2014

WRAP IT UP: OHIO HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL AND ITS FUTURE

Zack Corby Miami University Undergraduate Student 2/11/2014

Corby 1

Zachary Corby Wrap It Up High school athletes risk their bodies and lives every time they step on the field. The risk for traumatic brain injuries (TBI's) has always been something that was usually overlooked in sports. No sport has done this more than the sport of football. For years the sport has overlooked the safety concerns involving TBI's, but now states have adopted rules to help prevent such injuries. The Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) has been at the forefront of injury prevention with rules like the no hurdling rule. Despite this, the current rules adopted by the OHSAA are not enough to keep high school football player safe. A new tackling rule similar to that of the sport of rugby needs to be adopted by the OHSAA to protect today's youth participating in football. Background The one TBI most associated with the sport of football is the concussion. One might say that concussions are not as big of a problem as people are saying. Almost everyone knows an athlete that has gotten a concussion. Usually they have a headache for a couple of days but then they are ready to go with no ill effects. There are a lot of problems with that assumption though. Concussions are something that athletes need to be educated about and need to understand that they can be dangerous. Concussions are caused by a blow to the head or body that causes the brain to shift and hit the inside of the skull (WebMD). Now in most cases a concussion usually just leads to a headache, nausea, and some disorientation. Given time to rest the symptoms usually go away. In some rare cases repeated concussions or a severe concussion may require surgery or lead to long-lasting problems with movement, learning, or speaking (WebMD). It is these cases that are a problem for the athletes. All over the media we are now seeing the long

Corby 2

term effects of repeated and severe concussions. Many retired NFL football players are showing that these long term symptoms can be extremely detrimental to a players health. Now it is hard to accept that what happens to an NFL player can be comparable to a high school athlete. With NFL athletes being bigger and faster, then the logical assumption would be that NFL players experience faster accelerations to the brain that lead to concussions. In a study performed by the University of Illinois that was published in the USA Today magazine, they found that High school football players sustain greater head accelerations during play than do college level competitors(USA Today 13). This contradicts the assumption that because a league has bigger and faster players, this league would have more head accelerations that lead to concussions. In fact the article later goes on to explain that because the players in college are bigger and stronger, they have stronger neck muscles that are able to prevent their head from moving in such a way that leads to concussions (USA Today 13). This shows us that high school football players are at a greater risk of concussions than the higher levels of football. Even with the chance for a concussion being higher in high school than college, that does not necessarily mean that it actually a problem. If the concussion rate is relatively low, then there is really no need to change anything in the way of rules. According to a study of twenty different high school sports, football had the highest concussion rate at 6.1 per ten thousand athlete exposures and accounted for 47.1% of the total concussions reported in the study (Marar, McIlvain, Fields, Comstock 747). This shows us that football is the leading cause of concussions in high school sports and is therefore the most dangerous of the sports. With the high potential for concussions it is necessary to make a rule change that would protect these student athletes in the United States. Proposal

Corby 3

To protect high school football players, my proposal for the OHSAA is to adopt a wrap up rule similar to that of rugby. The rule would be that when a player is attempting to make a tackle they must make a reasonable effort to wrap the ball carrier up. Wrapping up would be defined as the tackler wrapping his arms around the ball carrier and leading with his shoulder while attempting to bring him to the ground. This would cause a player to break down and force them to hit a player at or below the waist. By forcing this technique, the ball carriers head and the defenders head would be protected because they would both be avoiding the initial contact of the hit. The only foreseeable exception to this rule would be in the case of tackles along the boundary lines if, and only if, the player is able to push the runner out of bounds with his hands. This does not include leading with the shoulder. If a player were to attempt to tackle a player by forcing him out of bounds with his shoulder, then it would still be covered by the wrap up rule and be illegal. In order to make sure this penalty is enforced the OHSAA needs to penalize the players that break this rule. I propose that the penalty should be a fifteen yard personal foul from the end of the run, automatically resulting in a first down. For example: If the ball carrier ran for twenty yards and was tackled illegally at the end of the play then the total gain would be thirty five yards. Like other personal fouls, if this penalty were to occur inside the defensive thirty yard line, then the penalty would be half the distance to the goal instead of fifteen yards. Counterarguments While a rule similar to rugby sounds good on paper, it can only be supported if it can be shown that rugby is safer in terms of concussions. Stephen Marshal and Richard Spencer of North Carolina University performed a study of high school rugby players. They found that the concussion rate was 3.8 per 10,000 athlete exposures, with most of these injuries occurred during

