Thursday, January 31, 2013
Virginia Tech Concussion Study Expands Beyond Football
Since 2003, researchers at the Virginia Tech — Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences have been compiling impact data from college football players using sensor-embedded helmets, resulting in a rating system for commercially developed football helmets. In 2011, the study was expanded to include youth football players, and researchers recently announced that it was expanding once more. New focus will be given to hockey, baseball, softball and lacrosse helmets, with the intent of establishing safety ratings by 2016, as well as updating the existing ratings for football helmets.
The expansion follows new research published in the January issue of Annals of Biomedical Engineering that allows for better prediction of sports-related concussions. The updated ratings for football helmets will take into account data related to linear and rotational accelerations starting in 2015.
"All head impacts result in both linear and rotational accelerations, and this publication provides the foundation for our research to address both accelerations relative to reducing the risk of concussion," said project director Stefan Duma. "Our goal with the five-year plan is to provide manufacturers with a schedule detailing when we will release helmet ratings for each sport."
Concussion research remains an ongoing effort by organizations nationwide. The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment announced on Thursday the funding of $855,657 in sports medicine and concussion research grants.
"Scientific research is essential to advancing the safety of athletes of all ages and effectively addressing the issue of sports concussions," said Mike Oliver, NOCSAE executive director. "The approved research grants will support some of the top scientists and researchers in the world, and will continue to inform and evolve NOCSAE athletic equipment standards."
The goals of concussion research are to better understand the causes of concussions and design equipment that reduces an athlete’s risk of concussion, but that’s only part of the issue, says Duma. "It is important to note that no helmet can prevent all concussions. The most effective strategies to reduce concussions in sports involve modifying league rules and player technique to limit exposure to head impacts."
|
Posted At
3:56 PM
•
Comments (3)
|
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Hot-Dog Injury Case Goes to Extra Innings
In the legal equivalent of a two-out, two-strike, bottom-of-the-ninth-inning homer, John Coomer, the spectator struck in the eye by a hot dog launched by the Kansas City Royals mascot, has been granted a new trial in the case.
In March 2011, Coomer was found 100 percent at fault by a jury that sided with the Royals and Byron Shores, who played the role of Sluggerrr from February 1996 to October 2009. Both had argued that Shores was adequately trained and that Coomer assumed the risk of injury when he sat six rows behind the third-base dugout.
After the verdict, Coomer’s motions for a new trial and a judgment notwithstanding the verdict were denied by the trial court. However, Coomer then argued before the Missouri Court of Appeals that, under the circumstances, the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the Royals’ defense of primary implied assumption of risk. He contended that primary implied assumption of risk was not a defense available to the Royals because a mascot throwing hot dogs directly at business invitees is not an inherent or unavoidable risk associated with the sport of baseball.
The appellate court agreed, reasoning that the primary implied assumption of risk defense necessarily involves a voluntary participation in an activity. The voluntary participation serves as consent to the known, inherent risks associated with the activity and removes any duty on the part of the defendant to protect the injured person from those harms. The appellate court further noted that the sorts of risks assumed do not include risks that are created by a defendant’s negligence. The risk of being hit in the face by a hot dog is not a well-known or incidental risk of attending a baseball game. Although the Hot Dog Toss was a customary activity at Royals games beginning in 2000, the “custom” did not mean a spectator like Coomer somehow consented to the risk of being hit by a promotional item. As such, unlike the risk of being struck by a baseball, Coomer did not assume the risk of being struck by a hot dog.
The trial court’s instructions to the jury were prejudicial, the appeals court ruled, because the primary implied assumption of risk defense was a complete and total bar to Coomer’s recovery. However, the court determined that at the new trial, the Royals will be entitled to a “comparative fault” instruction based on the Royals’ secondary implied assumption of risk defense, since that defense empowers a jury to assess the relative fault of the parties and decreases an injured party’s financial recovery in proportion to his or her culpability in the incident. The appellate court cited evidence that Coomer voluntarily chose to sit close to the action, knew about the hot dog toss promotion and looked away immediately prior to Sluggerrr’s hot dog throw. Therefore, the parties will have another chance at bat to persuade a jury who should be held responsible.
|
Posted At
1:57 PM
•
Comments (3)
|
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Chicago Public Schools Suspends Coaches, Sends Message
Chicago Public Schools has suspended two high school head basketball coaches for demonstrating unprofessional conduct in the wake of a post-game fight last week that ended with a student's murder outside the gymnasium. Robert Smith of Simeon Career Academy and Nick Irvin of Morgan Park High School will sit out four games each for behavior that CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said "shocked and appalled" her. (The terms of the suspension require the coaches to attend the games in a non-coaching capacity.)
According to CBS affiliate WBBM, the coaches broke up a fight that erupted in the handshake line after Simeon's 53-51 victory over Morgan Park at Chicago State University on Jan. 16, but then they both engaged in a shouting match. Outside, shortly after the incident, 17-year-old Tyrone Lawson was shot in the back and killed.
Michael McNabb, 32, and Stephen Gilbert, 29, were arrested and charged in the shooting, but prosecutors have not said whether they think the murder was related to the scuffle during the post-game handshake, according to DNAinfo.com/Chicago.
