Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Will Amateur Hockey Ban Fighting?
USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are not waiting around for the National Hockey League to change its rules on fighting. The New York Times reports that both organizations are considering rules that would end fighting in nonprofessional leagues as soon as next season.
“The appetite is there,” David Branch, president of the Canadian Hockey League, told the newspaper, citing the prevalence of concussions as a major catalyst for the movement. “The time is certainly right to move forward. One of the causes of concussions is fighting. And I believe that there is more and more recognition that our game does not need fighting to survive — to be part of the entertainment package, you might say — because of the concerns of injuries and other concerns that could very well be a byproduct of fighting.”
The rule changes would apply to dozens of leagues, and leaders of the sport's umbrella organizations believe rules to knock out fighting "will be significantly stiffened during organization-wide meetings this summer."
“The official stance from Hockey Canada is that we want to get rid of fighting as quickly as we can,” Bob Nicholson, the organization’s chief executive, told reporter John Branch. His organization oversees more than a half-million amateur adult and youth players.
In the United States, USA Hockey’s Junior Council discussed emergency legislation that would combat fighting with much harsher penalties, starting as early as next fall. According to the Times, the council may propose a system like that used in the NCAA, where fights are rare — mostly likely because players are immediately ejected for fighting, and progressive suspensions are doled out for subsequent brawls. “We’re an amateur sports organization that is concerned most about the safety of our members and marketing our sport,” said Dave Ogrean, USA Hockey’s executive director. “If our penalties for fighting were more onerous, that would serve both those purposes very well.”
But the question remains: Will hockey survive without fighting? The act of players punching each other has become so ingrained in much of the Canadian hockey culture that eradicating fights completely could prove difficult. Ogrean, however, disagrees: “That’s been a fallacious argument for a long, long, long time," he said.
Nevertheless, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman last fall said the league’s healthy attendance figures suggest that fans do not want fighting banned, and he's questioned the science linking hockey fights to brain damage.
News of the proposed changes at the amateur level came six weeks after the Minnesota State High School League implemented automatic five-minute major penalties for checking from behind, boarding and making contact to the head after Jack Jablonski, a sophomore for Benilde-St. Margaret's, was paralyzed after being checked from behind in a junior-varsity game on Dec. 30. The move subsequently put more pressure on high school game referees to make the correct call. Jim Kirshbaum, assignment secretary for the Suburban Referees Association in the Twin Cities, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune several referees questioned their responsibility to enforce the state's tougher stance on violent hits, stating that one referee called "four or five" major penalties in a game shortly after the rule changes were implemented, because he "felt like he had to call everything close."
"Some referees think because the high school league is cracking down they need to call more major penalties," Kirshbaum said. "We've stressed it to our membership that this doesn't change what's called, and that's how it should be approached."
In 2010, a study on head injuries in Canadian junior ice hockey that appeared in the November 2010 issue of Neurosurgical Focus revealed that 17 players suffered a total of 21 concussions during 52 physician-observed games. By comparison, an average of 75 concussions are reported each season in the NHL over 82 regular-season games.
That study was published less than two weeks after a group of more than
250 doctors, researchers and officials called on hockey organizations —
from youth groups on up to the NHL — to ban hits to the head.
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Jewish School Forfeits Tourney Game to Observe Sabbath
The boys' basketball team at an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston, coming off its best regular season ever with a 23-5 record, will forfeit its opportunity to play a state tournament semifinal game this weekend because its scheduled start time conflicts with the observation of the Jewish Sabbath.
The Robert M. Beren Academy Stars were scheduled to play in the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools' 2A state tournament Friday at 9 p.m. against Dallas' The Covenant School. Beren officials appealed to TAPPS, asking for the game to be moved to an earlier time, but that appeal was denied Monday. Covenant will now face Our Lady of the Hills in Kerrville — a team Beren soundly beat, 69-42, in last week's regional round.
"It's disappointing," Beren basketball coach and athletic director Chris Cole told the Houston Chronicle. "I've been here 10 years and I've always known where our priorities lie. We were hopeful and optimistic going in that we could be able to do both — adhere to the religious beliefs here and play basketball."
Beren, with a student enrollment of 67, already rescheduled two of its boys' basketball playoff games this month, but this time TAPPS wasn't budging. “When Beren’s joined years ago, we advised them that the Sabbath would present them with a problem with the finals,” association director Edd Burleson told The New York Times. “In the past, TAPPS has held firmly to their rules because if schedules are changed for these schools, it’s hard for other schools. If we solve one problem, we create another problem. If the schools are just going to arrange their own schedule, why do we even set a tournament?”
Conflicts between religious beliefs and sports schedules are becoming more common, according to Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, who cites changing demographics in the United States. “Some associations are rethinking who their constituencies are,” Barringer Gordon told Times reporter Mary Pilon. “As pluralism works its way through American sports, we’re going to see more and more situations like this one.”
For example, some high schools with large Muslim populations have made concessions to Muslim student-athletes who play football, moving preseason practices to the middle of the night in order to provide a way for players to eat and drink while observing the holy month of daytime fasting known as Ramadan.
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Battle of the Fans 'Promotes Positive Cheering Atmosphere'
Brennan Webb was confident that his school, Frankenmuth (Mich.) High, would win the inaugural Michigan High School Athletic Association's “Battle of the Fans" — which sought to recognize the top cheering sections among MHSAA member schools. "It's what we wanted to do when we started out," says Webb, a senior and one of the leaders of the Frankenmuth cheering section. "We really wanted to be the biggest, the best, the most creative, the loudest, the most outgoing. And that's obviously what we've done now. I could tell since we started doing this last year, people started bringing better student sections to games against us because they knew we were going to bring fans. We influenced all the teams we've played. It's really awesome. You feel good."
A total of 19 schools entered the MSHAA's first-year contest, organized jointly by the state association staff and its 16-member Student Advisory Council. From those, five finalists were chosen, including student sections from Grand Rapids Christian, Petoskey, Reese and Rockford high schools. MHSAA staff and SAC members visited all five for home basketball games during the past five weeks and produced videos of each section for the MHSAA’s YouTube channel. A public Facebook vote was conducted last week, and those results were combined with a vote by SAC members to determine the champion.
Voting criteria included positive sportsmanship, volume of student section, school spirit, originality of cheers, organization of group and student section leadership. “The Battle of the Fans gave us an opportunity to promote a positive cheering atmosphere, and the fun that can go into creating one,” says Andy Frushour, MHSAA's director of brand management and advisor to the Student Advisory Council. “Students typically roll their eyes when we talk about ‘sportsmanship.’ But this got them talking about it and practicing it. This contest drew submissions from all over the state, and we’re excited to see how it grows next year. “
Students were invited in December to submit a short video, via YouTube and Facebook, of their cheering sections in action. To view finalists’ submissions on YouTube, click here. Video of all five sections will be played on the Breslin Center HD scoreboard during the boys' and girl's basketball finals in March.
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Study: Football Deaths Related to Temperature Change
The number of heat-related deaths among high school and college football players tripled between 1994 and 2009, and changes in weather conditions may be the cause, say scientists at the University of Georgia. Analyzing temperature and climate data on the days of 58 players’ deaths over the 30 years prior to 2009 along with records of the height, weight and position of each player, researchers found that heat indexes were notably higher during the latter 15 years, coinciding with the increase in deaths.
