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Everyone knows high school football can be dangerous. For those who play on artificial turf it may be more dangerous still, with studies in Texas suggesting a link between artificial turf burns and a higher rate of MRSA. For full article click here

According to a 1999 National Institute of Drug Abuse survey, steroid use among students is now at its highest point in a decade, with an estimated 479,000 students nationwide, or 2.9 percent, having used the drug by their senior year of high school. More >>

A recent Associated Press story highlights the critical importance of AED training in saving the lives of youth athletes who suffer Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). More >>

On September 28, 2001, seventeen-year-old Matthew Colby died after sustaining multiple head trauma sustained in a high school football game in California. In the wake of his tragic death, his uncle, Deron Colby, has started a non-profit foundation in his name. Its mission: to educate the youth sport community on the dangers of concussions, especially when an athlete is allowed to return to play too soon.
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Safety Tip: From The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
Tips For Football Safety: Each year, more than 448,000 football-related injuries to youths under age 15 are treated in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and hospital emergency rooms. More >>

Head injury is the most frequent direct cause of death in sport. Injury to the head takes on unique importance when one understands that the brain is neither capable of regeneration nor, unlike many other body parts and organs, of transplantation. Therefore, every effort needs to be made to protect the athlete's head because injury can lead to dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, and death. More >>

El Paso, Texas is a multi-cultural city of 700,000 across the Rio Grande River from Juarez, Mexico. Like most communities across the United States, large and small, El Paso has experienced problems in youth sports, including out-of-control parents. In 1999, youth sports violence in El Paso escalated. At city-sponsored football games, incidents of violence included parents. More >>

Do you know a Football coach in your community you think would be an ideal candidate for the MomsTeam editorial advisory board? Send his or her name
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High School Football: 2008-09
Rule Changes And Revisions

A new Canadian study suggests that the symptoms of depression some athletes experience after a concussion may result from physical changes in their brains caused by the concussions themselves. More >>

Every year the start of pre-season football practices around the country is accompanied by horror stories of coaches forcing young athletes to practice in hot, humid conditions without taking appropriate precautions against heat-related illness and of the deaths of youth athletes from heat stroke. For information about how to make sure your child doesn't become a victim of heat illness during pre-season football practice, More >>

Last summer with the summer heat wave have come reports of the heat-related deaths of at least four young football players who died during a sixteen day period between July 17th and August 1st, 2006. Each had just begun practicing for the upcoming fall sports season. Incredibly, two of the four boys were from the same league in Tampa, Florida: More >>

I will be going to a high school football game on Thanksgiving morning again this year. Nothing particularly unusual about that. Over the years, since moving back to Massachusetts with my wife and three children, I have often bundled up against the elements to watch our regional high school do battle on the gridiron against their arch-rivals from the adjacent town, in a scene repeated at half of the high schools in the Commonwealth. More >>

The Publisher Speaks Out

During the 2003 fall sports season, MomsTeam received numerous e-mails, phone calls and visits with news far exceeding our worst fears about the number of deaths in youth sports. Nineteen kids: Sixteen boys and three girls. Eight football players, three soccer players, two running cross-country and playing basketball, one cheerleader, one playing baseball, one rowing crew, one trying out for a marathon team. More >>

Each year, about 400 children and adults in the U.S. are struck by lightning while working outside, at sports events, on the beach, mountain climbing, mowing the lawn or during other outdoor activities. More >>

Hydration Essentials
Sponsored by SunnyD

Here are the key points to keep in mind in making sure your child gets adequate fluids while playing sports:

• Kids should drink before, during and after sports. To prevent dehydration, or, worse yet, heat illness, you should encourage your child to drink cool fluids before, during, and after physical activity.
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The National Association of Athletic Trainers recommends that parents look for the following ten things in evaluating the safety aspects of a high school athletic program: More >>

Youth Football Safety Recommendations

INDIANAPOLIS -- Youth football coaches should adopt practice modifications and employ a strategy to acclimatize players to perform in the heat, along with a fluid replacement strategy in anticipation of young players who begin practice already dehydrated, according to new recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the world leader in the scientific and medical aspects of sports and exercise. The guidelines are outcomes from a recent expert panel convened for an ACSM scientific roundtable on youth football and heat stress. More >>