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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Secure the Future by Playing it Safe

by: Bryon Hamilton
Head Coach, Foothill High School, Palo Cedro (CA)
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By the time you read this article, your 2012 football season will most likely be over. I hope that it was a success for you and your team. Some of you are enjoying the holiday season with the satisfaction of winning a championship while others are already charting a course of action that will result in  more success in 2013. Regardless of how the 2012 season finished, the winter months will provide all of us  the opportunity for some much needed rest  and a time to reflect on areas that brought success and  those in which we need to improve.

    As we reflect on the 2012 season, it would be rare to find any team that was not affected in some way by injury. Some teams may have been lucky enough to avoid the crucial injuries that result in the loss of games and championships while others are left to ponder the possibilities that may have been realized if only they had been so fortunate. The reality is that injuries are often a determining factor in the outcome of our season.
    For parents, players and coaches, injuries are one of the most worrisome factors in the game. Football greats such as Kurt Warner and Terry Bradshaw have voiced concerns about letting their sons play the very game that have given them a storied and privileged life. They are not alone in their concern. Patty Sexton is one of a growing number of school board members and legislators across  the nation that are actually trying to ban high school football in their districts. “It’s no longer appropriate for public institutions to fund gladiators,” she said. “I am very, very concerned about putting these student-athletes in the position of getting a concussion. Football has gotten faster, harder and more dangerous with each passing year. I’m extremely scared we will eventually be sued over injuries suffered in sports.”
    This is a growing sentiment among some influential people in our society. While most would suggest education and enforcement of rules are designed to keep players safe instead of eliminating the most popular sport in America, there are those who would be in favor of completely eliminating  the participation of our youth in tackle football, which would ultimately put an end to football as we know it. Confronting the safety issue is one of the most important aspects that we face in today’s coaching world. If we want to preserve this great game, burying our head in the sand and doing business as usual is not an option. We must be vigilant in making player safety a paramount part of our daily coaching lives.
    When it comes to sports injuries, you might be surprised to know that football does not rank first in the percentage of injuries sustained per athlete. In fact, football ranks behind basketball. However, football does rank first in the rate of head injuries per athlete. Statistics found in a simple internet search state that there are approximately 67,000 diagnosed concussions every year in high school football. According to the 2007 issue of The American Journal of Sport Medicine, football players suffer the most brain injuries of any sport. It also states that almost 40% of all catastrophic head injuries suffered on the football field from 1989 – 2002 involved athletes who were still playing with neurological symptoms at the time of the catastrophic event. These statistics are a part of a growing treasure chest of knowledge that is being shared among trainers, coaches, parents, players and school officials. The purpose of this information is to keep our players safe and preserve the game for future generations.
    The recent awareness being brought to head injuries (most commonly concussions) has shed light on one of the most serious and possible life-altering injuries that an athlete can sustain. When I was playing high school and college football, having your “bell rung” was just a normal part of the football experience. Getting back into a game was as simple as being able to regain your vision or count fingers on a coach’s hand. Today, things have changed for the better and the health of our athletes is a top priority. States are enacting laws that promote education among coaches and the implementation of a system to ensure that an athlete who sustains a head injury is fully recovered prior to re-entering a game or practice. In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed a law that requires all coaches to complete concussion training by the end of the year. This trend is not going away. It will only become a more prominent issue in the years to come.
    Regardless of how many years we have been coaching and how comfortable we are in the ways we do it, we can and must evolve in the area of player safety. I want to share with you a couple of the changes that I have made in my coaching style and regimen to address injury prevention among my athletes. In no way do I have all of the answers and injuries can and do happen on my teams. However, by changing a few things in practice and in our preparation, I feel we have greatly reduced the number of preventable injuries among our athletes.

1.  I will start with the biggest change and probably the most debatable - the elimination of most full contact drills and periods in practice. In every level of football you will find coaches who differ greatly on the amount of contact they allow and script into their weekly practice sessions. My coaching style is aggressive by nature. I love the big hit and the mentality of an aggressive team. However, several years ago I chose to eliminate most full contact periods in practice. We conduct a tackling circuit every week that teaches and reinforces the proper and safe way to hit. Our team periods are conducted in what we call “Thud” tempo. Thud tempo is full speed to the ball, but we preach proper tackling form and we eliminate the taking of the ball carrier to the ground. We constantly say “stay up and keep your head up” to our players when they are form tackling in practice. This change has eliminated practice concussions and greatly reduced the number of non-game injuries sustained. In the three seasons that we have designed practice sessions with this philosophy, we have not had one player sustain a concussion in practice and we have had only a few severe injuries during our practice week. As a result, has our defense struggled? As I write this article, we are 26-7 since we made the change. We have struggled on defense at times this season, but in 2010 and 2011 we finished at the top in total defense in our conference. I believe that having our best players healthy on Fridays has trumped any negatives that you could attribute to a non-full contact practice philosophy.

2. Statistics confirm that most joint injuries happen when the protective muscles around the joint are over-fatigued. Some coaches run and exhaust their players during practice at a rate that does not simulate a game. For many years in my coaching career, I would script team periods that included 20 -30 consecutively run plays. Sometimes these periods were conducted at full speed and with live hitting. As I look back on those days, I know that this was the wrong approach. Today I am aware of the fatigue to injury ratio that unrealistic sessions can produce. In studying our average drive length over the past several seasons, I have found that the average offensive drive lasted between 7-9 plays and that there was an average of 30 seconds of rest between plays. Therefore, my practice script rarely exceeded sessions of over 10 plays in succession. Allowing my players to stay fresh and by avoiding excess muscle fatigue, we have drastically reduced the joint injuries sustained in practice.

3. Our training sessions have eliminated the traditional wind sprints and bleacher runs with joint stabilization exercises that are also designed to increase cardio endurance. Our team’s strength and speed coach is very good at designing training sessions that build strength and endurance in the muscle groups that protect the major joints such as the knee, ankle, shoulder and back. Long gone are the days of running 30 twenty-yard sprints or trying to bench press a car. Education in the area of proper training and introducing our athletes to the latest techniques in strength and speed training has been very effective in keeping our athletes safe and on the field.
    Finally, I know that we all have a special place in our hearts for our athletes. Making that trip from the sideline to the field when one of our football family members is injured is one of the worst parts of our job. I also know that we want to protect the game and make it even better for future generations. Making safety a priority and becoming educated on ways to better serve our players and teams is one of the best ways of leaving a lasting positive impact on this game. 







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