“In general, on days the deaths occurred, the temperature was hotter and the air more humid than normal local conditions,” said climatologist and associate professor of geography Andrew Grundstein, senior author of the study.
Published in the International Journal of Biometeorology, the study found that the majority of the deaths occurred in August, on days when practices ended prior to noon. The study also found a trend toward increased size in football players since the 1980s, another possible contributing factor. In particular, linemen accounted for 86 percent of the deaths.
The study began in response to a 2009 Georgia High Schools Association mandate that schools develop written polices for extreme-weather practice, which schools struggled with due to a lack of adequate data examining the relationship between temperature and injury. While the American College of Sports Medicine offers intensity guidelines for athletic practices based on a wet bulb globe temperature measurement and the National Weather Service offers a heat index, neither system adequately accounts for sun exposure or protective pads and helmets, says Grundstein.
“We all want a single magic number to indicate the heat threshold,” Grundstein said. “But so many factors contribute to heat stress that it's impossible to draw the line at a single temperature.” Still, he says, the heat-measurement tools available can be useful, as well as ensuring players are slowly acclimated to outdoor workouts and that all staff is trained to watch for signs of heat stress.
Though the data included in the study included only the period between 1980 and 2009, the trend in athlete deaths appears to be ongoing, with 2011 seeing the "worst week in 35 years" of athlete deaths. Grundenstein is currently working with other researchers to study heat-related injuries in high school football players, hoping to provide data necessary to curb the incidence of heat-related injury and reduce the number of athlete deaths.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
Sales Up, Misbehavior Down at WVU Football Games
The West Virginia University Board of Governors was presented a report Friday that the athletic department’s goal of controlling fan misbehavior at football games with specific policy changes implemented before last season was, in fact, realized.
Most controversial among the changes was the introduction of beer sales inside Milan-Puskar Stadium. And while beer sales of $520,000 were half of what WVU athletic director Oliver Luck thought possible, overall concessions sales were $1.26 million, up 84 percent over the 2010 season, according to an Associated Press report. Non-alcoholic beverages outsold alcoholic beverages at every game but one — a game against Louisiana State — and food sales alone increased 60 percent for the season.
More important, arrests were down significantly, most likely a reflection of Luck’s decision to eliminate a longstanding pass-out policy that allowed fans to leave the stadium at halftime and re-enter all the more intoxicated and rowdy. WVU police chief Bob Roberts, who witnessed positive trends at games in Morgantown emerging as early as last October, pointed to an unrelated game last season between LSU and Alabama that led to 149 arrests, telling the AP, “There were more arrests during that game than we had during the season,” and calling 2011 “probably the best season I’ve ever worked.”
The WVU report, assembled with the help of industrial engineering student Richard Woody, also included a fan-satisfaction survey. Woody’s staff surveyed about 25 percent of football season-ticket holders after games against Louisville and Connecticut, finding that roughly 78 percent described their stadium experience as enjoyable.
“I want to congratulate our vendors, stadium security and city, state and university police for working with us to make game days safer and more enjoyable,” Luck stated at Friday’s BOG meeting, as reported by The Daily Atheneaum student newspaper. “From concessionaire training to improved security checks, everyone took this initiative very seriously and our overall goal to improve the fan experience was realized. We will continue these measures as well as our diligence around the controlled sale of beer at the stadium.”
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Basketball Court Puddle Leads to $4.4 Million Jury Award
Some might call it an early start to March Madness — a thirty-something recreational hoops player who broke his ankle when he slipped on the basketball court at L.A. Fitness of Stamford, Conn., has had the bulk of his $4.4 million jury award upheld by a Stamford Superior Court judge.
According to the Connecticut Law Tribune, Rene Rodriguez was 36 in March 2008 when he slipped in a roughly 10-inch-diameter puddle of water while chasing down a rebound. Rodriguez testified that while he awaited an ambulance, he observed one or two drops of water come down from the ceiling and land on the court in the area of the puddle. A co-worker who had been shooting hoops with him testified that he also saw the falling drops. Rodriguez has since endured three surgeries (his lawyer says he may need future ankle fusion surgery), incurring roughly $125,000 in medical bills, and has seen his quality of life deteriorate.
Rene Rodriguez v. L.A. Fitness International LLC et al., which alleged negligence against the club chain and building owner U.B. Stamford L.P. for allowing the floor to remain in a slippery and unsafe condition and for failing to warn health club members of the hazard or to clean it up, turned on the testimony of witnesses who contradicted a janitor’s assertion that he dry-mopped the basketball court every morning. Shown, also, that the health club and property owner had knowledge of ongoing leaks on the basketball court for years, the jury determined that the defendants should have known about the puddle, and assigned 65 percent of the negligence to L.A. Fitness and 35 percent to U.B. Stamford L.P. Just $400,000 of the award was for economic damages.
While Judge Trial Referee Alfred Jennings did reduce the economic damages from $400,000 to $290,123 on appeal, he denied the defendants’ motion to overrule the jury’s verdict. “The jury’s award was very generous, certainly at the very high range of just compensation,” Jennings ruled, “but the size of a damage award alone is not grounds for setting it aside or ordering a remittitur.” Other Connecticut ankle injury cases involved plaintiffs who were much older, Jennings noted; Rodriguez has a significantly longer life expectancy.
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Prep Swimmer Loses ADA Lawsuit
In an effort to break down some, if not all, of the barriers facing
students with disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 require that schools
make accommodations for students with disabilities that do not
fundamentally change the nature of the activity. The question of what
constitutes a reasonable accommodation, therefore, is usually vital to
most ADA and Rehabilitation Act cases.
“S.S.,” the plaintiff in Schor v. Whitesboro Central School District
[2012 U.S. Dist. Lexis 11727], was a high school freshman who suffered
severe anxiety attacks in public. Upon enrolling at Whitesboro Senior
High School, S.S. joined the school’s swim team. S.S.’s parents on
numerous occasions informed the school and the coach what to do when she
suffered an anxiety attack — during severe onsets of anxiety, they
said, S.S. would experience fears of drowning and would need to exit the
pool to ease her anxiety. S.S. experienced a severe anxiety attack at a
time trial and at a swim meet, and in both cases, her coach showed
little compassion, at one point threatening to kick her off the swim
team.
As a result of the coach’s unwillingness to make
accommodations, S.S.’s disability was exacerbated to such an extent that
she was unable to attend school for the rest of the fall semester, and
her parents filed a lawsuit seeking monetary damages and injunctive
relief. In ruling in favor of the school district, the court held that
S.S. failed to meet all of the requirements of the law. In particular,
the court held that S.S. failed to show that she was otherwise qualified
to meet all of the swim team program’s requirements, noting that an
essential requirement of being a member of the swim team is that the
person must be able to swim when called upon to do so. In addition, the
court said that S.S. failed to show what reasonable accommodations the
school district could have made for this particular disability.
This
last point notwithstanding, the Whitesboro Central School District and
in particular the swim coach may want to review how they handle such
cases in the future. The coach’s behavior — threatening to kick a
student with an emotional disability off the team (and allegedly
thinking that she could tell when the student was having a “real”
attack) — was insensitive and wrongheaded. In the end, S.S. had to quit
the team and drop out of school, so while no laws may have been broken,
the school and the coach ought to have worked harder to find a better
solution.
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Friday, February 24, 2012
Packers Catching Flak Over New ADA-based Ticket Policy
A petition has been established on Change.org to address a new Green Bay Packers ticketing policy regarding fans with disabilities.