Byrd-Bennett, nevertheless, is standing firm, releasing a statement calling for an attitude change among the city's high school coaches. “Coaches in Chicago Public Schools must serve as mentors, instructors and role models for our students both on and off the court or field of competition,” she said in the statement. “The children under their charge take their cues from them on what is acceptable behavior and what is not. Knowing this, coaches must at all times conduct themselves in a professional and sportsmanlike manner. Through both words and actions, the boys basketball coaches of Morgan Park and Simeon high schools on Jan. 16 violated the code of conduct to which they all must subscribe as a basic responsibility of their positions. We have taken the proper disciplinary steps to address their actions.”
The Chicago Tribune reports that all CPS coaches are required to attend a meeting scheduled for early February, when behavior expectations will be discussed in more detail.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel also chimed in about the incident at an unrelated press conference this week. “I think all the adults that went to that game have a role to play in setting an example for our kids,” he said, when asked about the suspensions. “That includes the refs. That includes the parents in the bleachers, and it also includes the coaches. Players look to you. Kids going to the schools, as well as going to the games, look to you. And if you had any role or position in which you did not set an example, that's more than just unfortunate.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Simeon and Whitney M. Young Magnet
School — the two top-ranked high school teams in Illinois, according to
the latest AP rankings — will still tip-off on Saturday at Chicago State
in a match-up that will be televised by ESPNU. There had been concerns that the game would be moved or postponed.
The incident last week at Chicago State was not the first time violence has flared among fans of Simeon and Morgan Park. In September, a disturbance broke out in the stands at Gately Stadium during a football game between the two teams. That game was suspended and resumed later in front of an empty stadium.
|
Posted At
2:45 PM
•
Comments (2)
|
Maryville Announces a Groundbreaking Naming-Rights Deal
Naming rights are commonplace in academia to the point where institutions of higher learning from the Maricopa Community Colleges to the University of Virginia publish criteria for their administration in their policy manuals. Such deals typically involve facilities, but most universities’ policies make note both of facilities and of “academic entities” in their delineation of authority over naming rights, general guidelines, due diligence, duration and “changing circumstances” that could lead to a renaming, un-naming or addition of a second name.
The place you could go to learn about all the nuances of naming-rights deals? One of the 349 sport management programs at universities located all over the United States (the North American Society for Sport Management lists just 62 elsewhere in the world). And yet, amazingly, until Jan. 22 of this year not one of those 349 programs had ever sold their own naming rights. On Tuesday, Maryville University announced a deal with Rawlings Sporting Goods that created the Rawlings Sport Business Management Program, ushering in (perhaps) a new era.
Prior to the Rawlings deal, some of the largest and most influential sport management programs sold their naming rights, but to individuals rather than corporate entities. For example, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s program, the nation’s second oldest (it was founded in 1972), has been the Mark H. McCormack Department of Sport Management since the family of the late founder of IMG International, the world's largest sport management firm, donated his entire archival collection to the university. Sports agent David Falk’s $5 million donation to Syracuse University in 2008 launched the David B. Falk Center for Sport Management, which is now housed (after an additional $15 million pledge by Falk and his wife in 2011) under the umbrella of the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics — formerly the College of Human Ecology. (Falk and his wife are graduates of Syracuse, whereas McCormack did not attend UMass.)
As part of the Rawlings deal, the St. Louis, Mo.-based sporting goods firm will supply uniforms, apparel and equipment to Maryville’s athletics programs, provide scholarships, a graduate assistantship, internships and volunteer opportunities for Maryville students, and use interns and volunteers to conduct market research and to staff special events. Identified Rawlings employees will have opportunities to pursue an MBA at Maryville using tuition discounts, and Rawlings employees will have access to Maryville’s fitness center. Students will work with Rawlings executives on a variety of projects, and that access will “enhance student learning through real-world projects that Maryville will integrate into its curriculum,” according to a university press release.
Whether the deal represents the start of something big — whether there is enough corporate money and interest out there to rename the sport management programs at institutions as far-flung as Northcentral and East Stroudsburg universities — remains to be seen. As with Rawlings and Maryville, the experience of secondary schools that have been more active in selling their academic programs’ naming rights suggests that the interest will largely come from corporations, like Rawlings, that boast local ties to the schools.
Beginning four years ago, for example, Metropolitan Nashville (Tenn.) Public Schools restructured its high schools into what are called “career academies,” working with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce to steer students toward high-demand career tracks like information technology. Soon after the effort began, the district offered naming rights to its academic programs and one, Antioch High School, immediately sold the rights to its academy of business and finance to the Tennessee Credit Union for $150,000 over two years. The district inked its fifth naming sponsor last June, when Country Music Television Inc. agreed to provide $100,000 worth of in-kind contributions in the 2012-13 school year (and $50,000 worth of contributions afterward) to the academy of digital design and communication at McGavock High School.
Associate superintendent Jay Steele characterized the district’s naming-rights policies at the time in The Tennessean of Nashville as “tight guidelines that would align a targeted industry with a theme.” Jason Williams, assistant dean of Maryville’s Simon School of Business, the director of the Rawlings Sport Business Management Program and the initiator of the agreement, is clearly on the same page. “We know students and parents value a program that teaches practical industry skills,” he said Tuesday. “Our agreement with Rawlings will give our sport business management graduates those practical skills, setting them apart in a highly competitive industry.”
|
Posted At
7:37 AM
•
Comments (2)
|
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
H.S. Wrestler Fine After Being Hit by Falling Light
|
The annual "Madison Square Garden" wrestling tournament hosted by Madison High School in South Dakota was cut short this weekend after a lighting fixture fell from the rafters and directly onto one of the competitors.
