How Notre Dame Football Has Used The FMS

The FMS has long been used in American football. Whether at the NFL Combine or among medical and athletic training staff, the majority of NFL players are evaluated using the FMS. Obviously, the application of the FMS isn't limited to the professional level. Numerous college programs use the FMS to learn more about the physical capabilities of their athletes and build more efficient, tailored training programs. One of those programs is the powerhouse in South Bend, Indiana: The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Head coach Brian Kelly recently discussed their use of the FMS at a preseason press conference:

"There's no injury prevention, but there are ways to cut back and to continue to develop your players, to keep them away from those potential injuries. That has been a big focus of mine this year, whether it be through functional movement screening, whether it be through GPS, whether it be through scan testing the retinas for concussion testing."

For a number of reasons, college football might actually be a more necessary application of movement screening than the NFL.

For one, the ratio of roster to staff is significantly larger in the college ranks. After final cuts, NFL teams keep 53 players on their active roster with another 10 on their practice squad. Top college programs will DRESS as many as 100 players for every game. With less staff and more athletes, there is likely less eyeballs on each athlete in the weight room or training facility in college than there is in the NFL. That’s less opportunity to become familiar with the personal training history of each player or observe limitations in their movement. Without knowing those key pieces of information, it is more difficult for a coaching staff to maximize their performance on the field and steer them away from potentially harmful or ineffective exercises in the weight room.

College staffs are also limited in the time they are able to spend with their athletes. NFL staff members are notorious for grinding out 18 hours days strategizing and caring for their players. At the professional level, staff are on-call for players virtually every minute, day or night. In college, the NCAA restricts the time coaches spend with their athletes.

Maybe the most important factor, however, is the type of athlete each staff inherits. Every player entering the NFL have spent a minimum of three years in a sophisticated college training program. NFL teams have access to medical records, hours of game tape, interviews with coaches, various performance measurables and, yes, results from a Functional Movement Screen. College athletes, on the other hand, enter programs from a variety of athletic backgrounds with a varying level of physical literacy. It's critical to evaluate movement at both levels, but colleges probably see a wider range of athletes who are good movers and athletes who have limitations that would preclude them from certain training strategies.

The SFMA, FMS and FCS provide a framework for evaluating athletes’ physical limitations and introducing them to a training program that is tailored to their personal requirements. Without some sort of system that evaluates how capable we are at movement fundamentals, we run the risk of overlooking dysfunction or prescribing inappropriate exercises, both of which could increase an athletes’ exposure to injury. Brian Kelly says it well here:

“Being able to see if there are some functional weaknesses in players that would lead them to being predisposed to certain injuries,” Kelly said of the Functional Movement Screen. “That is something we started. We use that as a supplement to our strength and conditioning program. It is a matter of supplementation. It is the injury prevention and durability that we think through science can better address it before the season starts and fix it during the season.”

“Some of our pre-testing in the summer for functional deficiencies,” Kelly continued. “Whether it be in a quad strength issue, a shoulder weakness, or orthotics, or things of that nature when we do full screening. When we doing those, the software will be helpful in identifying potential issues a player may have. We will be able to do some augmented weight training to bring those players along.”

Kelly is basically outlining the value proposition for our FMS Level 2 seminars. In our Level 1 course (now delivered online), we focus on teaching practioners how to administer the FMS and identify limitations in mobility, stability or motor control. In our Level 2 seminars (delivered in-person around the world), we focus heavily on corrective strategies and how to write appropriate training programs based on screen results. This is a critical for strength coaches and what Brian Kelly was referring to in the quote above. A poor screen result doesn't preclude a player from working, but illuminates where they should direct their effort.

We see some of the world’s best football players in our clinic or at in-services on a regular basis. While they're capable of doing things with their bodies that most of us cannot fathom, we’re also constantly reminded of the importance of identifying pain, evaluating function and protecting athletes from exercises that they don't have the mobility or stability to perform. A '1' on a movement screen isn't an assessment of a football player's ability on the field, but it should be information that represents an opportunity for improvement and directs their training program.

To learn more about how the FMS and SFMA work together, visit The System page on our site.

For more information on important considerations in training college athletes, check out this interview that Lee Burton did with Brian Bott, former strength coach for the University of Wisconsin football team.