Corby 4

the scrum and not the tackling of a ball carrier (343). This shows us that the tackling rules used by rugby provide for a safer method of bringing down the ball carrier. Even with these statistics, one could make the argument that mandating that schools use a certain type of helmet would be just as effective. This rule would be appealing to the football fan that wants to keep football the hard hitting game that it is. I admit that my proposed wrap up rule would drastically reduce the number of big hits during a game, but studies have shown that the age or brand of a helmet doesnt reduce the risk for concussions in high school football (Concussion Risk 10). This shows us that not only does the brand have no effect on the rate of concussions, but the age of the helmet has no effect either. So a simple change in football helmet brand would not be able to reduce the risk of concussions. It would be logical to assume that in the future a football helmet brand could be made that would be able to better protect a players head from concussions. From my own experiences, I have found that football helmets can cost hundreds of dollars. A new type of helmet would no doubt cost more than the helmets of today. This would mean that the high schools in Ohio would have to buy all new helmets for their teams costing them thousands of dollars. In todays economy many schools do not have the funds to pay for helmets now or in the near future, making a mandate on the brand of helmet unreasonable for the state of Ohio. Another potential argument to my proposal is that the current rules have done enough. The OHSAA has adopted many new rules in the past year. I cannot refute that the concussion rate has not dropped in the past year due to these rules because the studies used in this paper all ended by the year 2012. The new rules made cases of helmet to helmet contact illegal, and made the targeting of a defenseless receiver illegal. These rules mainly pertain to the protection of wide receivers, defensive backs, and linebackers during and immediately following the

Corby 5

completion of a pass. According to the study performed by Marar, McIlvain, Fields, and Comstock ,"The highest proportion of concussion injuries occurred during running plays (48.5%)..." (749). This implies that most of the concussions that occur are not happening during pass plays. Since the rules in Ohio are targeting passing plays, they are not addressing running plays which are the larger cause of concussions. My proposal covers more than just running and passing plays. It would be used in every play that a tackle would be involved. This covers more than just the rules already implemented. This means that if all of these rules were implemented together, then the risk of a hit that could cause a concussion would be drastically reduced. Conclusion In the end we have to ask ourselves if the risk of playing football has become too great. We are already starting to see large numbers of parents and athletes coming to the conclusion that the sport is not worth the risk. Every day we hear about a player that decided to quit football or pick up a different sport because of his head injuries. Football has been a major high school sport in Ohio for many decades, and it is up to OHSAA to make sure that it continues to be. The only way to insure this is by making the sport safer, and with my proposed rule change it would be. Every student deserves to be able to play the sport that they love. If that sport is football, then the OHSAA has the responsibility to make sure that student is doing so in the safest way possible. Most athletes will never make it to the professional level of football. These kids are students first and their biggest asset is not their forty times, vertical jump, height, weight, or physical strength. Their biggest asset is their mind and what they can do with it. Concussions pose a risk to the minds of these students, and football should not ruin the future of any student.

Corby 6

The brain is a beautiful thing. It brought humans out of the caves and shaped the world today more than any living thing on Earth. We should never put that at risk because of a sport.

Works Cited

Corby 7

"Concussion Rate Highest In High School." USA Today Magazine 138.2773 (2009): 13-14. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. "Concussion Risk For High School Football Players Unaffected By Helmet Age Or Brand." PT In Motion 5.9 (2013): 10. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. "Concussion - WebMD: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. Marshall, S.W., and R.J. Spencer. "Concussion In Rugby: The Hidden Epidemic." Journal Of Athletic Training 36.3 (2001): 334-338. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. Marar, Mallika, Natalie M McIlvain, Stephen Fields, et all. "Epidemiology Of Concussions Among United States High School Athletes In 20 Sports." American Journal Of Sports Medicine 40.4 (2012): 747-755. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.