About 1,600 fans received letters from the Packers last week stating that the team will no longer be able to sell single-game tickets to individuals with disabilities or their companions, per changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act that went into effect last March with a compliance deadline of March 15, 2012. The changes require entertainment venues to treat people with disabilities like everyone else in terms of ticket sales. From now on, those individuals will have to purchase season tickets to gain admittance to Lambeau Field. In addition, the Packers will end the practice of allowing season-ticket holders with disabilities to sell unused tickets back to the team.
According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, past users of Lambeau’s accessible seating sections have until March 16 to express interest in season tickets, and Mark Wagner, the Packers’ director of ticket operations, expressed confidence that all 772 locations will be sold.
That’s not good enough for Lynn Vreeke, who’s 24-year-old son has cerebral palsy and receives roughly $800 a month in disability benefits. “He was crushed,” Vreeke told the Press-Gazette. “He’ll never get to go to a game again, because if he doesn’t buy season tickets, they’ll take his name off the list.”
Neil Andrew is hoping to get enough names on his Change.org list that the Packers pay attention. “I created the petition in hopes that it would promote change,” Andrew told local ABC affiliate WBAY. The petition reads, in part, that it “takes into account the fixed income often faced by the disabled fan and does not exclude them from participating because of their inability to pay for an expensive set of season tickets for not only themselves but, in many cases, their aides as well.” As of this writing, the petition had received 23 signatures.
The Packers have said that no amount of signatures will change the fact that they must comply with the new ADA requirements. “The Packers may be fine as far as the law is concerned, but it’s a moral issue, not just necessarily a legal one,” Andrew told WBAY, “and I think that they need to do what’s right.”
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Thursday, February 23, 2012
Shaving Incident Costs Girls' Swim Team Its Title
From the “You Never Thought This Rule Would be Enforced” file, a violation by a member of the Broadneck (Md.) High School girls’ swim team retroactively cost the team its county title and prevented the coach from watching the squad sweep regional titles last weekend. The infraction? Shaving at the meet.
The National Federation of State High School Associations prohibits participants in aquatic sports from shaving at the location of a meet. Many swimmers shave prior to a meet to gain a competitive edge in the water, but the NFHS’s rule is meant as a health and safety precaution, limiting the likelihood of blood transmission or of team members sharing razors.
After it was discovered that one of Broadneck’s swimmers had shaved at the meet, she was retroactively disqualified and all of her points redistributed to other competitors, a punishment many in the swimming world think was over the top, despite what the NFHS rules prescribe. “I'm not sure I've seen much of this type of punishment within the sport,” commented Swimming World Magazine’s Jason Marsteller in an e-mail to Yahoo’s Prep Rally. “About the only place retroactive punishments happen is in the case of positive doping tests.”
Broadneck’s coach was also suspended as a result of the violation and forced to miss the regional championship meet, where her team — all properly shaved — persevered and won the title. “The coach violated a rule in the 2011-2012 AACPS Athletics Handbook that addresses a coach's responsibility to abide by the rules of the game and promote ethical relationships among coaches and players,” explained a statement released by the Anne Arundel County Public Schools. “Appropriate disciplinary action has been taken against the coach.”
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Products Liability on IHRSA’s, Cybex’s Agenda
The opinion within Cybex International Inc. that the court system is running amok can best be summed up by noting that the $19.5 million settlement the fitness equipment manufacturer reached this month with Natalie Barnhard, the physical therapy assistant left a paraplegic by a toppled 25-year-old Cybex leg extension machine, counted as very positive news for the company. On the hook after a 2010 jury verdict for a $49.5 million judgment that could have severely impaired the company, Cybex emerges from the case significantly lighter in the wallet but still in business, its stock price rising out of penny territory and its future prospects excellent.
Its officers, however, remain unsettled by the experience, which began eight years ago when the 105-pound Barnhard, an employee at Amherst Orthopedic Physical Therapy in Buffalo, N.Y. (which was found 20 percent responsible to Cybex’s 75 percent and Barnhard’s 5 percent), “stood on the weight-stack side of the machine, put her hands on top of it and pulled on it in order to stretch her arms and shoulder,” according to the Supreme Court of the State of New York’s opinion on appeal. That misuse of its leg extension machine — which the plaintiff never denied, the defendants admitted is common in gyms and the courts determined was therefore foreseeable and grounds for liability — ought to send an unmistakable message to all fitness equipment manufacturers and facility owners, says Art Hicks, Cybex’s president and COO. “Tort system excess is a threat to our whole industry,” he says. “Many of the players that I have spoken to recognize that that pointer was going around and around, and it probably could have stopped on anybody’s business. We just got caught in the crosshairs.”
In response, Cybex and the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association have invited representatives of fitness equipment manufacturers and select health clubs to attend a March 14 meeting at IHRSA’s International Convention in Los Angeles, at which it is hoped that “everybody can share and we can come up with some best practices,” Hicks says, as well as “put together an industry initiative to support tort reform.” This first step in that direction, characterized by IHRSA president and CEO Joe Moore as “a brainstorming session,” could lead to a wider, more public effort in the months to come.
Hicks says the most basic lesson of Barnhard v. Cybex International Inc. is familiar but bears constant repetition: Manufacturers and facility owners must work together to avoid potential liability.
“There was a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy by the plaintiffs’ attorney, and both the facility and Cybex allowed that to happen,” Hicks says. “The fact is, we impact each other; if one side drops the ball, the other could be dealing with the fallout from it. That’s why it’s so critical that we both get together in a room. Manufacturers can do everything perfectly, but if the equipment isn’t maintained and something goes wrong, we’re in trouble. Also, fitness club owners see what goes on with equipment firsthand and can make manufacturers aware of equipment use as we go through our design cycles. We’re very much in the same boat in my opinion.”
Chris Clawson, president of Life Fitness, is in full agreement on that score. “I’ll be attending the meeting to hear what people have to say, and I’m going there with my eyes open, because we know the situation globally is that, really, people can sue you for just about anything,” Clawson says. “What’s most important about this meeting is to understand that this is not a manufacturing issue, it’s an industry issue. If health clubs think this is a manufacturing issue because that’s the way this case came down, that’s a mistake. The jury could just as easily have found the facility 75 percent responsible.”
Another invitee, Paul Byrne, president of Precor, feels certain that all major manufacturers already have their bases covered with regard to printed warnings to customers about proper installation, safety signage targeting equipment users, and safety reviews of older equipment in the field and newer equipment coming off the assembly line. That’s why he’s hoping the meeting goes further — even as he’s wary of what that could mean to the industry’s other lobbying efforts.
“We all know what those safety rules are, and we all are aware of and try to design to different industry standards that have been developed,” Byrne says. “I’m not sure what more you can do. Tort reform is certainly a laudable goal, and is probably worth at least talking about, but how practical it is is a whole other question. It’s a massive undertaking, and I don’t want this to overshadow some of the other really good stuff we can do, because I think we’ve got somebody in the White House who can really help us in the form of Michelle Obama, and there’s headway to be made with the whole PE4Life program, for example. There are a lot of areas where we have a little bit more momentum than we’ve ever had, and you only have so many dollars to throw at lobbying. Let’s just make sure we’re judicious about where we spend it.”
Hicks says he’s been heartened by the sympathy shown his company by other manufacturers, and he thinks the IHRSA discussion will take all such concerns into account. “We got a lot of good notes from a lot of people saying, ‘You guys are worthy competitors’ — there’s a mutual respect,” Hicks says. “I don’t think anybody thought this was a good lawsuit for anybody.”