Youth Movement

From preschool to high school, here's what your kids should, and shouldn't be doing, when it comes to running

Apr 22, 2007

If you've ever watched children chasing squirrels in the backyard or sprinting to the corner mailbox, you know they don't just run--they fly.
With arms jutting out, knees high, and big smiles. No rules, just pure joy. Stay out of the way, parents! No structure or programs or advice. No "training," no goals, and no plans for the Junior Olympics. Right?
Well, yes and no.
Studies show that 17 percent of American children ages 2 to 19 are overweight and that fewer than eight percent of elementary schools and 6.4 percent of middle schools provide daily P.E. class, so it's obvious that kids need to move their bodies more. And what better activity than running? "Children involved in running can carry it on as a lifestyle that is maintained into adulthood," says Teri McCambridge, M.D., chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness. "Kids get used to being active," agrees Bill Roberts, M.D., past president of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Still, things don't look great at the opposite end of the spectrum either. Yes, we have a lot of young couch potatoes in dire shape, but we also have overbooked, overstressed, overtrained young athletes, including runners, immersed in parent-driven year-round competition, resulting in an epidemic of youth injury and burnout. According to the AAP, children and teens ages 5 to 14 now account for 40 percent of all sports-related injuries. In track and cross-country, stress fractures, especially among girls, are increasingly prevalent. One of the largest studies of high school sports injuries, covering 60,000 athletes in Seattle from 1979 to 1993, showed girls cross-country runners with the highest rate of injury--even greater than football players. The coauthor of that study, Stephen Rice, M.D., now the director of the Sports Medicine Center at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, New Jersey, believes the data still stands. "If anything, today's young athletes are more intense in their training," says Dr. Rice. "Sports are year-round, and there's a lot of overuse injury."

But there is a middle ground between too little activity and too much adult-generated structure. People involved in running--from coaches and teachers to doctors and parent-runners--have created hundreds of inspiring running programs for kids nationwide. For example, more than 80,000 youngsters participate in the national Marathon Kids program, receiving free running and nutrition advice. The New York Road Runners oversee activities for more than 17,000 kids. And the St. Louis Read, Right and Run program provides training tips for 3,000 children who read 26 books, "right" the community with 26 good deeds, and run 26.2 miles over six months.

But whether they run with Mom or Dad or join school programs, kids aren't merely smaller versions of adult runners. They require particular care at every step of their development. So with the help of medical experts and experienced coaches, we've established the important guidelines for each growth stage to safeguard kids' health and ensure their running enjoyment. Your role? Counsel, encouragement, and, yes, an occasional pair of shoes.
PRESCHOOLERS

Doctors and coaches agree that kids should not start running in any purposeful way before they start kindergarten. That's because most children won't achieve a mature running gait until they are at least 5 years old. Duke University pediatric cardiologist Brenda Armstrong, M.D., who helps coach the Durham Striders youth track club for ages 6 and up, in North Carolina, says her biggest concern at this age is injuries. "I worry about shinsplints in a very young child whose gait is not yet coordinated," says Dr. Armstrong. Also, 3 and 4-year-olds have short attention spans, and their vision is not yet mature, making it difficult for them to track and judge the speed of moving objects.

A young child should still run as part of play and can try short children's races of up to a couple hundred yards. "As long as the child is capable of running without falling down, it's okay to run in brief spurts," says Teri McCambridge, M.D., a pediatric sports-medicine specialist. "If the parents do a 5-K race, a child can do the 'kiddie dash.'"

AGES 5 - 8

Youngsters 5 to 8 years old should be encouraged to run as part of play, such as in games of tag, or in short bursts with walking or other activities in between. Running in this way allows children to use more of their body than if they were jogging continually in a straight path, which makes it less likely that they'll become bored or injured.

Longtime coach Bob Glover, who conducts the City Sports for Kids track program for the New York Road Runners Foundation, has his youngest charges, 5 to 8, work up to 20 or 30 minutes of movement, running, or walking three times a week. While running a couple of 200-meter laps, they play games like hiding behind the coach, and Glover takes frequent breaks to read running-related stories to the kids. "Most of the kids are having so much fun, they don't even know they're running," says Glover.

In the Durham Striders club, 6- to 8-year-olds do a few 100-meter repeats on the curve of the track or the grass infield. "The 6-year-olds can run or walk," says Frank Davis, one of the club's founders. Other days, Durham kids run hills, repeating bursts on a 50- to 75-meter incline.

