High School AD Conference Covers Concussion Laws, Protocols

RIVERSIDE - The Citrus Belt Area Athletic Directors Association held its fourth annual meeting on Tuesday, and just as in the rest of the sports world, concussions was the primary topic discussed.

More than 50 athletic directors from 14 leagues in San Bernardino and Riverside counties attended the conference, which was held at the Alvord Unified School District Staff Development Center. CIF-Southern Section commissioner Rob Wigod also attended.

Other key points of discussion included the cost of bringing officials in for games, particularly the system of reimbursement for mileage incurred by officials, and improving coaches' use of MaxPreps and other online information systems.

"We're a huge geographical area, and it's a really good chance for us to come together and compare and talk practices," said Citrus Hill athletic director Rich Shearer, the president of the CBAADA. "It's part of what we do to make ourselves the best in the area. We're better at our jobs, we take better things back to our school sites and we make it better most importantly for our student-athletes."

The main event was an hourlong presentation made by Jim Clover and Jim Wynn from the Riverside SPORT Clinic on concussions. The proper procedures and state laws governing how athletic directors and other school employees should handle possible concussions sustained by student-athletes was the main topic. General information about concussions was presented as well.

"This is education for administrators to help educate the coaches, and then the coaches and administrators have to educate the parents and the kids," Clover said. "It's not one of those education deals that can stop. If the kid doesn't tell the coach or the coach doesn't respect what the kid is telling them, someone is going to get hurt, and we don't ever want to hurt anyone.

"There's no question awareness is rising, but the thing that kills me is I'll still get people that say concussions don't exist or that a person has to be knocked unconscious for it to be a concussion. That's pure ignorance, and you can't do that anymore."

In addition to the concussion presentation, which was the final event of the conference, athletic directors attended a presentation on new data and information systems used by CIF-SS for reporting scores and schedules. It was a discussion with CIF official liaison Lloyd Nixon on issues pertaining to game officials, and a presentation from the company O-Line Sports on building school athletic website pages.

"It's improvement in each of the areas in terms of our athletic practices for all the things that we do," Shearer said. "I think we want to move along technologically and I also think it's good professional development."