and funded by Dairy Farmers of Canada.

Children aged 8 to 10 exercised in a climate chamber, then received a drink and were measured for hydration.

According to a release,

... milk replaces sodium lost in sweat and helps the body retain fluid better. The milk also provides protein, needed by children for muscle development and growth, not found in the other drinks.

and

[Brian Timmons, an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine,] said that one per cent dehydration can cause up to a 15 per cent decrease in performance, with an increased heart rate, core temperature and less ability to keep going. More significant dehydration comes with an increased risk of heat-related illness such as heat stroke.

Researchers hope to involve teenagers 14 to 16 years-old in the next round of the study.

Heat-related deaths in high school football

This summer's historic heat wave has taken its toll on towns and citizens across the country, and it may have played a part in the deaths of six high school football players and one coach this month.

The football deaths have led to a range of coverage.  USA Today offers fairly straightforward reporting, citing the Corey Stringer Institute and scientific experts.  Jeff MacGregor of ESPN blames “vanity and ambition and the American cult of football.”  Hampton Stevens of The Atlantic takes MacGregor to task, blaming the problem on obese players and calling on school districts to institute rules against dangerously overweight players.

The USA Today article draws upon research from the Korey Stringer Institute and a study by Andrew J. Grundstein, an associate professor in the department of geography at the University of Georgia. 

From USA Today:

Grundstein says 123 high school football players died of heat-related illnesses between 1960 and 2009. The annual death rate was around one per year from 1980 to 1994 but rose to a yearly average of 2.8 in the next 15 years, he says.

The reason for the rise, Grundstein believes, is that high school players are bigger, and morning temperatures higher, than they were decades ago.

Grundstein says nearly 95 percent of the 58 players who died between 1980 and 2009 were overweight or obese and 86 percent were offensive or defensive linemen. Of the linemen, 79 percent were obese based on body mass index.

Said Douglas J. Casa, chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute and director of athletic training at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education:

"You have 300-pound high school guys walking out to practice and you have no medical staff and they're going six hours in 100-degree temperatures.  It doesn't take a high IQ to figure out this could be dangerous.

"They generate more heat, they have higher body fat, there's more weight for them to carry around and they have more insulation from fat, which makes it harder to dissipate the heat. And their fitness levels are lower. Not in every case, but many."

Casa concludes,

"...this is not bad luck. This is 100% preventable. That's why we are trying so hard to educate people. Heat stroke can be prevented in the first place by good policies. But then, if it does occur, we can save a life, every time."

On Tuesday Jeff MacGregor wrote,

We have lost four kids to football and summer heat the last three weeks. We lost a couple more to heat as a "contributory factor." We lost a coach, too.

... That we still have an annual body count in high school football should be a national disgrace. Instead, it becomes an occasion for tepid eulogies and weak-kneed editorials by school administrators looking to blame the Fates. But it is not fate killing these kids every July and August. It is vanity and ambition and the American cult of football.

Yesterday in response Hampton Stevens wrote,

You messed up, Jeff MacGregor.

... it wasn't "vanity and ambition" in charge of those blistering practice fields in Georgia and South Carolina. "The cult of football" wasn't the one ordering young players to run wind sprints and cone-drills in triple-digit heat. The head coaches did that. They were there, giving orders. Your column carelessly insinuates that the coaches whose players have died are at fault for those deaths. The idea, apparently, is that these six men, with a blood lust for victory, goaded by equally crazy administrators, boosters and parents, were living out their twisted, Bear Bryant/Drill Sargent power fantasies on the practice field, and ended up working their own players to death. That's a pretty serious thing, even to imply.

… School districts could make a rule that kids who want to play football have to take a body-mass index test on the first day of practice, and anyone who tests clinically overweight or obese can't suit up. That way, maybe kids would be showing up in better shape to begin with. Then we wouldn't need to save so many with ice-water bathtubs.

“Knocked Out:” sports concussions and youth sports

The Houston Press has published a lengthy piece on sports concussions in youth sports. 

Filled with stories of young athletes from all over the country who have suffered sports-related concussions, the article also recaps much that has been happening in the ongoing campaign to make this "epidemic" recognizable, treatable and, ultimately, preventable.  An additional feature looks at the research being done at UCLA's Brain Injury Research Center. 

Sporting goods retailer supports concussion testing for student athletes

Dick's Sports Goods has initiated a campaign advocating baseline concussion testing for student athletes.

According to the New York Times,

Through a program it calls Protecting Athletes through Concussion Education, or PACE, Dick’s will pay for schoolwide neurocognitive testing of athletes across more than 3,300 schools, totaling more than a million students.

The tests, called ImPACT (for Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing), are given to athletes before a season to provide a baseline of how their brains, when healthy, perform computer tasks that measure functions like verbal memory, visual memory and reaction time. Then, when athletes suffer a confirmed or suspected concussion, the test can be administered again to determine if brain function has deteriorated, in which case players are sidelined until their brains heal.

The test, invented by a doctor-led firm also called ImPACT, is now given to players in the N.F.L., Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

Dicks's will pledge $1 to PACE (up to $1 million total) for every pair of shoes purchased online or at one of the retailer’s 449 stores or when consumers:

check in at a Dick’s through Foursquare or Facebook Places, click a button to share information about the program with friends on Facebook or send a message over Twitter that includes the hashtag #DSGPACE.