Many experts, however, warn against 5-Ks for those under 8. "We're fine with a mile fun run, but nothing longer," says Brenda Armstrong, M.D., of Duke. "And a child who says he or she is hurting or tired must be allowed to stop." Bill Roberts, M.D., past president of the American College of Sports Medicine, has his own Happy Test. He believes that 7- or 8-year-olds can run a couple of miles, provided it's their choice and they enjoy it. How can you tell? "Smiles," he says.
AGES 9 - 12

In the pivotal preteen years, growth and maturity allow for formal training, and competitive opportunities are abundant. Some kids this age will lean toward training and racing year-round, but they shouldn't give up other sports. "If they do another sport, they can still run on their own," says youth sports-medicine specialist Stephen Rice, M.D. "Kids in this age group shouldn't focus solely on competitive running."

A big reason for restraint at this age is growth-related injury. As the long bones in kids' legs grow, the cartilage is not ossified, and hard running can lead to discomfort near the ends of the bones. When this syndrome strikes the knee--a common running condition known as Osgood-Schlatter--it can be very painful and may require medical attention.

Plus, too much too soon can lead to burnout. "It's better to whet their appetite for more later on," says Matt Centrowitz, a two-time Olympian in the 1500 and 5000 meters and track coach at American University. Centrowitz's daughter, Lauren, now an All-American cross-country runner at Stanford, didn't run her first 5-K until age 12. His son, Matthew, was the fastest high school indoor miler this year and is headed to the University of Oregon on a track scholarship. "If you push someone," says Centrowitz, "sooner or later they balk because it's your will, not theirs."

Coach Bob Glover from New York encourages kids at this age to emphasize speed over distance. Preteens can work up to running three miles at a time three to five times a week.

Many easy-does-it programs for kids in this age group are centered around the mile, whether it's building up to run a mile a day or racing a mile. The Newton Heartbreak Hill International Youth Race, held on Boston Marathon weekend, is a half mile up and a half mile down the famous ascent. The Marine Corps Marathon "Healthy School Award" winner, Lynbrook Elementary in Virginia, has students doing up to a mile in P.E. class. "The mile is a good distance for kids, since they have to pace themselves," says Richard Dexter, Lynbrook's coach. "Young children usually have only two speeds: on and off. All year long as we prepare the kids to run the mile fitness test, we preach 'pace, don't race.'"

AGES 13 - 14

At this age many children enter a period of "peak height velocity," according to Angela Smith, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Early teens experience rapid growth while their bones have not fully mineralized and their muscles are not yet good shock absorbers. Consequently, Dr. Smith advises against the kind of heavy training loads--running several miles a day at a hard pace with frequent competition--that bring young runners into her office with stress fractures.

Puberty can also impact early-teen runners. During puberty, boys gain strength and muscle mass--a definite plus for performance--while girls gain body fat, which often slows them down.

For many early teens, middle school track and cross-country teams are their first chance to run as part of an organized program. However, coaching expertise at this level can be spotty, and some schools have poor facilities available for practice. Parents should look into all the details of such programs before signing up their kids. Alternatives to school-based programs include local adult running clubs, many of which embrace kids, and youth clubs associated with local gyms.

Young Runners offered by the New York Road Runners Foundation is a model program for middle-schoolers. Around 15 to 30 students per school in 60 schools practice two or three times a week, running a few miles at a comfortable pace, training for races up to 10-K. Teachers are trained to coach the kids, who run at school or nearby parks or tracks.

AGES 15 - 18

For many teens, high school running is year-round, with base training in the summer, cross-country in the fall, and track in the winter and spring. While training loads can vary widely--with weekly totals ranging from 20 to 70 miles--the best coaches learn how much training each athlete can handle and find ways to adapt their programs to the individual. Good coaches will also employ a total fitness approach for teen runners, including elements like weight training, calisthenics, and pool exercises. "Cross-training maintains fitness while reducing the risk of overuse injuries to the lower extremities, which plague high school runners," says Stephen Rice, M.D., a youth sports-medicine specialist. "The ideal is to build slowly with running, while mixing in other sports."

At Oakton High in Virginia, coach Scott Raczko, who also coaches world-class miler Alan Webb, develops whole-body fitness with weight training, core exercises, and plyometric drills. This past winter's USA junior cross-country winner, Elliott Heath of Winona High in Minnesota, includes bicycling in his training. And the 2006 Foot Locker high school girls cross-country champion, Kathy Kroeger of Independence High in Tennessee, is also a competitive swimmer. Another top-ranked runner, Max O'Donoghue-McDonald of Seattle Prep, cross-trains on an elliptical.

