Sports

Friends and acquaintances who know my track background frequently ask me, "How do I get my child started in track & field?" Because track & field programs are not as ubiquitous as soccer or basketball programs, it may not be as easy as going to the nearest recreation center or Boys & Girls club. Yet youth track & field, or age group track & field, as it is called in the sport, is a thriving activity nationwide and most communities have track clubs for kids. It's just a matter of knowing how to find them.

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.

Football is still responsible for the majority of concussions at the
high school level and the highest concussion rate.

With the high school football season coming to end around the country with the tradition games on Thanskgiving morning, the team sports careers of thousands of athletes will be coming to an end.  For one father in Massachusetts, watching his son's football team battle its arch-rival from a neighboring town this year will be particularly bittersweet: his son, though a senior, won't be on the field but will, like him, be watching from the stands.

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In its continuing emphasis on illegal helmet contact in high school football, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Football Rules Committee reorganized and clarified several rules with the intention of further reducing the risk of injury in the sport.

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.

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.

Whatever your child's position is on the football field, there's a football cleat for them. Football cleats are made both for the position the play and the type of field where you play. Keep these two important factors in mind when you purchase your football footwear.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association has re-released a set of recommendations for precautions that should be followed by parents, coaches, athletic trainers, other health care professionals and participants in secondary school athletics, in order to prevent the spread of communicable and infectious diseases. Due to the nature of competitive sports at the high school level, there is an elevated risk of infectious diseases being spread by skin-to-skin contact and contaminated equipment shared by athletes.

The best way to prevent the spread of staph infections such as the antibiotic-resistant skin infection or "super bug" known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus ("MRSA") is to maintain good personal hygiene in football locker room, schools and at home.