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Call for End to High-Impact Youth Football Drills
The results of a study of youth football players conducted by Virginia Tech in conjunction with Wake Forest are drawing attention to how practice drills are conducted. The study, published in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering, used helmets embedded with sensors to track hits among a team of 7- and 8-year-old players and found that some of the hits were as strong as those experienced by college players. Unlike college and high school players, however, the frequency of severe hits was higher during practice than during games.
Directed by Stefan Duma of Virginia Tech (pictured), the study used sensor-embedded helmets to collect data among youth players. Photo Courtesy Jim Stroup / Virginia Tech
The practice drills, researchers say, go beyond what a player would realistically experience during a game situation. Moreover, younger players lack the same neck strength as older players and thus are more susceptible to injury from hard hits. The authors of the study recommend restructuring of practice drills to eliminate high-impact hits, focusing instead on proper tackling techniques and emphasizing fundamental skill sets.
The study results are of special value to the Sports Legacy Institute, which is calling for more research and better policies to address head impacts in young athletes through the recent launch of its “Hit Count” proposal. “I am shocked to see that these children receive levels of brain trauma comparable to college football players," SLI co-founder Chris Nowinski told ESPN. “The finding that the majority of high level (hits) came in practice provides more evidence that football needs to follow the lead of the NFL and Ivy League and restrict hitting in practice."
The Virginia Tech and Wake Forest research team is planning to follow up the study with a new project, called the Kinematics of Impact Data Set (KIDS), which will track head impacts among a full range of youth football players from ages 6 to 18. Using special helmets, researchers will collect data from three teams in North Carolina and three in Virginia over the course of their seasons. Researchers hope the results of the expanded study will prove useful for improving the design of youth football helmets, as well as head protection for other sports.
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Blog: Find a Worthy Sports Program, and Support It
Like anyone in the health or fitness industry, my mail slot seems to be the final resting place for every sports apparel, equipment and shoe catalog in the free world.
The other day, a swimwear catalog came in and I stared at it in surprise. The models, for a change, didn’t look like stick figures with big hair. They looked like female athletes — strong and healthy and real, and they were actually swimming and surfing instead of posing languidly on the shore.
Wow, I thought, it’s about time.
It was an image that stuck with me when I opened my e-mail later in the day and found a notice for an athletic program for middle school girls. The six-week program, Figure Skating in the City, teaches at-risk girls how to skate, but more important, it uses these skills as a springboard to promoting physical wellbeing and building self-confidence, self-discipline and self-respect.
The program is funded by Baltimore’s Safe and Sound Campaign, which promotes opportunities for children to grow up healthy, safe and active.
The figure skating program emphasizes academics and uses sports as a parallel: if you apply yourself to the work, you see improvement in the performance. It also emphasizes healthy eating, consistent training and volunteerism.
The middle school demographic (grades 6 through 8) is problematic, particularly for underserved youths. Peer pressure, always a problem, becomes even more of a force. Kids become afraid of showing enthusiasm for anything their friends don’t share, and that includes exercise and sports. Girls, whose metabolism changes around that age, are at a huge risk for obesity, diabetes and more. There are also risks for kids to become involved in things like drugs, alcohol, gangs and crime.
And then there’s self-image. If girls at that age are confronted with a constant stream of images of stick-thin women, they view that as the only way to be attractive and healthy. What they need to learn is that in reality, athletes eat a good diet to stoke the engine and keep it operating in peak form. And as a result, they don’t look like sticks.
I’ve seen the Safe and Sound Campaign work with local kids’ soccer programs and with other sports — tennis, baseball and more. They rely on community donations of funds and equipment to keep many programs running, but they do run, and they keep kids happy and occupied in creative and worthwhile activities.
I know Baltimore can’t be the only city with a program like this (in many cases, rec departments offer such programs). It also seems to me that local health clubs could get involved by holding sports equipment drives for similar organizations in their own communities. It’s amazing what people have in their closets, and what their own kids have outgrown.
With the seasons changing, it’s probably a good chance to go through the closet, the attic and the basement. It might not put kids on the medal podium at the Olympics, but it can keep them off the streets. And that’s a win, no matter what.
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Monday, February 20, 2012
Blog: Balance Training Yes, Checkbook Balancing No
You’ve heard of the nanny state? We’re feeling a lot like the nanny health club lately.
It seems that many of our members expect us to balance their checkbooks for them, track their monthly expenses and keep them out of credit card debt. They also expect us to use divine intervention to know when they want to cancel their memberships. These requests aren’t by any means new to us, but there sure have been a lot of them over the past few weeks. Some examples:
“My son never got your calls about his bounced payments. He dropped his phone into a pool.” Her son wanted to cancel his membership, but he had several overdue payments and we require members to be current before they are canceled. So we called. And called. And e-mailed. But it seems that once he dropped his phone in the pool, he went to live in a cave, never to replace it, never to check voicemail, never to interact with the outside world again.
“You’re stealing my money!” This member’s wife was still being billed, although his daughter had been canceled as requested. The wife had not been canceled, because they had never requested that. So, it wasn’t just our fault that they were still paying. We were criminals.
“Why don’t you just cancel members who stop showing up? Why do I need to cancel?” This was a woman who last visited just two months ago. She was horrified that we drafted her account for January and then February. Hadn’t we noticed she hadn’t been in? Weren’t we sophisticated enough to know that she obviously wasn’t using the club? We had to explain that we’re not mind readers.
“I canceled two years ago. Why are you still taking payments?” We were still taking payments because she had not canceled two years ago. Actually, she had sent in a cancellation request two years ago, and then the next day asked us to ignore that and keep her active. She didn’t notice that we had been drafting her checking account for two years? TWO YEARS? Part of our conversation went like this:
Member: There wasn’t any way for me to know that I was still being charged.
Rob: You mean other than the line in your checking account statement every month that said “Elevations Health Club”?
Member: Regardless of that, there was no way for me to know.
“I’ve had fraudulent charges ever since I gave you my credit card.” This member thought she had canceled three months previously (better than two years, right?), but hadn’t noticed any of the charges until then. So, she hadn’t looked at her credit card statement for three months, but she knew we were to blame for fraudulent charges.
“Someone told me that my billing would stop because I was moving. I didn’t know I had to put anything in writing.” If we were ever in court and a lawyer said, “Is there ANY chance that one of your staff people took a cancellation over the phone?” we would say “no.” We don’t know what our staff says or does all the time, but there is zero chance that any one of them will ever take a cancellation over the phone or would give anyone the impression that a cancellation can be submitted verbally.
So, we don’t know anymore. Are some people too dumb to run their own lives? Are they just plain liars? Is it because we’re just a health club to them and not a “real” business? Or maybe they really do want to live in a nanny state, where nothing is their fault and they have no responsibility for their finances?
We can help get them in shape and improve their quality of life. We can’t be expected to solve all of their problems.
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Friday, February 17, 2012
UNC Faculty Craft 'Statement of Principles for Athletics'
The University of North Carolina today released “A statement of principles for athletics at UNC,” the result of months of informal collaboration among faculty members on the Chapel Hill campus. The statement comes in response to a football scandal involving both academics and contact with agents that led to the suspension of more than a dozen players last season and the firing last summer of head coach Butch Davis. It was the biggest setback for the university’s athletic department in a half-century, and the school still awaits sanctions from the NCAA, which wasn’t satisfied last fall with UNC’s offer of a $50,000 fine, surrender of nine scholarships and two years probation.