The bottom line for high-schoolers? Incorporate other activities with running. "Don't go crazy with the mileage and speedwork or you'll risk injury or burning out," says Dr. Rice. "The idea is to enjoy running in the long term."

HIGH SCHOOL COACHES ON YOUTH RUNNNG AND BURNOUT

Written by Douglas Finley, Editor Journal of Children’s Running on 30 April 2018.

By a recent program-by-program count, there are now more than four million children logging miles in elementary school or after-school running programs. (1) Coupling that with the surging number of kids entering recreational Fun Runs and 5K races, there is an expectation that there would be similar growth in the number of kids who would run in high school and beyond. And yes, the number of high school students running cross country is at an all-time high nationally.

However, a growing number of coaches have voiced concern that elementary-school-aged children who routinely enter road races, or Fun Runs with goals (time, place, etc.) common to racing, are at high risk of burnout, and, with apparent frequency, do not continue with the sport.

Underlying this concern were reports made to the Center for Children’s Running by coaches whose championship teams were often made up entirely of runners new to the sport; none having regularly competed in road races as children. The untested theory was that children in elementary school who regularly compete in races are at risk of dropping out of the sport by high school.

A parallel issue mentioned by some coaches is the number of road

races  that now offer  an “open” age category for  children  -- meaning 

 no minimum age restriction. Most common are eight-and-under or ten- and-under age categories. This allows preschool children to run in actual races at any distance by simply the parent paying the entry fee.

RESEARCH STUDY

To draw clarity to the issue of early participation versus burnout, NOVA Southeastern University researchers Jeff Fountain, Ph.D. and Peter Finley,

 “Be patient; there is plenty of time in high school for long races. This is a lifelong sport. Let them finish growing before long races and training begin.”

Female HS Coach

 Ph.D., Associate Professors of Sport Management, reached out to veteran high school coaches for their perspective on the impact of

elementary-school-aged children competing at various distances and the likelihood of continued participation in the sport. Nova Southeastern University is a private, highly selective and nationally ranked, research university in South Florida.

The research team believed that veteran high school cross country coaches were best positioned to understand the issues and respond objectively to the questions posed in the study. Five hundred coaches, representing all 50 states, received an invitation to participate. The coaches selected for the study had demonstrated sustainable success as measured by having teams finish in the top 10 in their states’ championship events (cross country state finals) at least four times in a five-year span, 2011-2015. The researchers used state finals results in all classifications (small and large enrollments) to determine coaches of both boys’ and girls’ teams.

Nearly 83 percent of the 136 coaches that responded to the full survey were male, with 63.6 percent coaching both the girls’ and boys’ teams.

The objectives of the research team were to determine the coaches’ attitudes regarding: (1) appropriate race length for varying age groups;

(2) appropriate ages to transition from “fun running” to competitive races – those that focused on pursuing goals and awards, and involved structured training; (3) their concern about burnout; and (4) appropriate age divisions to offer for children.

Burnout, as applied by the research team, may differ from child to  child. For children who race, it may be the stress to improve each time. For others it may be the physical discomfort of running distances longer than the child is physically or emotionally prepared to run. Or it could be the loss of interest in extrinsic motivators (T-shirts, water bottles, medals) or the feeling that running is not their own but an expectation of their parents.

RESEARCH ABSTRACT

In summary, there are six major findings.(2) The statistical term “mean” identifies the central tendency determined by adding all the coaches’ responses in terms of appropriate age and dividing by the total number of responses.

1.   Coaches identified the longest distance of an organized Fun Run for preschool and lower elementary-aged runners (K-3) should be ½ to one mile (77.1%). The remaining 22.9% was heavily weighted in favor of distances shorter than ½ mile.

2.  The mean age established by coaches for children to enter a 5K race or 5K Fun Run, with the purpose of “having fun, walking if necessary, getting a T-shirt, or earning a finisher’s medal” is age nine.

3.  The mean age for children entering a 5K race for competitive purposes, defined as “the goal of setting a personal best, competing  for an age-group placing, appearing in published race results, and winning awards, is age 11.”

“Kids respond to the running culture that we, the adults, provide (Fun Runs that become races, age-group competitions, coaches for kids’ running, etc). We need to tone it down, especially the pressure we put on kids to perform.”

Male HS Coach

“I think short road races are great, if the focus is on fun and fitness, not on the competition. When young children are encouraged to ‘push through’ pain to be competitive, the risks to future participation far

outweighs the benefits.”

