Mark Hyman's Blog, page 7

Take the "Business of Youth Sports" survey

For my next book, I'm asking for help from sports parents.

The book will deal with the business of youth sports and I'm seeking stories about how - and how much - money families are spending to keep their kids on teams, in uniforms, with private coaches and a lot more.

I've worked up a brief survey of 10 questions. The last question invites you to share with me stories about money you've spent (or saved) in youth sports. That could be why you paid $250 for a child's baseball bat instead of $39.99, the most expensive travel-team fee you've ever absorbed or whatever comes to mind.

The Positive Coaching Alliance included the survey in its weekly "Connector" email yesterday and the response from that group has been terrific. If you'd like to participate, click the link below.

Thanks, Mark

Click here to take survey

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Clergy chooses prayer over travel tournaments

Newsday recently asked clergy at several Long Island houses of worship how they would counsel parents whose kids have sports activities on the Sabbath.
Jimmy Jack, senior pastor, Freedom Chapel International Worship Center, Amityville:

"When after-school and curricular activities conflict with our Sunday church service, we challenge our families to balance their school activities to be the exception of the rule, not the norm."

The Rev. Peter F. Casparian, Christ Church, Oyster Bay:

Our kids are so overscheduled that a Sabbath Sunday without sports and other youth activities would seem to be a break...
I don't think that anyone is going back to the days depicted in the 1981 Academy Award-winning movie "Chariots of Fire," where the evangelical Christian athlete refused to run an Olympic race on the Sabbath.

Rabbi Ian Jacknis, South Huntington Jewish Center, Melville:

If it was me as a parent, my kids just couldn't go to a lot of things they had to go to. It is hard when you're a minority and want the majority to be understanding. The Sabbath is what it is. The holiday is what it is.

Here and there, sports parents are drawing the line on Sunday sports participation, though perhaps not always for religious reasons. Some are aligned with Taking Back Sundays an intriguing program based in Minnesota. Parents behind this effort take a pledge that Sundays will be off-limits for all organized sports. No travel games, AAU shoot-arounds, out-of-town tournaments and all the rest. These are principled folks. And, for now, at least, small in number.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Little League Series voice ought to know better

Anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are among the most destructive forces in sports today from the professionals ranks all the way down to youth leagues. So the comments this week of Brent Musburger were quite puzzling.

Speaking to a journalism class at the University of Montana, Musburger offered the following observations:

-Steroids shouldn't necessarily be banned for professional athletes. "I think under the proper care and doctor's advice, they could be used at the professional level."

-Journalists covering the steroid issue are largely uninformed. "I honestly have thought that the journalism youngsters out there covering sports got too deeply involved in something they didn't know too much about."

-It's premature to judge whether steroids pose a health risk to athletes. "I've had somebody say that, you know, steroids should be banned because they're not healthy for you. Let's go find out. What do the doctors actually think about anabolic steroids and the use by athletes? Don't have a preconceived notion that this is right or this is wrong."

Musburger was given an opportunity to back away from these statements the next day. Instead, through a publicist at ESPN, Musburger told the Associated Press that he stood by his comments and that the issue of steroids "belongs in the hands of doctors and not in the hands of a journalist."

The journalist seemingly most out of touch on this issue is Musburger. As Gary Wadler, who leads the committee that determines the banned-substances list for the World Anti-Doping Agency, told ESPN (Musburger's employer, by the way.)

"He's categorically wrong, and if he'd like to spend a day in my office, I can show him voluminous literature going back decades about the adverse effects of steroids. They have a legitimate role in medicine that's clearly defined. But if it's abused, it can have serious consequences."

Among Musburger's roles at ESPN (and ABC) is serving as lead broadcaster at the Little League World Series. He has been a fixture in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, site of the tournament, for many years.

There's no attempt here to say that Musburger was preaching steroid use among youth athletes. Of course he wasn't. Still a person whose name and voice are so closely associated with the most-watched youth sports event in the world ought to use better judgment. Stick to what you know, Brent. It isn't medicine and it isn't responsible journalism either.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Study: Brain impairment in high school football

Just a matter of time before high school football players were diagnosed with the same sort of brain injuries discovered in college and pro athletes, I wrote this morning.