“We hope that this statement can provide a point of departure for public discussion and a foundation that the athletic program and the university as a whole can build on in the months and years ahead,” Jay Smith, associate chair of history, says in the release. So far, 112 UNC faculty members have endorsed the statement, while others have maintained their distance, according to Richard Southall, director of UNC’s College Sport Research Institute. “It’s not a petition. It’s not any demand. It’s not meant to criticize athletics,” Southall says. “It’s like, ‘Hey, let’s just have a conversation about these.’ These might be some principles that we can use to look to see what we’re doing.”
What follows is a statement excerpt.
We are justly proud of UNC’s record of integrity and success in intellectual and athletic life. In light of recent developments, however, we insist that the pursuit of athletic excellence at UNC-Chapel Hill must rest on a foundation of academic integrity and should always reflect the following three principles:
1. Institutional Openness. The university should confront openly the many conflicts created by its commitment to winning in the athletic arena. The university must commit itself to honest, open, regular conversation about the divergent imperatives, and competing values, that drive athletic and academic success. All data needed to understand the athletics department, and to address the issues raised by its operations, should be readily available.
2. Educational Responsibility. The university should commit itself to providing a rigorous and meaningful education to every student. All students should be integrated fully into the life of the campus, and they should be well prepared for life after college. All students — those who participate in sports and those who do not — should be permitted and encouraged to take full advantage of the rich menu of educational opportunities available at UNC.
3. Mission Consistency. Athletics must be integrated into the common enterprise of the university. Faculty committees and administration must be empowered to oversee athletics and ensure that it supports and remains in alignment with the university’s core missions. In times of hardship, the university must consistently work to preserve these core missions, even if such preservation comes at the expense of athletic success.
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Blog: Time for Everybody to Lay Off the Refs
We’re rolling toward March Madness. And whether you’re sitting in front of your TV or in front of the court, it means a lot of screaming, cheering and booing will take place. And it’s safe to say that occasionally, some of that booing will be directed at the officials making the calls.
When the referees are being paid to make those calls, I’m willing to say it’s part of their job to shrug off the opposing crowd’s vibe. As long as the spectators settle down and watch the game when it resumes, and as long as there’s nothing other than loud disagreement with a call (and let’s hope those disagreements are largely free of profanity), it’s a part of the ups and downs of the sports experience.
But there are some forums in which disagreeing with the ref really isn’t handled appropriately.
Recently, I was playing in a rec-level tournament where everyone was expected to ref one match. It was part of the deal. And that would have been fine, had the players (who were adults) acted like adults.
But no. I saw players scream into the faces of individuals who were refereeing and try to push them into reversing their calls. I saw them try to poll spectators sitting near the action to find out if they agreed with the ref’s take on various plays. (To their credit, the spectators refused to be drawn into the disagreement).
A few days later, I asked a fellow sportswriter if that kind of behavior was typical. He said yes, and told me about the time a high school girl had volunteered as a ref at a soccer game between two children’s rec-level teams — a game in a summer program that provided nothing more than an opportunity for kids to stay active and have fun. Not that you could prove that by the behavior of the parents of the losing team, who took out their anger on the teenaged ref.
“Parents followed this poor kid to her car at the end of the game,” he told me. “They were cursing and yelling abuse at her and physically threatening her. She was scared to death. "
He also told me volunteer refs get so much abuse that one of the local organizations has trouble finding people to officiate at high school games. I'm not surprised, given what I saw the previous week.
I’m sure someone will argue that a referee is a referee, and that putting up with disagreements is part of the job. And to a certain extent, that’s true. But there’s a big difference between a pro who works at the national level and a volunteer who does something out of a sense of responsibility to the sport and to others. And there’s a definite difference between a crowd shouting in disbelief at a call in a stadium and a person who stomps over and personally ridicules and physically intimidates another.
When did it become okay to yell at volunteers and belittle them? And when did we forget about the importance of accepting a call you don’t agree with and going on with the game? A show of strength isn’t about getting in someone’s face when you’re angry; it’s about refocusing on the game and giving it your best in spite of your anger.
While I hear almost daily about the importance of stopping bullying in schools, it seems as though some adults have never looked in the mirror.
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Pending Wisconsin Concussion Law Losing Strength
A Wisconsin bill backed by the NFL, Green Bay Packers and a host of medical institutions was set to become the toughest in the country. But the bill, passed by the state Assembly last November, is currently stalled in the Senate, where it is losing strength.
The original bill directed the Department of Public Instruction and Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association to collaborate and develop guidelines for educating coaches, athletes and their families about the risks of head injury in sports as well as create a “model emergency plan that addresses concussions and other head injuries for use by school districts and other operators
of youth athletic activities.”
The amended bill would put school districts in charge of developing concussion-education policies and emergency plans, and also delete language requiring that a player with a suspected head injury be removed from play and require a healthcare provider’s clearance before returning to play, a common element in similar legislation passed by other states.
While WIAA member schools are already required to get physician clearance before an athlete suspected of head injury can return to play, the concern is what the changes mean for players and coaches of club and other non-school youth sports. The results of a survey released this week by Korrio and Axon Sports highlight the need for continued emphasis on concussion education for both coaches and parents. The survey polled 250 youth soccer coaches and found that while three quarters of coaches are aware of the concussion risks associated with youth sports and 80 percent said that their organization had concussion guidelines in place, only half of respondents were familiar with baseline testing for concussions, and 56 percent indicated that their program offered any kind of concussion education for the parents of players.
The amendment to the Wisconsin bill omits any education or policy requirements for club and other recreational organizations, and would also remove a requirement that coaches send home an informational sheet on concussions to be signed and returned by a parent, though each school district could theoretically add such a provision.
With the passage of its concussion bill, Wisconsin would join 31 other states that have legislation addressing youth head injuries in sports. Another 14 states are currently considering legislation, with more states debating bills to strengthen existing legislation.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Is Longer Academy Season Good for U.S. Soccer, Preps?
Last week, U.S. Soccer announced that its five-year-old Development Academy is adopting a 10-month regular-season schedule stretching from September through June, thus precluding hundreds of youths from competing for their high school teams.
The Development Academy launched in October 2007 as a bold new means of grooming U.S. youth soccer talent to eventually boost the nation’s standing on the sport’s world stage. But what began as 64 U-16 and U-18 club teams playing an eight-month schedule has gone too far for some observers. “If they were going to target the top 60 or 80 or even 100 kids in an age group and work to develop them, maybe that’s something I could understand,” Mike Gauvain, head boys’ soccer coach at Chaminade High School in St. Louis, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But the scope of this is just too big. The Academy system has something like 72 teams nationwide; there’s just no way there are that many elite-level players out there for a system like this.”
Added Terry Michler, head coach at Christian Brothers College Prep in St. Louis, “They’re going to try to sell this to players and their parents as the path to college or professional soccer, and that’s just not true. If you’re a top player, a truly elite player, you’re going to be found, no matter where you play.”
From the beginning, debate within American soccer circles has centered around the best approach to development — competition versus training. A high school soccer schedule may subject athletes to four games a week, while the Academy’s longer season, which is more in line with the approach favored by most successful soccer-playing nations, allows for extensive practice time between games. Michler, the winningest high school coach in the U.S., has written that competition breeds competitiveness, but others aren’t convinced. “We are a game-mad country,” Ian Hennessey, head men’s soccer coach at the University of Delaware, told AB in the fall of 2007. “The best analogy I’ve heard is, ‘All exams and no studying do not the student make.’ Well, all games and no training do not the soccer player make.”