Female HS Coach

4.  The mean age for children entering a 5K race for competitive purposes, with training defined as “scheduled workouts as opposed to occasional runs, formal coaching, and setting performance goals” are ages associated with middle school, ages 12, 13 or 14.

5.  Eighty-five percent of the coaches responding to the survey either believe or strongly believe that elementary-school-aged children who frequently race at distances 5K or longer are at high risk of burnout from the sport.

6.  According to the survey, 71.9 percent of the coaches used words like

risky, dangerous and harmful when describing how they felt about early 

elementary-school-aged children entering events (including races) longer than 5K. Eighteen percent were concerned, but short of labeling it as dangerous or harmful. Ten percent expressed little or no concern.

DISCUSSION and CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study do not completely explain why coaches of championship teams have reported that their teams were comprised entirely of runners who did not compete before high school.

What the study does show is that the participating coaches believe, and by significant margins, that children who do too much too soon, in racing and in the distances they run, increase the prospect they will drop out of the sport before high school.

The risk is minimized, according to the coaches, by allowing children to progress as they mature physically and emotionally, not in one year but from year to year. For early elementary children (K-3), it is short  distances – ½ mile to one mile Fun Runs. Later it is longer runs but where having fun, joining the crowd and walking if necessary are still encouraged. By late elementary school, racing can begin but without training or performance objectives coming into play until middle school.

These guidelines also apply when parents enter their children in races with no minimum age restriction – eight-and-under or ten-and-under. This practice, initiated by race organizers, is in clear conflict with what the vast majority of the responding coaches believe to be appropriate for preschool and early elementary-aged children.

The high level of concern expressed by coaches should send up a warning flag for race organizers, and parents who want their children to continue and enjoy running into the future. The conversation must focus first on the race organizers as they are the gatekeepers with respect to who is allowed to compete in their races, as well as the orchestrators of the awards categories that encourage young runners, sometimes influenced by parents, to enter competitive events and at longer distances than the child is prepared to run.

“I find that the most successful high school runners never competed as kids. Those that competed early, some  that even excelled, seldom perform any better than the kids who played other sports. Most are simply burnt out by the time they get to high school.”

Male HS Coach

(1) 2017 research findings of JUST RUN, the national youth running program of the Big Sur Marathon.

(2) The complete results of the NSU study are posted on The Sport Journal website. Search: Road Races and Youth Running: Cross Country Coaches’ Perspective, 2017.

All rights reserved by the Center for Children’s Running, 2018. The Journal is not for profit initiative and subscriptions are free.

TRACK AND FIELD; Among Runners, Elite Girls Face Burnout and Injury

By MARC BLOOM

 Julia Stamps was a running star from her first strides in seventh grade. She showed immense promise as a distance runner in her early years in high school, but then endured years of injury and illness before fracturing her left leg in two places in an accident two years ago. Doctors told her she would be lucky to run again, much less race.

Stamps, who is now 24, became a symbol for a generation of high-achieving girls who withered in adolescence before having the chance to fulfill their promise as runners. At a time of tender growth, many of them trained at a high level, and that often led to injury, impaired health or physical and emotional scars.

Doctors and medical researchers say there are several reasons for this. While adolescent boys generally grow stronger year by year, girls usually experience more erratic growth.

Doctors say that before the onset of menstruation, girls tend to have brittle bones and relatively weak muscles, making them prone to injury if they are training intensely. In addition, doctors say, such training has been shown to delay menstruation, and this, too, can increase the risk of injury.

Girls' development can affect their athletic performance in a third way, researchers say. Once menstruation begins, the body often undergoes a series of changes that inhibit at least temporarily the ability of blood to carry oxygen, producing a decline in physical fitness.

The grim trajectory of Stamps's career is not uncommon, many coaches say. Growing up in Northern California, she made headlines as a 14-year-old freshman at Santa Rosa High School, winning state championships and setting records in track and cross-country. With her speed and her lithe physique, Stamps was heralded as the next Mary Decker, the high school phenomenon who went on to compete in three Olympics.

Training 45 to 50 miles a week, Stamps lived up to her billing for a time. Beginning with her freshman season in 1994, she won the first of three consecutive national 3,000-meter titles for those age 19 and under, defeating college women. As a sophomore, she won the national high school cross-country title in the 5,000 meters.

But by her junior and senior years, Stamps was no longer dominant. She collapsed twice in national meets. She was frustrated and confused and often became sick. She received a track scholarship to Stanford but never realized her extraordinary potential as a runner. She was injured, lost her passion for competing, took up other sports and at one point nearly gave up running for good.