Michael McComish, a senior at Madison High, was nearly a minute into his match when the lone spotlight used specifically for the tournament came crashing down onto his head. He was able to get up and immediately received medical attention. Cuts on his forehead required stitches, and while officials were concerned that the lights may have caused some burns, the only other injuries McComish suffered were a few scrapes on his knees. The wrestler later shared a picture and a tweet confirming he was okay.
The tournament featuring the spotlight has been held for 27 years, according to activities director Bud Postma, and will continue to be held in the school’s new gym, which will open soon. "[It] was indeed a scary situation for everyone involved,” Postma said in a statement. “We're thankful to report the student-athlete is recovering and back in school today."
Both McComish and his family were pleased with the school’s response to the incident, though McComish was disappointed that he was unable to finish the match. "The only thing that made me get upset was I didn't get to wrestle, because that was my one and only chance to wrestle that night and I didn't get to," he said.
|
Posted At
8:58 AM
•
Comments (0)
|
Monday, January 21, 2013
Member’s Back Injury Will Go Before Another Court
Dianne Layden, a registered nurse, had been a member of No Limits Fitness for nine months when she hired Angela Plante to provide personal training services. Plante, a certified personal trainer at the club, designed an exercise program in March 2007, and Layden performed the exercise program on her own for three months. At that point, having grown “tired of doing the same exercises,” Layden asked Plante to teach her a new program, advising the trainer that she had a history of back problems and a herniated disc. Plante instructed Layden during a single training session, during which Layden did not experience any discomfort, but she experienced mild back pain shortly afterwards and for the next day. In spite of that, Layden returned to the club two days later and repeated the program without supervision. She later acknowledged that her discomfort was apparent from the first squat, performed on a Smith machine, but she continued to do 14 more.
Should the personal trainer and fitness center owner be held liable in such a case? The Albany County Supreme Court said no, relying on the theory of assumption of risk and noting that Layden had signed a waiver releasing the club from liability for negligence.
However, in Layden v. Plante, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Department, declined (in a 3-2 decision) to apply the doctrine of assumption of risk, a natural defense under the circumstances. In many states, the doctrine generally provides that a person who voluntarily participates in recreational or athletic activities is deemed to consent to the commonly appreciated risks inherent in that activity. The court noted, however, that a participant does not assume the risk of injury resulting from a dangerous condition over and above the usual dangers inherent in the activity. Furthermore, the court held that the doctrine of assumption of risk must be “closely circumscribed” and limited to apply in the context of pursuits “both unusually risky and beneficial,” among other things.
In Layden, the court made clear that plaintiff’s experience as a weight lifter and her own testimony established that the defendants had met their initial burden on summary judgment to establish that Layden knew of the risks, appreciated their nature and voluntarily assumed them. However, the court held that issues remained as to whether the trainer unreasonably heightened the risks to which the client was exposed. For example, Layden submitted affidavits from two personal training experts who opined that the Smith squat — even when properly performed — is contraindicated for a person with a herniated disc because of its purported stress on the spinal column and lower back. Therefore, this exercise should not have been on Layden’s exercise program in the first place. Layden’s experts also averred that the trainer’s direction and instruction to the plaintiff to “stick her butt out” while performing the Smith squat was not consistent with the safe performance of the exercise (she should have been instructed to keep her back straight). Therefore, the court determined that a jury would need to resolve the question of whether the trainer’s direction to perform a Smith squat or to perform it with improper instructions (or both) unreasonably increased the risk of injury.
The court also weighed in on the release relied upon by No Limits Fitness, highlighting the importance of a clear, carefully drafted liability release. The court found that No Limits Fitness’ release was, in fact, limited and that it was unenforceable as a matter of law. Although the release did not purport to exempt the defendants from liability for their own negligence, the release was not precise about what conduct on the part of the defendants it did release. The wording of the release failed to make any reference to the fitness center or its employees, but instead simply enumerated activities on the plaintiff’s part that would not lead to liability from the use of the facility. The court held that this was not enough.
No Limits Fitness and Plante will have an opportunity at trial (the case was sent back to the lower court for further proceedings) to persuade a jury about their defenses. A jury will have the last word on whether the inclusion of the Smith squat exercise in Layden’s exercise program, or Plante’s allegedly improper instruction (or both) unreasonably increased the risk of injury to Layden. Jurors will also have to decide whether No Limits Fitness can be held responsible for Plante’s actions, depending on whether she is found to be an independent contractor rather than an employee of the fitness center.
|
Posted At
8:00 AM
•
Comments (3)
|
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Twinkie the Kid to Ride Again at California MiLB Stadium?
Minor league baseball teams have held a lot of wacky promotions over the years — including the Mahoning Valley Scrappers' liposuction giveaway and the brilliantly tasteless "Awful Night" that the Altoona Curve hosts every year. But the Inland Empire 66ers, a San Bernardino, Calif.-based Class A-Advanced affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, has come up with a truly sweet event to kick off the first home weekend of its 2013 schedule.
