Sports Safety IQ

Lori Crispo appears on "One on One" with Steve Adubato

Please watch my interview with Steve Adubato on youth sports safety, as part of "One on One's" Youth Sports Education series.

This video is provided courtesy of Caucus Educational Corp. www.CaucusNJ.org.

 

Click here to watch One on One interview.

 

Girl Athletes, Sports Injuries and Quality Coaches

As a follow up to last week's post, I was just reading an article in the Asheville Citizen Times, "Programs aim to help female athletes lower risk of sports injuries," and it reminded me of the additional risk girls and female athletes face with regard to knee injuries.  ACL injuries -- damage to the anterior cruciate ligament that stabilizes the knee -- are 4 to 6 times more common in female athletes than males, according to this article.

The main reason for ACL injuries in females is structural: wider hips means that knees turn in more, which causes problems when pivoting or jumping in sports like soccer, lacrosse or basketball. Hormones are also thought to play a role in the predominance of ACL injuries to girls, as well as lack of development of the supporting muscles, especially hamstrings.

Girls' Sports are Tough ...

                                               ... And girl athletes are tougher. But do they need to be? My head was still reeling from the article in the NY Times that talked about girls being more vulnerable to concussions than boys (NY Times, Oct 2nd, 2007), when I overheard the following story at my daughter's soccer game.

Turns out one of the team parents took their older daughter to the ER at Morristown Memorial Hospital after she blew out her knee during a soccer game. When they arrived at the hospital, the waiting room was filled with 25 kids in soccer uniforms, about 22 of whom were girls, according to the mom. When it was their turn to see the doctor, the mom told the doctor she couldn't believe how crowded the waiting room was with all the soccer injuries. The doctor's response? "This is just a typical Saturday afternoon -- overflowing with girls with concussions, knee and ankle injuries."

Parents, if you think your daughters need to be playing "this tough," think again. Young athletes, whether boys or girls, do not need to get hurt in youth sports. This is one of those gaps in common sense: parents believe that getting injured is all part of the sports experience, when in reality, 90% of injuries to kids playing sports are preventable.

More Sex Abuse in Sports

It's hard to believe, but the stories of players abused by coaches  in youth sports continue to flood the news lately. Sadly enough, these are very real stories happening to kids who are passionate about sports, living in communities like ours. These sexual predators could be living in our neighborhood, coaching our kids. Yes, the threat is real ~ but no one wants to think about it because it's just too scary.

Here are some of the latest offenders:

• A Gulf Breeze, Florida basketball and softball coach was arrested upon his arrival in Michigan,  where he believed he was going to have sex with a 5 year old girl. The coach, 53 year old Roy Atchison, had been chatting on line for two weeks with a detective posing as the girl's mother. After one failed suicide attempt in prison, the coach succeeded in killing himself two weeks later. More here...

Coach as Predator

What if these were your children?

• 13 & 14-year old boys on an elite travel team went to Amsterdam for a tournament. The coaches were accused of inappropriately touching the boys and taking them to have sex with prostitutes in the red light district. Not long after allegations surfaced from this incident and charges were filed against the coaches, the head coach was found dead of an apparent suicide.
• A 15-year old girl went to an out-of-state tournament with her soccer team. Her 42-year old coach was convicted of getting her intoxicated and sexually assaulting her in his hotel room. He served 3 and 1/2 years in prison and is now a registered sex offender.