Sports Safety

Affording the Latest in Football Equipment: A Car Raffle Is The Ticket!

Increased safety in tackle football comes at a cost, leaving many youth and high school programs – and the parents and booster clubs which support them – in a quandary: wondering on the one hand how they can afford to buy expensive new helmets and impact sensor systems for their players, and on the other, how they can afford not to. A car raffle offers a quick and easy way to raise money to buy the latest equipment.

Letting Kids Play Football is Not Child Abuse


The last three weeks have witnessed an all-out assault on the game of football, not coincidentally timed with the beginning of NFL training camps. First came a study reporting CTE in 110 of 111 brains of former NFL players. Following closely on the heels of that media circus was the publication last week of a new book by Dr. Bennet Omalu, Truth Doesn't Have a Side, and interviews in which Dr. Omalu, as he has for several years, argues that letting kids play football is the "definition" of child abuse. The not-so-surprising result has been a tsunami of emails in my Inbox asking for my views on the subject.

Are parents committing child abuse simply by allowing their kids to play a collision sport like football before middle school? Not unless it rises to the level of a callous and wanton disregard for a child's safety (e.g. reckless endangerment).

Experts Weigh in on Preventing Exertional Heat Stroke at the Boston Marathon

Marathon weather conditions can be unpredictable, from snow squalls to extreme heat, which may lead to increased risks of life-threatening medical emergencies, including exertional heat stroke (EHS). Monitoring for early signs of an injury is critical. It's also extremely helpful to know an individual's medical history, as athletes with a history of heat illness may be more susceptible to a repeat heat illness experience.

Why I'm Not a Football Apologist or Anti-Football Zealot: I'm a Pro-Safety Realist


As I await tonight's advance screening in Boston of Sony Pictures' movie, Concussion, which opens nationwide on Christmas Day, the polarized debate over football has once again reached a fever pitch.

In contrast to recent battles in the now 110-year war over football MomsTEAM Institute of Youth Sports Safety, the non-profit I have headed for the last fifteen years, is not merely an interested spectator this time around.

That's because Sony Pictures chose the Institute as its partner in its Dance or Donate #ForThePlayers social media campaign; an initiative designed not just to publicize the movie but to promote our 15-year effort to make youth football and all sports safer (which is why the Institute is hosting the Boston screening)

With the Boston advance screening of Concussion tonight and the nationwide release just three days away, MomsTEAM's Executive Director explains why she's not a football apologist, CTE denier, or anti-football zealot but is, and always has been, a pro-safety pragmatist.

Texas Youth Football and Cheer Program: Ten Ways It Is Walking The Talk On Safety

Participation in youth sports in general, and in youth football in particular, is on the decline in some parts of the nation.  One of the biggest factors driving the decline is a concern about injuries. 

Lots of youth sports programs say they want to improve safety, but how many are actually making the effort to implement best health and safety practices?

Lots of youth sports programs say they want to improve safety, but how many are actually making the effort to implement best health and safety practices? I can't speak for every program, but I know one that is definitely walking the talk: the youth tackle and flag football and cheer program in Grand Prairie, Texas, where I spent the first week of August educating and training kids, parents, coaches, and administrators on ways to make football safer as part of MomsTEAM Institute's SmartTeams| UNICEF International Safeguards of Children in Sports project.

UNICEF UK Names MomsTEAM Institute Pioneer Organization For U.S. Implementation of Int'l Safeguards for Children In Sport

MomsTEAM Insitute is among a select group of 40 sport and development organizations from across the globe working with UNICEF UK to further develop, implement and test a new set of International Safeguards for Children in Sport.

What Do Mothers Want from Youth Sports?


In two days, espnW and the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Project will co-host an espnW: Women + Sports Summit at which they will report the results of a survey in which a nationally representative sample of moms were asked what they wanted and needed for their kids from youth sports. At the conclusion of the summit, a group of thought leaders will react to the survey findings and explore issues facing both moms and their daughters in sports during a Project Play roundtable .

A new survey of sports moms promises to tell us what they want out of youth sports, but MomsTEAM's Founder Brooke de Lench already knows: they want more than pay lip service to the concerns of mothers; they want those who run youth sports organizations to actually take concrete steps to address those concerns, first and foremost among them being to make sports safer.

NOCSAE Meeting: Lots Of Questions, But No Answers

Last Friday, I attended the summer meeting of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) at the Boston Harbor Hotel. It was hard to be inside on such a spectacular summer day, but made easier by the location of the meeting: in the Atlantic Room, directly above Rowe's Wharf, with a view of a sparkling Boston harbor filled with sailboats and power boats. Boston harbor skyline with Rowes Warf

The summer meeting of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) was held in a room overlooking Boston harbor, but the view was about the only thing that made it worth attending, says Brooke de Lench.

More Than International, Federal and State Laws Needed To Keep Kids Safe Playing Sports

This week and last, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Child is meeting to review the progress made under provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. 194 nations will participate, except for three, which have yet to ratify the CRC: Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.*Convention on Rights of the Child @ 25 poster

With the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Child meeting to review the progress made under provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), MomsTEAM's Brooke de Lench talks about the importance, not of just laws and treaties, in keeping kids safe playing sports, but of voluntary safety programs, such as the SmartTeam program being developed for introduction in Fall 2014.

Six Years After: Concussion Risk Management Still A Work In Progress

 

It is hard believe that it has now been six years since I gave the keynote address at the National Sports Concussion Summit in Marina del Rey, California. Harder, yet to think we have been leading this charge since 2000.

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