At that time, Tony Kees, coach of Chicago Fire PDA, a Major League Soccer-affiliated club team, felt the high school game was in danger. “The decision to forego high school play is tough on kids,” he told AB. “A club environment can’t duplicate the high school environment — the camaraderie, walking through the hallways with athlete status, wearing school colors, having the student body come out to your games.” He added, however, that his club players enjoy benefits all their own. “These kids will be able to rub elbows with the pros on a daily basis. They are going to have the best facilities and the best amenities. Everything the pros get, our kids are going to get. That can’t be duplicated, either.”
Gauvain told Post-Dispatch writer Joe Lyons that he wouldn’t trade his own high school sports experience for anything, adding of his current players, “Being part of the soccer team at Chaminade is more than just soccer. It’s about being part of the school community and doing what you need to do — keeping your grades up, showing up on time, being a good school citizen — in order to be eligible to stay part of the soccer team.”
Dale Schilly, director of youth development for the Academy-affiliated St. Louis Scott Gallagher Metro program in Illinois, told Lyons that, while controversial, the decision by U.S. Soccer should be kept in perspective. “The thing to remember,” he said, “is that the players and their parents will make the choice and that this will only impact a small percentage of players.”
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Monday, February 13, 2012
PlayOn! to Launch 24-Hour High School Sports Network
With television networks dedicated to college athletic conferences and individual universities' sports programs, it was only a matter of time before the idea would trickle down to the high school level. That time is now, according to Atlanta-based media company PlayOn! Sports. On Monday, officials announced plans to launch the first nationwide network devoted exclusively to high school sports — including a 24-hour television channel, plus products for broadband, mobile and video-on-demand platforms. By combining state athletic associations’ postseason content with the regular season events of member schools, PlayOn! is expected to debut the groundbreaking network initiative this fall.
The PlayOn High School Sports Network will provide comprehensive coverage of all boys' and girls' varsity sports, giving wide exposure to many of the 7.6 million high school students who participate in high school athletics. According to the company, the network will feature:
• More than 15,000 hours a year of live event coverage of regular season, postseason and championship events, including marquee match-ups, across all sports.
• Original and exclusive programming to complement event coverage, including original series, studio shows, news, documentaries and highlights.
• A linear television channel with a full 24-hour schedule and minimal repeats.
• A substantial library of assets for video-on-demand, broadband and mobile products.
• Access to a wide variety of sports and year-round programming including football, basketball, baseball, competitive cheer, cross country, golf, gymnastics, soccer, softball, swimming/diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.
"PlayOn has spent the past five years cultivating a product that has generated unprecedented access to millions of passionate high school sports fans across the country," says David Rudolph, chief executive officer of PlayOn! "Expanding to a nationwide network is a natural transition. High school sports is a rapidly emerging market and this network will provide an incredible opportunity for distributors and advertisers who want to reach this coveted audience at the national, regional and local level.”
Rudolph, who spoke with USA Today's sports television columnist Michael Hiestand, says wrestling currently is the company's biggest online draw for high school sports, sometimes attracting more than 200,000 viewers for multiple-day events."It has a rabid fan base that's underserved," Rudolph told Hiestand.
Nevertheless, Hiestand posed the reasonable question: "Do viewers really want to watch a steady stream of high school sports involving faraway schools they might not have heard of?"
"Ten years ago, if you told me I'd sit down to watch a Boise State game, I'd have said I wasn't sure that was an actual college," Rudolph responded. "Now, I know they have a blue field. High school games will go the same way."
Currently, PlayOn! annually produces more than 5,000 events, crowns 1,000 champions and generates more than 15,000 hours of live and on-demand event coverage from 21 states across the country. In addition, schools participating in the School Broadcast Program annually produce more than 15,000 regular-season sporting and school-related events such as news programs, meetings and graduations. Over the next year, PlayOn! anticipates expanding into more than 30 states.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012
AstroTurf Puts Field Up for Bid on eBay
On Tuesday afternoon, AstroTurf listed what may be the first synthetic turf field ever put up for bid on the online auction site eBay.
Bidding on the 81,000-square-foot field in Carson, Calif., begins at $500,000 and does not reflect site-work costs. As of Wednesday morning, there had been no takers.
The full-sized, unlined AstroTurf athletic field with AstroBase was installed in December 2011 at the Home Depot Center. It hosted the California Interscholastic Federation State Football Championship Bowl games, the AstroTurf NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and numerous other events and practices. The field was intended as a temporary installation and is being removed this week.
The field is unlined and can be configured for football, soccer and other sports, and the eBay listing includes several photos. The field's AstroBase system at The Home Depot Center consisted of 15,000 interlocking base panels that AstroTurf says provide all the benefits of a shock pad and drainage system. For more details, check out the auction listing.
Bidding on the field ends Feb. 17 shortly after 1 p.m. (PST).
In June 2010, what is believed to have been another industry first occurred when the old FieldTurf synthetic surface at War Memorial Stadium in Arkansas — which was replaced with a new FieldTurf installation — was completely recycled.
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Blog: Think Twice Before Buying Online
Sometimes, we just need a concrete example to remind us of how serious a problem is, and how pervasive.
Not too long ago, I talked with a tennis instructor who told me his club had shut down its pro shop. The pro shop, at its peak, had offered full-time employment for one person, and part-time employment for two or three others, depending on the season.
“It wasn’t worth it to keep it open,” my friend told me. “Everyone wants to buy their stuff online now, and if they buy it on eBay from one of those online auctions in China, they can get it shipped free.”
Prior to the Christmas shopping season, I wrote about the problem of counterfeit sporting goods and the impact it has on American commerce. With cheaply made imitations of brand-name sporting equipment (including sports shoes and apparel, golf clubs and tennis racquets) being sold online and shipped internationally, U.S. retailers are hurting.
How much are they hurting? A lot, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Even though in 2011, seizures of counterfeit and pirated goods were up by 24 percent over 2010, the domestic value for seizures in fiscal year 2011 decreased by five percent to $178.9 million and the manufacturer’s suggested retail price declined slightly to $1.1 billion. Why? According to CBP, there has been explosive growth in overseas websites selling counterfeit goods, and Americans are using them like crazy.
We’ve already noted the way the trade in illegal sporting goods puts buyers at risk for injury from inferior equipment, but it also cuts down on American retail commerce, which ultimately costs jobs. It's something to think about the next time you’re looking at an online auction that offers your favorite running shoes at a fraction of the price, and includes free worldwide shipping. It’s not just numbers. It’s people and their livelihoods.
The problem of counterfeit goods isn’t anything new; we know that. Dealers have been selling fake Rolex watches on street corners for years. But with the rise of e-commerce, we’re just waking up to the damage it can do here at home, in an economy that has been hit hard by all sorts of global forces.
Want to help? You can, and not only by buying from local retailers. If, on your Internet travels, you come across a site where you think counterfeited goods are being offered, CBP makes it easy to request an investigation. They offer an “e-allegation” (is that a great term or what?) — an online trade violation reporting form you can fill out. Send it in and they’ll check it out. You can even submit it anonymously.
It’s too late for me to help my friend’s store, but it’s not too late for all of us to take action on the larger problem.
