By Samantha Scarneo, MS, ATC, Director of Youth Sport Safety
Last week, KSI had the honor of hosting the second annual Youth Sport Safety Governing Bodies meeting with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, Jones & Bartlett Learning, and Kestrel, at the National Football League Headquarters, in New York, NY. The goal of this meeting was to improve health and safety standards at the youth sport level. In last years’ meeting the goal was to educate the youth sport governing bodies on top causes of sudden death in sport This years goal was to create a consensus document to serve as a best practices document for all governing bodies and its members to strive towards. This consensus document touches on the top causes of sudden death in sport and polices & procedures of how to improve these safety standards. The attendees of this years meeting included:
Michael Clayton – USA Wrestling
George Chiampas, DO – US Soccer
Elizabeth Chaffin, DPT, ATC and Alexis Colvin, MD– USTA
Lynn Moskovitz-Thompson – USA Gymnastics
Bruce Griffin, PhD – US Lacrosse
Kevin Margarucci, ATC – USA Hockey
Steve Alic – USA Football
Jack Ransone, Phd, ATC – USA Track and Field.
We also had the honor of having key representatives from the American Medical Society of Sports Medicine (Matthew Gammons, MD), National Athletic Trainers Association (Scott Sailor EdD, ATC, Tim Weston Med, ATC, AJ Duffy MS, ATC, PT, Rachael Oats CAE, Katie Scott, MS, ATC), American Academy of Pediatrics (Cynthia LaBella, MD) and Safe Kids Worldwide (Kate Carr, Ali Flury).
The meeting was moderated by some of the KSI staff (including Robert Huggins, PhD, ATC, Doug Casa, PhD, ATC, Rebecca Stearns, PhD, ATC, Samm Scarneo, MS, ATC, Yuri Hosokawa, MAT, ATC, Lesley Vandermark, MS, ATC, Luke Belval, BS, ATC, and Ryan Curtis, MS, ATC) and was largely discussion based to create a best practice consensus. The first day of the meeting focused on cardiac conditions, emergency action plans, and exertional heat stroke. The second day was moderated identical to the first and focused on head injuries, medical personnel and other conditions (asthma, anaphylaxis, and lightning).
One of the unique aspects of this meeting is that all of the governing bodies have strong and weak points in different areas. For example, one organization may have extraordinary policies in place for heat acclimatization yet may be very weak in an area of emergency action plans. However, despite the various levels of safety attained by each organization, all attendees had a strong will to improve standards across the board. Dr. Huggins called this meeting “one of the most important meetings that he has been to in his career.” We are hopeful that consensus document will provide a template for all leaders of youth organizations, and their members, to expand health and safety standards for the athletes.
“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”