"Farewell to Twinkies Night" will take place Friday, April 5, and the first 999 fans in attendance at San Manuel Stadium will receive a free Twinkie — the world's most famous endangered snack item. (Irving, Texas-based Hostess Brands in November ceased production of Twinkies, which have been around since 1930, but at least three companies reportedly are among the leading candidates to acquire Hostess' snack-cake brands under the company's bankruptcy reorganization.)
A silent auction will be held for the 1000th Twinkie, with all proceeds going to charity. "These 999 Twinkies could very well be the last produced, and to be able to share them with our fans would be a real treat," 66ers general manager Joe Hudson said — melodramatically, we imagine — via a team press release.
But the Hostess homage won't end there. The 66ers asked actor Woody Harrelson, who starred as the Twinkie-obsessed Tallahassee in the 2009 zombie comedy, Zombieland, to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. And the team also has contacted Hostess about featuring the Twinkie the Kid mascot in a race against the team's own Bernie mascot.
|
Posted At
3:30 PM
•
Comments (0)
|
Connecticut Town Settles P.E. Drowning Case for $1.5M
The town of East Hartford, Conn., has agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement to the family of 15-year-old Marcum Asiamah, a physical education student who drowned in the local high school pool last year. According to The Hartford Courant, the town's insurer will pay $1 million and the town will pay a $500,000 deductible (which will reportedly be taken from the board of education's budget).
More than a year after the Jan. 11, 2012, incident, few details have emerged about Asiamah's death. In December, East Hartford Police Chief Mark Sirois said that criminal charges at one time were pending against a teacher but were never filed. Police closed the case, and the superintendent, school board, mayor and prosecutor’s office weren't talking — even when asked whether Asiamah’s death had changed the way East Hartford approaches swimming safety, citing the pending litigation by the boy’s family.
Asiamah's family, in a notice of intent to sue the town, contended that his injuries "were the result of negligence," according to The Courant, and town council chairman Richard Kehoe called the settlement "a fair resolution."
The incident at East Hartford High was one of two P.E.-related drowning deaths in Connecticut last year. On Nov. 21, 14-year-old Manchester High School freshman Malvrick Donkor — who, like Asiamah, was from Ghana — was found in the deep end of the school’s pool approximately 17 minutes after he disappeared from the water’s surface. According to published reports, a surveillance camera showed Donkor climbing down a ladder into the deep end. Students noticed Donkor’s body after class ended, and P.E. teacher Thayer Redman jumped in and pulled the boy out of the pool; Donkor later died at a local hospital. Redman was placed on administrative leave, the pool was closed for nearly a month and school officials have removed the P.E. swimming unit indefinitely.
In the wake of both tragedies, Connecticut State Rep. Stephen D. Dargan introduced legislation that would establish a uniform policy regarding school pool safety, "so as to reduce the loss of life or injury related to swimming at public schools." "We want our young children and high school students in the safest environments possible," the Democrat told The Courant. "They should not be dying in our pools."
An article in the February issue of AB will explore how the Connecticut tragedies have placed a renewed emphasis on pool staffing and safety. As Bob Pratt, a veteran lifeguard and lifeguard trainer who also is director of education for the Lansing, Mich.-based drowning-awareness organization Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, told AB: “It is not an uncommon occurrence to have drownings at school facilities. The unfortunate situation is that many school districts don’t believe that they need to have a dedicated lifeguard if the class teacher has also been certified. They think that person can hold a dual role, but that person really can’t.”
|
Posted At
2:09 PM
•
Comments (3)
|
Blog: The Tangled Webs of Lance Armstrong, Manti Te'o
The twisted tales of Lance Armstrong and Manti Te’o are now intertwined. Heroes to many, these athletes have lived lies before our eyes, and now those lies are unraveling within the same week.
Armstrong was adamant, even ruthless, in his denial that illegal means were ever employed to help propel the cyclist to seven Tour de France victories and an Olympic bronze medal. Te’o, who would break down on camera and before his Notre Dame football teammates when sharing the heartbreaking account of his girlfriend’s losing battle with leukemia, now plays the victim of “someone’s sick joke” (turns out Lennay Kekua never existed), and the university, as of this writing, has his back.
Like many following the latter storyline, first reported by Deadspin, I’m left to wonder if Te’o is that someone and the sick joke has been his — on us — all along. He’s at the very least a co-conspirator, right? There was said to be a face-to-face meeting with Kekua after a Notre Dame game at Stanford, but now he tells us the couple “met online” and that he believed he was in an “an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone.”
Armstrong peddled his denials for years. Perhaps his finally coming clean before the nation tonight during a prerecorded interview with Oprah Winfrey will inspire Te’o to come clean, too — before his once seemingly beautiful story of personal triumph over tragedy gets truly ugly.
|
Posted At
9:47 AM
•
Comments (0)
|
Armstrong Asked to Return Olympic Medal
Oprah’s interview confirming Lance Armstrong’s admission to doping hasn’t aired yet, but the International Olympic Committee has heard all it needs to hear. A spokesman for the committee announced today that the IOC has asked Armstrong to return his 2000 Olympic bronze medal, won two months after his second Tour de France title.