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Monday, February 06, 2012
Group Encourages Counting Hits to Prevent Concussions
New emphasis is being placed on the number of head impacts a player suffers during a game rather than the intensity of the hit. The Indiana-based Sports Legacy Institute on Friday announced its “Hit Count” proposal, aimed at reducing the number of concussions and amount of brain trauma suffered by youth athletes. Based on the “Pitch Count” model used in baseball to reduce the risk of overuse injuries in pitchers, the Hit Count model would set a limit for the number of hits to the head a young athlete can undergo during a period of time.
“Professional and college sports organizations, including the National Football League (NFL) and the Ivy League, have taken aggressive steps to reduce sub-concussive brain trauma exposure, but those steps are not being adopted at youth levels where athletes are most at risk,” said SLI co-founder Chris Nowinski in a press release. The NFL has policies in place aimed at reducing the frequency of hard hits during practice and games, unlike youth sports, where the number of hard hits a player endures is rarely monitored.
SLI may find support for its model in the results of a two-year study of high school football players conducted by the Purdue Neurotrauma Group and summarized in a paper appearing this month in the Journal of Biomechanics. The group’s research suggests that each hit to the head an athlete suffers during a game affects their brain activity, and that the buildup of prior damage can be a greater determinant in whether a player suffers a concussion than the force of a hit.
"The most important implication of the new findings is the suggestion that a concussion is not just the result of a single blow, but it's really the totality of blows that took place over the season," said Eric Nauman, a coauthor of the paper and associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue. "The one hit that brought on the concussion is arguably the straw that broke the camel's back."
Whether a player suffered a concussion or not, brain imaging scans showed that repetitive hits to the head caused brain activity changes in the areas of the brain associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease currently affecting more than 20 former NFL players and commonly seen in athletes involved in impact sports such as football, hockey, rugby and soccer.
The Purdue Neurotrauma Group plans to continue its research, both monitoring participants of the original study for evidence of permanent changes in brain structure and expanding their scope to include more high school football players and girls’ soccer players. The group’s future research may help establish safety guidelines specifying the number of hits a player can receive during a period of time, exactly what the SLI is calling for with its Hit Count White Paper, which outlines the project’s goals and a strategy for implementation. SLI hopes to have Hit Counts in use by youth organizations by 2013.
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Friday, February 03, 2012
St. Louis Would Spend $60M More to Keep the Rams
The city of St. Louis’ proposal to meet its lease requirements — to ensure the Edward Jones Dome remains a "first-tier" stadium, the standard that city officials agreed to 17 years ago — would require the city to pay $59.5 million for stadium improvements, assuming voters approved it in a referendum. That’s 48 percent of the total cost of $124 million, which would include:
• A new 96-by-24-foot scoreboard overhanging the field, a la Cowboys Stadium (although only one-fifth the size)
• A new three-story structure, connected to the Dome via a bridge over Broadway, that would house a 20,000-square-foot lobby, a rooftop beer garden and an entrance to the stadium’s club seats and luxury suites
• New large windows that would allow more natural light inside the Dome
• Fifteen-hundred new club seats, which would displace 1,800 existing seats and four suites
• Updates to locker rooms for cheerleaders and officials
• Various aesthetic improvements to entrances, stairwells and corridors
• Installation of retractable bollards on Broadway that would allow the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission to shut down the street to vehicular traffic
The requirement that the Rams would fund 52 percent of the improvements matches the average contribution by NFL teams in recent stadium construction and renovation projects. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the plan presented to the Rams (who said they are reviewing it and will respond “accordingly”) does not identify the source of the $59.5 million, but CVC President Kathleen indicated that her agency would likely turn to the Dome's owner (the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority) or the three so-called government "sponsors" that paid to build the Dome — meaning, the city, St. Louis County and the state of Missouri.
Originally financed with $256 million in revenue bonds that will cost those entities $720 million over 30 years, the Dome costs Missouri $12 million annually, and St. Louis and St. Louis County $6 million each annually, to retire the debt.
The Rams have until March 1 to accept or reject the CVC proposal, and until May 1 to make a counteroffer. The two sides would go into arbitration if a deal isn't struck by June 15. Without an agreement, the Rams would be free to relocate after March 1, 2015.
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Are Academic Support Centers Worth the Investment?
Details emerged this week on the University of Wisconsin’s “Athletic Village,” a three-story, $77 million annex to the north end of Camp Randall Stadium to be completed in three phases by 2014. The 38,000-square-foot academic and strength training center will house (among other things) offices, study rooms, an auditorium, a library and a computer lab. It’s a place, as the Wisconsin State Journal put it, “where student-athletes can study and train together.”
That’s a notion that gives Kutztown University professor Jason Lanter pause. As president of The Drake Group, a faculty-led watchdog organization focused on fostering academic integrity within college athletics, Lanter points to NCAA Bylaw 1.3.1, which states, “A basic purpose of the NCAA is to maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of the educational program and the athlete as an integral part of the student body.” Says Lanter, “I have to wonder how athletes are maintained in an educational program and as an integral part of the student body when many of their specific services — residence halls, workout centers, academic support centers — are provided for their use only. Many times, these academic support centers are not a part of the traditional academic corridor but separated in the athletic wing. So, how can athletes be an integral part of the educational opportunities and the student body when they are geographically isolated from the rest of campus?”
Construction of academic support centers for student-athletes has become standard procedure on campuses nationwide, and several projects have been introduced in recent weeks. On Jan. 24, the University of Nebraska at Omaha athletic department announced a lead gift toward an on-campus Academic Excellence Center. That same day, Lindenwood University in Missouri announced a $280,000 gift to help fund completion of a 43,000-square-foot student-athlete center, including an academic support center. Both schools cited their respective transitions to higher levels of NCAA competition for the upgrades.
“Why are these centers needed for transition to a new level of NCAA competition?” Lanter asks. “Was there something wrong with the academic services provided to the athletes at these colleges prior to this transition period? If not, then why is the change needed? It would seem to make more sense to pump the funding into these campus-wide academic support services if nothing was wrong.”
Lanter recognizes the role of such facilities as recruiting tools, a means to “show concern for the academic welfare of athletes.” But, he adds, “we have to wonder how much these athletic departments are truly vested in the educational opportunities for college athletes or simply focused on maintaining eligibility. Do these centers foster an atmosphere where academically underprepared college athletes struggle to maintain a proper balance between education and athletics?”
This issue is personal for Lanter, who first began to question the education student-athletes were receiving during his grad school days as a student advisor. “I do not know of any evidence of improved academic performance after the construction of such academic centers,” he says. “With that said, the annual APR [NCAA Academic Progress Rate] report typically highlights programs and universities that suffer from lack of funding for services like this, and these under-funded schools have argued that the construction of such centers, together with the APR, have further widened the gap between the haves and have-nots in intercollegiate athletics.”
“Is there specific evidence that a new recreation center or new university center improves student performance?” asks Joseph Luckey, director of athletic academic services at the University of Memphis and president of the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics. “We understand the recruiting nature of the athletic world, but that exists on campuses in general as new facilities are being built. Like facilities on campus, we can point to student recruiting, retention and engagement as direct evidence of the positives of the construction. To start, coaches may be able to recruit a better student and athlete due to the newer facility, which allows the overall academic performance of the student-athletes to increase. I see the construction of the new facilities as a statement that our profession has made a positive impact on campuses — we are providing quality services to our students and we need facilities created or improved in order to accommodate the increased programming. We have improved university retention and graduation rates.”
