After playing Volleyball my freshman year at my high school as well as being involved in athletic training my senior year and having friends that are involved in many sports across-the-board, I’ve had the opportunity to see the safety and protection that goes into each sport to make sure that the athletes are safe at all times at Oviedo High School. However, even with some precautions taken concussions still happen fairly often. Most commonly seen in contact sports compared to the amount see in non-contact sports. There still are some cases where concussions are found in non-contact sports because of impact on the body that can occur without one on one contact.
I think that for as common as concussions occur and other athletes hear about them happening to teammates and friends, there isn’t enough information taught about them. Many people know what a concussion is but not how it works, how it can affect your body, or the extend of the toll it can take. I think that we should educate the athletes on the damage and effects of having a concussion or too many concussions during a sports career and how to prevent them as much as possible. At my high school the athletic department requires us to take a concussion baseline test at the beginning of our sport season, that way if there is even a slight chance that we could have a concussion we are able to take the concussion test again. They compare this result to that of our baseline test and from there determine what the next step is whether we are concussion free or we need to go see a doctor. I believe that having this system in place allows our athletes through the school to have a better understanding of the mental state we are at as individual without injury or trauma.
I think to help prevent concussions in high school athletics, my idea is to have more newer advanced safety equipment for sports that have physical contact with another athlete. Sports like football, wrestling, lacrosse, and soccer should have more equipment or new regulations for these high school sports to protect the safety of the players. However, for the sports that don’t have physical contact with another team it’s harder to have safety equipment when they don’t wear safety gear already and make rules to help protect them is more challenging than people think. I believe the best route with sports like volleyball, baseball, and tennis is to implement new rules that help keep the players safe but still keep the integrity of the game intact. Too many concussions you will be forced to end your career because of all the head trauma, I have seen many athletes come to the situation where they are forced to stop playing. Although, not all schools have a set number of concussions that can occur before you become indelible for an athletic team. This should be a standard number set by the board of doctors that way if an athlete continues to get concussion, they are pulled from the sport before they can seriously hurt their bodies.