The decision is not a response to Armstrong’s anticipated confession, but the result of the IOC’s own investigation into Armstrong’s drug use following the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report released in November. The IOC discussed stripping Armstrong of his bronze medal in December, but decided to wait for official confirmation from the International Cycling Union that Armstrong was not appealing its October decision to strip him of his seven Tour de France titles. Armstrong had 21 days following that announcement to file an appeal.
"Having had confirmation from UCI that Armstrong has not appealed the decision to disqualify him from Sydney, we have written to him to ask for the return of the bronze medal," IOC spokesman Mark Adams told the Associated Press. "We have also written to USOC to inform them of the decision."
The IOC will not reallocate Armstrong's bronze medal, just as the ICU elected not to redistribute his seven Tour de France titles in light of widespread doping allegations.
|
Posted At
9:23 AM
•
Comments (0)
|
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
High School Student Dies While Trapped in Wrestling Mat
News out of southern Georgia this week suggests there is at least one more safety precaution to consider in high school gymnasiums: the storage of wrestling mats.
Law-enforcement authorities in Valdosta, Ga., have ruled out foul play in the death of a 17-year-old Lowndes High School sophomore, who apparently climbed on top of a vertically stored, rolled-up wrestling mat, fell into the center and became trapped. Kendrick Johnson's body was found upside down inside the roll Friday morning. Investigators speculate that blood flow to his head caused Johnson to pass out, which could have ultimately resulted in a stroke or heart failure. There were no signs of a struggle, and a toxicology report is pending.
According to news reports, Johnson — who played football and basketball, and also ran track — must have been trying to retrieve a shoe that fell into the rolled-up mat. "We feel like he was trying to reach a shoe that was down that hole," Lowndes County Sheriff Chris Prine told The Valdosta Daily Times. "But no one knows [why he reached into the mat] but him and the good Lord."
FoxNews.com reports that Prine and his team of investigators will continue interviewing students and friends to gain a better understanding of what happened. Anastasia Roe, Johnson's aunt, said that she and her family remain skeptical about law enforcement's findings. "First we heard he was on the floor near the mat, then we hear he was wrapped in the mat," she said. "It's suspicious."
"I want Lowndes High School to know they are being held accountable for my son's death," Kenneth Johnson, the boy's father, told the Daily Times. "He should not have come up missing and dead during school hours. My son is gone now, and we can't bring him back. But there are hundreds of other students on that campus, and I want better protection for them."
|
Posted At
3:30 PM
•
Comments (0)
|
Playgrounds Need More Elements of Risk, Experts Say
The thrill of the playground is gone. It hasn’t just been supplanted by the lure of high-tech gadgets and fast-paced video games, although those do take their share of the blame for the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic. The real problem, say playground researchers and child development professionals, is that building standards like those specified by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission limiting how fast or high a child can go and accessibility requirements dictating equipment placement have brought too much order to playgrounds, making them unappealing to children.
“Over the past 50 to 70 years, we have put in place a series of measures that were all designed to reduce child injury and death,” says Ian Proud, research manager at Lewisburg, Pa.-based Playworld Systems. “There was a real problem to which we have responded. We have succeeded in making playgrounds safe, but we need to understand there’s always something lost when something is achieved.”
The excitement of the playground diminished, children often opt for more interesting, less active activities, a trend that researchers think is a contributing factor in childhood obesity rates. More disconcerting, however, is the effect that these no-risk playgrounds have on children’s psychological development. Children are not given any opportunity to take risks, researchers say, and miss out on the experiences that inform their risk-taking abilities later in life.
Research by the Confederation of British Industry tied the absence of risk exposure in childhood to a lack of self-management, leadership and entrepreneurial skills, creating a generation of what the CBI referred to as “cotton wool kids.” Further studies have also shown that lack of exposure to risk can lead to anxiety issues, phobias and neuroticism.
In a paper published in Evolutionary Biology, Ellen Sandseter, a professor of psychology at Queen Maud University in Norway, identified six categories of risky play that contribute to a child’s development: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements, rough-and-tumble play, and wandering alone, away from adult supervision.
“Climbing equipment needs to be high enough, or else it will be too boring in the long run,” Sandseter later told The New York Times. “Children approach thrills and risks in a progressive manner, and very few children would try to climb to the highest point for the first time they climb. The best thing is to let children encounter these challenges from an early age, and they will then progressively learn to master them through their play over the years.”
Not that children won’t find their own way to create risk. Dr. Rebecca Sargisson, a psychology lecturer with the University of Waikato Tauranga in New Zealand, has found in her studies of playground behavior that children will repurpose playground equipment to create more excitement. “The perception that an activity is safe may lead a child to take greater risks,” Sargisson warned in a report to the Tauranga City Council on a planned playground installation. “Any further attempt to reduce injuries in playgrounds will likely be at the expense of challenging play opportunities, and risk-taking should be acknowledged as an important planned function of public playgrounds.”
Now, after years of attempting to weed any possibility of danger out of playground design, more playground manufacturers are devoting their attention to reintroducing that element of risk into equipment. “We in the industry need to differentiate between a hazard and a risk,” says Proud. “A hazard, for example, would be a platform without rails built at a height that might cause injury, versus a balance beam a foot off the ground where there’s still a sense of losing balance, falling — a perceived risk.”