As one of the established “haves” in Lanter’s landscape, the University of Connecticut announced in January that it had received an anonymous donation toward a 70,000-square-foot UConn Basketball Student-Athlete Development Center. The facility, which will include areas for academic support among its practice gyms, locker rooms and coaches offices, is expected to cost $30 million, funded entirely through donations.
“Many times, funding comes from private donations or boosters that earmark the money specifically for athletics or a project of this nature,” Lanter says. “This occurs at times when many academic buildings on many campuses need upgrades and maintenance to remain fully functional for the entire campus, and not just an elite subpopulation of the campus."
Wisconsin undergraduates will no doubt be impressed one way or another when they pass the so-called Athletic Villiage on their way to Camp Randall's north end-zone student sections in coming years. Says Lanter, “It would be great if campus administrators would accept funding like this but include a clause that a majority of the funding would be earmarked for general academic renovations, so that the entire campus can benefit from the generosity of the donor.”
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Blog: Get Hearts Pumping on Valentine’s Day
Red and green? That's so six weeks ago. These days, the in colors are pink and white and red. Generally in the shape of a heart and wrapped around something chocolate.
With less than two weeks to go until Valentine's Day, the stores are pushing boxes of candy, coffee mugs filled with Red Hots and all kinds of sugary (and frankly saccharine) stuff. And of course, somewhere, there's bound to be a feature on Yahoo! News or some other online outlet about the best and worst things you can get a loved one for Valentine's Day.
Invariably, on the "worst gifts" list, along with the usual suspects (cleaning products, household appliances, sex toys), will be the words "anything fitness-related."
I'll admit to being eccentric in many respects, but a gift like a good pair of hiking shoes is going to make my heart beat a lot faster than it's going to if I'm unwrapping a pink stuffed I-Wuv-U bear holding a silk rose. And, being part of a community where that sort of thing (the hiking shoes, not the pink bear) is not just tolerated but actively encouraged, I am pretty sure Valentine's Day translates into an opportunity to get fit and have fun, as well as a good way to pump up some interest in fitness.
That's why I was particularly glad to go by a gym that was advertising a special Valentine's class featuring yoga you could do with a partner. The sign noted "Last year's class sold out! Reserve now!" Inspired, I started trolling the Internet and looking for other Valentine's Day tie-ins and promotions. In Minneapolis, I found a site for a Valentine's Day 5K that invites participants to "run with your sweetie or search for your soulmate." It further notes that the race is a good way "to get your heart pumping."
But it's nothing compared to what many tennis clubs are promoting. Let's just say the words "Love" and "Match" come into play a lot. Cardio Tennis is a biggie.
Two-fers are also a big deal. A bunch of ski resorts offer an evening of skiing on Valentine's Day (which falls on an unromantic Tuesday this year) with two-for-one lift tickets as well as other tie-ins (two-for-one concessions, lessons, rentals and so on).
Of course, you can also go the edgy route. In Illinois, there's a racquetball tournament known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, just guaranteed to provoke warm smooshy feelings. Anything heart-related is obviously a good tie-in. Look around a little and you can find Valentine's Day promotions for cardio kickboxing, hydro cardio and Valentine's Day cardio boot camp. And if you want to put some lust in the air, you can always Google up something my friend called me about while laughing hysterically: a Valentine's Day class in Cardio Striptease and Pole Dancing.
"Seriously," she told me. "It's being offered at the club right next to the building where I take my kids for day care. And they're advertising it as this full-body workout."
Perhaps there are some fitness-related gifts that can still get you in trouble, even when your Valentine is a fitness devotee.
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Thursday, February 02, 2012
The NBA’s All-Star Security Measures Provoke Outrage
Professional sports leagues have long argued that the economic activity that accrues from their franchises’ presence in communities justifies millions of dollars in public money to support teams with new stadiums, practice facilities and infrastructure improvements. Cities line up to host events such as the Super Bowl for the same reason, even though forecasts of economic bonanzas have repeatedly proved to be optimistic at best.
That will certainly be the case at the NBA’s All-Star Game, given that (as the Orlando Sentinel has reported) the city has given the league permission to erect an eight-foot, opaque fence in front of businesses along Church Street across from Amway Center for the entire week leading up to the Feb. 26 game. The gated barrier, which the league says is necessary for security purposes, will permit entry only to people holding tickets to the game and other events taking place over the three-day weekend All-Star gala.
This leaves the area’s businesses, most of which are owned by African-Americans, out of the economic-impact zone. (The sidewalk across the street will stay open, but that stretch of road will be closed to traffic for the week.) And as the paper noted, most shop owners had already endured slow business for more than two years during the arena construction and disappointing revenue figures since it opened in October 2010.
The merchants were initially offered two weeks of free rent, care of the city, but they say they want $3.5 million in compensation from the city and the league, and have begun lining up attorneys. After their initial complaints upon learning of the fence, they were given the option of being included within the cordoned-off section, but they turned it down because it would have meant that the general public would not have access to their shops.
While NBA spokesman Mike Bass called the security fence “one component of a large-scale safety and security plan” that includes ticketholders going through metal detectors as they arrive, Bass did not respond to reporter Sandra Pedicini’s inquiries regarding “what types of problems the fence is designed to prevent or why metal-detector screening couldn’t take place close to the arena.”
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Posted At
3:09 PM
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Fans Step Up to Cover Medical Bills for Skiing Legend
In January, Canadian champion skier Sarah Burke died after a training accident in Park City, Utah. Since her death, fans have raised more than $300,000 to cover the medical expenses incurred as a result of the accident, a bill that otherwise would have been the sole burden of her family, bringing to light the gaps in insurance coverage that athletes can potentially face.
"She was to freeskiing what Wayne Gretzky was to hockey or Michael Jordan was to basketball — the iconic face of a sport,” wrote Sportsnet reporter Dan Robson after Burke's death. "She built her world by conquering limits, both on the hill and off it."
The 29-year-old skier was a defending champion in the Winter X Games and a pioneer in her sport, women’s half-pipe, which involves performing tricks midair and scoring based on difficulty of tricks and form. The potential for risk is apparent, but Burke was performing a simple maneuver when she crashed and ruptured a vertebral artery.
As a Canadian citizen, Burke’s surgery and subsequent hospital care would have been fully covered by the country’s public health insurance. Even while traveling abroad, she was still covered — but only for the value that the services would have cost in Canada, where medical services are much more inexpensive than in the US and elsewhere in the world.
As an Olympic competitor, Burke also had $5 million in medical coverage through the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, but the policy only covered sanctioned events and training where coaches were present, not the privately sponsored event for which she was training.
"It’s a really good policy — one used by most athletic associations in Canada," Kelley Korbin, media relations manager for the Canadian Freestyle Association, told msnbc.com.
Costs of Burke’s medical care are estimated to be about $200,000, according to Burke's publicist. Through a fundraising page set up in Burke’s memory, fans have raised more than enough to cover the costs. The remainder will be used to set up a legacy fund in Burke’s name.
Burke’s death cast a shadow on this year’s Winter X Games, held a week after her death. A vigil was held in her honor, and her death was on the minds of all the competitors. To honor her memory, WinSport Canada announced The Sarah Burke Performance Award, which will be awarded to Canadian skiers who win an event at an international competition.
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Posted At
9:34 AM
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