I was happy to read about a $30 million study launched by the NCAA (BizJournals.com, Temple, Penn Join $30M Concussion Study). There are injuries in nearly all college athletic programs, and not just the well-known contact sports like football, rugby, lacrosse and ice hockey. In our MAC Concussion Clinic we also regularly see injuries in soccer, track, basketball, field hockey, baseball, softball, volleyball, and even swimming and cheerleading.
I hope that a portion of the allotted $30 million will go into educating coaches, trainers, athletes, students, families and trainers how to recognize the signs of concussions and how to get prompt evaluation and treatment. Everybody involved in sports need to be very comfortable with the motto “When in doubt, sit it out.” If education is not covered by the $30 million grant by the NCAA, then I feel strongly that the colleges in the NCAA should also set aside monies for concussion education from their own budgets.
Since trainers need to be readily available to all athletes in practice and in competition, I hope part of the NCAA $30 million will go to increase the presence of on-site athletic trainers (AT) at all sporting practices and events. The presence of properly trained AT’s in the sports arena provides the best safety and protection of our athletes. Most of the time it’s the trainer who will provide the voice of reason and override an athlete or coach’s attempt to force the return to play when it’s really not safe.
While I’m glad to see an initial incentive to pay more attention to concussions by the NCAA, I’m eager to see concussion education and research trickle down to high schools, middle schools and private sports leagues across our nation. It’s a well-known problem that there often aren’t athletic trainers on site at most middle school sporting events or in the private school league arena—not just for children and youth but for adults as well. Let’s hope our federal, state and local governments can follow the lead of this huge NCAA initiative and produce their own studies and grants.