There has also been a push to include more natural elements in playground design to encourage more free play, which is believed to be vital to the development of a child’s creativity and self-worth. A study conducted by the University of Tennessee’s Department of Kinesiology, Recreation and Sport Studies, which concluded this past fall, examined the differences in behavior of children on both traditional and natural playgrounds. Elements of traditional playgrounds such as swings and slides have a prescribed method of use, but natural elements, say researchers, allow a child to develop their own way of playing.
Playground manufacturers today are faced with the challenge to find a balance between the litigation and helicopter parents that dominate today’s society and the children for whom their equipment is designed. “The age at which a child uses a playground seems to be decreasing,” says Proud. “The question we have in front of us is, ‘How do we retain a child, keep that bond moving up?’ We are trying to keep playgrounds relevant.”
|
Posted At
8:12 AM
•
Comments (6)
|
Monday, January 14, 2013
Blog: Spring Training Is Not Just for Baseball Anymore
February is kind of a black hole, fitness-wise. Here in Maryland, at least, people tend to stay inside and hibernate, and not work out. February is when New Year's resolutions run out of gas and motivation starts to wear thin. Add in the fact that the stores are marketing Valentine's candy like crazy, and you pretty much have all the ingredients for a seasonal flatline at your facility. Unless, of course, you find a way to hook people's interest.
Our local sports park has found that hook, I think. The other day, I saw a flyer from there, advertising the availability of batting cages. The ad encouraged children and adults to sharpen their skills for spring baseball and softball tryouts. The sports park would be open, it noted, on weekends throughout February.
That’s a great idea — and it follows the blueprint for tapping into the market of inactive kids and adults, by tying fitness to a specific event, like tryouts for Little League. Here are some other ways facilities in my region are marketing themselves right now:
• Pre-spring-break beach body boot camp. This probably needs no explanation; caters to the college crowd
• Tune-up for spring lacrosse season. It's offered by a local college sports program and is marketed to middle and high school students
• Bride-to-be boot camp. Let's face it, with the proliferation of all those TV shows about the perfect wedding and the perfect dress, this one shouldn't come as any surprise
• First-time triathlon training programs. These include workouts in running, swimming and cycling, and also strength and weight training designed to build endurance and overall fitness
• Stroke clinics and swim training programs. Meant for lifeguard hopefuls
• Cardio Tennis clinics. These are designed to get people in shape for local league play (or school tennis team play)
• Get ready for golf season clinics. Includes swing tips as well as overall fitness workouts
All of these, and more, I am certain, fall under the heading of spring training. Apparently, it's not just for baseball anymore. It's a great way to bring in some extra business at a quiet time in your facility. Just as important, it can help keep people motivated to continue to pursue their fitness goals.
|
Posted At
8:15 AM
•
Comments (0)
|
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Academics Ponder the Rigors of College Basketball
The 2012 Adjusted Graduation Gap Report for NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball, released Thursday by the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina, indicates the overall AGG between NCAA D-I men’s basketball players and the general full-time male student body is once again sizable. And while the AGG for women is only half as large, the gap is roughly the same as last year and slightly larger than in 2010, the inaugural year of the study.
CSRI director Richard Southall developed the AGG to compare the graduation rates of athletes against those of other full-time students in the interest of painting a more accurate portrait of student-athlete academic advancement in the face of the NCAA’s graduation success assessments, which factor in part-time members of the general student body.
The percentage of Division I men’s basketball players who graduate is 20 points behind the full-time student body at large, according to the latest CSRI study. In major D-I conferences, the gap is 30.1 percentage points, varying less than 3 points since 2010. Women’s basketball players, meanwhile, are graduating at a rate 9.2 percentage points behind their non-athlete cohorts, a percentage that has not varied more than half a point in the three years of the study.
The AGG in men’s basketball is greater than the 17-point AGG uncovered in the CSRI’s most recent Football Bowl Subdivision analysis, leading Southall and his colleagues to ponder the academic challenges unique to basketball players. “Could athletes’ arduous practice and travel schedules impact their opportunity to study and graduate? It would not be surprising, since Division I basketball schedules are travel-intensive and often require extensive missed class time,” Southall says.
Adds study co-author Mark Nagel, “The college basketball season stretches over two semesters, which is potentially problematic with regards to a basketball player obtaining a meaningful education and graduating at rates comparable to other full-time students. These athletes are asked to work extensively at their sport. In addition to the physical demands, the travel and missed class time that NCAA D-I basketball players — both men and women — must endure is bound to negatively affect many of the players’ educational pursuits and their graduation rates.”
The AGG results raise several questions for NCAA and university administrators, outlined in a CSRI press release:
• Do these basketball entertainers, who work nights and weekends to fill arenas and attract media consumers, have the interest, abilities, and – most importantly – time to also be full-time college students?
• Are these athletes afforded less of an educational opportunity than other full-time students?
• What policy changes at the NCAA, conference or university level would help close these large and growing gaps?