Looks like that prediction was a day late.

From today's Chicago Tribune:

Of 21 high school players monitored for a full season by a team of researchers from Purdue University, four players who were never diagnosed with concussions were found to have suffered brain impairment that was at least as bad as that of other players who had been deemed concussed and removed from play.

"They're not exhibiting any outward sign and they're continuing to play," said Thomas Talavage, an associate professor at the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue and the lead researcher on the study. "The cognitive impairment that we observed with them is actually worse than the one observed with the concussed players."

The report, published in the latest edition of the Journal of Neurotrauma, found that some players received more than 1,800 hits to the head during practices and games, some with a force 20 times greater than what a person would feel while riding a roller coaster.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Rethinking youth football and risks of head trauma

Last week, we raised the question: Is football too dangerous for kids? Just so inherently violent that, before a certain age, say 13, the simple act of participation places kids at an unacceptably high risk of serious injury? For those of us persuaded that it's a question worth raising, here's Exhibit A.

So far, research has linked head trauma resulting in permanent brain injury to football players as early as the college ranks. Last month, the New York Times reported on the case of Owen Thomas, captain of the football squad at the University of Pennsylvania.

Thomas, an outwardly happy student and accomplished player, hanged himself after what the Times story described as "a sudden and uncharacteristic emotional collapse." Thomas was 21, the youngest player yet discovered with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease thought to affect moods and impulse control.

Is there any doubt that a high school player soon will be diagnosed with C.T.E?

Banning youth football may not be the answer. But the response has to be very bold. The best suggestion I've heard so far comes from Chris Nowinski, a former Harvard defensive tackle and co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine.

Last week, Nowinski wrote a piece in the Times that included this novel idea:

Football needs "hit counts" like youth baseball has "pitch counts." In baseball, all kids are subject to restrictions because some may suffer cumulative injuries to their elbows. Yet in football we've never thought the brain, which is more important than the elbow, could be subject to the same kind of cumulative injury. That is insanity.

I imagine there will be lots of comment about how difficult it would be to monitor hits and enforce a "hit count." For years, youth baseball coaches said the same thing about pitch counts, which are now uncontroversial and common.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Youth league president has an unusual day job

A dedicated volunteer for a youth sports association in Keller, Texas has an unusual day job. Should he be disqualified from serving as the organization's president? One parent thinks so. Interesting issue and one that few leagues have had to navigate.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Youth league president has unusual day job

A dedicated volunteer for a youth sports association in Keller, Texas has an unusual day job. Should he be disqualified from serving as the organization's president? One parent thinks so. Interesting issue and one that I have not heard before.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

Least Essential Youth Sports Products of 2010

We don't make these up. We couldn't.

Submit your one-minute youth sports video. For $49.99, a professional sports announcer will provide a play-by-play call. Prefer a true major-league voice (such as the broadcaster of the NBA Golden State Warriors)? Enclose an additional $100.

I particularly enjoyed the whimsical reference to the tyke receiver who broke his finger "just like his brother did two weeks earlier."

Makes an excellent stocking stuffer.

Premium Demo featuring the voice of Greg Papa - Julian "Jellybean" Havens, Seattle, WA from Joshua Beil on Vimeo.

This post originally published at http://www.youthsportsparents.blogspo...

In Sioux Falls, high school sports for 7th graders

Speaking of terrible ideas, the Sioux Falls, South Dakota public schools may soon allow seventh and eighth graders to jump the line and compete in high school sports. This would apply in six sports in all: wrestling, tennis, golf, gymnastics, cross country and track and field.

Under the proposal, parents would have to sign a waiver testifying that their child is ready "academically, socially and emotionally." In other words, every child will be ready.

The most-cited reason in support of this ch...

Is football too violent for kids? If it is, then what?

The scrutiny over youth sports concussion seems to get more intense by the day. Last week the New York Times ran four articles - pieces on concussions in youth basketball (we also blogged on this), a suspected link between the suicide of a college football player and years of head trauma, a NFL middle linebacker who was permitted to wobble back into a game despite having taken a major blow to the noggin and renewed speculation that head trauma occurs routinely (and is under-diagnosed routinel...