“Multimillion-dollar television contracts, which form the backbone of this entertainment industry, are negotiated by networks, athletic departments and conferences with little or no regard for players’ academic workloads. A player’s opportunity to be educated is not a primary consideration for the other college sport stakeholders,” Southall says. “Those responsible should advocate for meaningful and realistically enforceable policies to limit the time athletes are required to devote to their athletic avocation. Since athletes cannot negotiate the terms of their de facto employment, it is up to university administrators and faculty to advocate for such policies and their strong enforcement. If an education is the quid pro quo within the collegiate model, then any barriers that impede athletes’ equal access to a meaningful education need to be addressed.”
|
Posted At
9:10 PM
•
Comments (3)
|
Making Exercise a Medical Issue
Doctors are where the sick go to get medicine; gyms are where the healthy go to get exercise. At least that’s how it used to work. Doctors and insurance companies are leading a growing movement to ask about exercise during medical appointments and prescribe exercise in place of medicine, where appropriate.
Nonprofit health insurer Kaiser Permanente began asking its member physicians to record exercise information in Southern California in 2008 and has since expanded to include other doctors in its network, and other insurance networks across the country are adopting similar programs. Such programs are one of the goals of Exercise Is Medicine™, an initiative launched by the American College of Sports Medicine in partnership with the American Medical Association in 2007 with the overall aim of making exercise a standard part of medical care. “There is no better indicator of a person’s health and longevity than the minutes per week of activity a patient engages in,” says Robert E. Sallis, chairman of EIM and a doctor in the Kaiser network. “When incorporated in a healthcare setting, the exercise vital sign can be an important tool for prevention and management of disease.”
Now, along with a check of their blood pressure, temperature and pulse, patients are also asked about their exercise habits, which are recorded during exams along with other stats. Doctors can take that information into account when deciding to prescribe medications, recommending exercise for high blood pressure before writing a prescription, for example.
It should be common sense, but only one-third of respondents in last year’s National Health Interview Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said their doctor asked about their exercise habits. Maybe doctors are afraid of the answers. Results from a survey of the first year of Kaiser’s Southern California initiative published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that more than a third of patients never exercised. While the findings were worse than national statistics, the study’s authors think it may be because patients are more honest with their doctor that with surveyors.
Adding exercise to the list of important vital signs also gives it more credence as a medical issue, pushing more patients to take exercise more seriously as a factor in improving their health. Moreover, bringing up the subject during medical appointments opens the door to better education on the health consequences of an inactive lifestyle.
Says Sallis, “All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, ‘Hey, good job,’ or ‘I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day.’ ”
|
Posted At
2:58 PM
•
Comments (0)
|
HOF Ballots (the Released Ones, Anyway) by the Numbers
Seems everyone has an opinion about Wednesday’s National Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, and if you’re Goose Gossage, the lone 2008 inductee, you have several.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has posted the ballots of the 114 BWAA members willing to release their votes, and the numbers are just as interesting as the arguments for or against allowing the steroid era’s poster children admission into the most prestigious of all halls of fame.
There were nearly as many writers in this subset of voters (nearly 600 BWAA members voted overall) comfortable showing their support for the first-ballot inductions of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens as there were those content to reveal their desire to shut them out, at least for now. The 54 writers who went public with their vote for Bonds invariably voted for Clemens, too. Meanwhile, Mark McGwire again edged his one-time single-season home run rival Sammy Sosa — this time 18 votes to 17 among the BWAA’s unabashed. Raphael Palmeiro got a mere dozen.
Meanwhile, Tim Raines, who once confessed to sliding into bases head first to preserve the cocaine he stashed in a vile in the back pocket of his uniform pants (and snorted between innings), easily surpassed all of his PED-affiliated ballot contemporaries, earning 74 votes among the 114 voters who went public. However, his 52 percent of the total BWAA vote in his sixth year of eligibility was still well shy of the 75 percent needed for induction.
|
Posted At
9:26 AM
•
Comments (0)
|
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Lawsuit Seen as Embarrassing, Merited, Political Football
Reaction to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett’s announcement Wednesday that he intends to sue the NCAA over its response to the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State came with swiftness reminiscent of NCAA’s original actions.
Corbett’s 43-page complaint contends that the NCAA’s motives in leveling harsh sanctions against PSU, which include years of football scholarship losses and bowl bans, are to “gain leverage in the court of public opinion, boost the reputation and power of the NCAA’s president, enhance the competitive position of certain NCAA members, and weaken a fellow competitor.”
Penn State, which counts Corbett and five gubernatorial appointees among its board of trustees, issued a statement Wednesday that read “Penn State is not a party to the lawsuit and has not been involved in its preparation or filing.” It goes on to quote university officials as saying, “The University is committed to full compliance with the Consent Decree, the Athletics Integrity Agreement and, as appropriate, the implementation of the Freeh report recommendations. We look forward to continuing to work with Sen. George Mitchell as the athletic integrity monitor for complete fulfillment of the Athletics Integrity Agreement.” [The AIA, the terms of which PSU agreed to with the NCAA and the Big Ten Conference in late August, “provides for the appointment of an independent, third-party monitor to oversee the university's compliance and the systems, processes and procedures in place to comply with the NCAA constitution, bylaws, rules and regulations, as well as the Big Ten's rules and regulations,” according to a PSU statement issued at the time.]
The NCAA issued its own statement Wednesday, quoting the association’s executive vice president and general counsel, Donald Remy: “We are disappointed by the Governor’s action [Wednesday]. Not only does this forthcoming lawsuit appear to be without merit, it is an affront to all of the victims in this tragedy — lives that were destroyed by the criminal actions of Jerry Sandusky. While the innocence that was stolen can never be restored, Penn State has accepted the consequences for its role and the role of its employees and is moving forward. The announcement by the Governor is a setback to the University’s efforts.”
USA Today’s Christine Brennan considers Corbett’s actions to be not only be a setback to Penn State, but the most embarrassing day of all in an embarrassing 14 months for the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Wrote Brennan late last night, “Corbett and any other state leader who participated in what at times sounded like the pleadings of the paranoid Wednesday morning proved once and for all that their stunning obsession with Penn State football – an obsession that led to the Penn State cover-up that led to more young boys being raped by Sandusky -- still controls the state.”
Associated Press columnist Jim Litke, meanwhile, quoted an unnamed legal expert who says Corbett’s antitrust claims against the NCAA have merit. No one is in favor of abusing children, Litke wrote. “But determining the punishment for covering up an actual crime — for what a few men in high places at Penn State did, instead of what they should have done — is still a matter for the courts, not the NCAA. That's where the damages will be decided going forward, and where they had been until the NCAA took a whack.”
As tough as Corbett’s claims of NCAA overreach are to prove, Litke continued, “the commonwealth’s lawyers are on the right track. Most of [NCAA president Mark] Emmert’s previous stabs at reforming the problems he can do something about — Google ‘Ohio State and coach Jim Tressel’ or ‘Auburn and quarterback Cam Newton’ or ‘Miami and agent Nevin Shapiro’ — have been roundly panned. Maybe, like NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in the ‘Bountygate’ mess, he couldn't resist a slam-dunk opportunity to look strong. And maybe a few others on the executive committee that rubber-stamped those unprecedented penalties didn't mind seeing Penn State being humbled and weakened. Added up, that looks plausibly enough like a rush to judgment.”
Litke then concluded, “It should be comforting to anyone who wants to see justice done that the matter is in the hands of a real court, instead of the kangaroo court that Emmert and his crew convened at their headquarters in Indianapolis.”
Writing for Sports Illustrated, Michael McCann, director of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School, made clear that the NCAA’s actions sprung from unprecedented circumstances and called the sports nexus between the association and its punishment of Penn State “dubious.” However, the NCAA can attack the lawsuit on several grounds, including going after Corbett himself for his inaction in prosecuting Sandusky as Pennsylvania’s attorney general from 2005 to 2011. “The NCAA could maintain Corbett's own behavior contributed to the injury for which he now seeks redress,” wrote McCann.
One Corbett opponent has already gone on the attack. While hoping that the suit ultimately has merit, John Hanger, a Democrat who intends to run for governor in the 2014 election, questioned why Corbett filed the suit without first consulting incoming attorney general Kathleen Kane. Corbett will not be able to undo the damage he’s done to Penn State, “by his handling of the Sandusky matter, by his budget cuts and by his poor service on the Penn State Board of Trustees,” said Hanger, adding, “A governor facing re-election and a properly enraged Penn State fan base probably has one or two thoughts go through his mind when thinking through this lawsuit.”
But what do those representing Sandusky’s victim’s make of this? At least one victim’s attorney called Corbett’s lawsuit “way off base” and “heading nowhere fast.” In an e-mail to USA Today, Slade McLaughlin, who represents Aaron Fisher (originally referred to as Victim No. 1 during Sandusky’s trial), wrote, “Frankly, I don’t see how Corbett has standing to file such a lawsuit when Penn State has already agreed to accept the sanctions and also agreed not to sue. I'd be more than a little surprised if the incoming attorney general, Kathleen Kane, will support this filing when she is sworn in on Jan. 15.”
|
Posted At
9:53 AM
•
Comments (3)
|
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Barclays Center's Bolts Too Weak for Exterior Structure
Is Barclays Center, which opened to much fanfare as the new home of the Brooklyn Nets in late September, already becoming as weathered as its swooping rustic steel exterior suggests?
The New York Times reports that ironworkers have replaced "hundreds of bolts" that anchor the facility's 12,000 steel panels to the building's structure after engineers discovered that incorrect bolts had been used. Turns out the fabricator of the bolts shipped 5/8-inch bolts that are half as strong as the ones specified by building designers.
It's worth noting that this is far from the first challenge that has faced the arena since its very early days.
According to Charles V. Bagli's story:
The incorrect bolts were discovered only a month before the Barclays Center was scheduled to open on Sept. 28. The arena ultimately opened on time and it survived Hurricane Sandy’s winds a month later.
After examining every joint, engineers determined that only 8 percent [that's 1,768] of the 23,351 weaker bolts needed to be replaced.
But the issue has led to questions about communications between regulators and the arena’s developer, Forest City Ratner. The New York City Buildings Department said its inspectors had not been told about the problem with the bolts.
"The department was not made aware of this issue," said Anthony Sclafani, a Buildings Department spokesman. “We would expect to be notified in a case like this.”
“Our building is successful because it creates a proper front door for the project and a dramatic entrance that arenas generally don’t have, sitting in the middle of a suburban parking lot,” Robert Sana, executive vice president for construction at Forest City Ratner, told The Times, adding that such issues as the use of incorrect bolts are not unusual in a major construction project — especially one with highly customized architecture.
|
Posted At
2:43 PM
•
Comments (0)
|