Doctors say that running moderately is healthy for young girls. But intense training at a young age can carry serious physical risks, said Dr. Angela Smith, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in pediatric sports medicine at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia.

''At age 13 or 14 when girls experience rapid growth -- what we call peak height velocity -- their bones grow long, but have not yet solidly mineralized into good, strong structures,'' Smith said. ''During this period, girls in running also don't have the muscle for shock absorption. Girls are at maximum risk for injury and should back off hard training.''

Smith said she had recently cared for a girl who was so fast as a high school freshman that she made the varsity cross-country team. She became the team's best runner, and the coach gave her extra workouts. But she also grew very quickly, Smith said, and developed three stress fractures in her legs. The girl was unable to finish the season.

Many Risk Factors

The risk of injury for girls can be increased by delayed menstruation, a condition associated with heavy training.

''A number of studies indicate that if a girl burns a lot more energy than she takes in, she will not start a new function like reproduction,'' Smith said. Delayed menstruation results in low estrogen levels and thin bones.

''When girls finally get their periods, we see quantum improvements in their healing from injury,'' Smith said. ''Whether that's from eating more or the additional impetus of estrogen, nobody knows.''

Paradoxically, the beginning of the menstrual cycle can bring with it a different burden for young runners: it often affects their fitness levels, slowing their performance, at least for a while.

''Girls gain fat, and in some cases there is a decrease in iron stores and hemoglobin level of the blood,'' said Dr. Oded Bar-Or, who is director of the Children's Exercise and Nutrition Center at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and a leading researcher in the field. ''Less hemoglobin reduces the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen. Fitness level in girls, their maximal oxygen uptake, decreases after age 12 or 13.''

Many girls who confront these natural changes after early success, like Erin Davis, a former star at Saratoga Springs High School in New York, ultimately drop out of competitive running. In 1993, Davis became the first and only freshman to capture the national high school cross-country title.

Her freshman season was her best in high school, however. Davis received a track scholarship to Penn State and graduated last year without living up to her early promise.

''Erin had significant injuries that prevented her from training at a high level,'' said Beth Alford-Sullivan, the women's track and cross-country coach at Penn State, who coached Davis's last two years. ''Her motivation was down. By the time I inherited her, she did not have the drive or passion to compete or train.''

Training intensely at a young age carries psychological as well as physical burdens that can affect a girl's development. Stamps, who graduated from Stanford last year without winning any major titles, said she felt ''tremendous pressure'' as a young runner in high school.

''I tried to compete against myself,'' Stamps said. ''But you can't do that every day. I needed a break. I had other interests outside of running that I wanted to pursue but was not able to. I was cursed.

''I wore myself thin. I had no time to rest.''

Stamps moved to New York after graduation and is working for a financial services company. She is healthy for the first time in years and is running again. As a test, she ran the New York City Marathon last November, her first marathon. It was probably the easiest long run of her life. She is training as much as 10 miles a day and hopes to contend for a spot on the United States Olympic team next year in the marathon.

Choosing an Alternate Path

Concerns over burnout and injuries among young runners led Dick Brown, a coach from Oregon who has worked with professionals including Mary Slaney (the former Mary Decker) to start a radical program this year aimed at improving American success in running. Brown plans to recruit high school girls to attend a college in Oregon and train with him. But they will not compete for the college; instead they will compete less frequently for a club. Brown has begun raising money to pay for the runners' education and training.

And in a surprising backlash to the major-college system, two young women who were high school stars last season, Amber Trotter and Natasha Roetter, decided not to run for Division I programs this season.

Trotter, who won the national high school cross-country title in 2001 by 40 seconds, attends Middlebury College in Vermont, which competes in Division III. ''I don't want to be a piece of meat in the corporate sports world,'' Trotter said defiantly in an interview after winning the high school title. ''I run for the joy it brings me.''

Roetter is a freshman at Duke. She placed third in the high school cross-country nationals in 2001 despite a succession of injuries. In August, as her first semester was about to begin, Roetter told the Duke coaches that she had decided to give up her athletic scholarship.

''I underestimated the intensity of Division I running,'' Roetter said. ''I'm enjoying my classes and like having some time for myself. I still run, but at my own pace. If I ran on the team, I would probably end up running myself into the ground.''

Some experts believe that burnout among young runners is made more likely by rules in about a dozen states, including New York, that permit middle school students to compete on high school varsity teams.

Dr. William Roberts, a pediatric sports medicine specialist in the Minneapolis area who is a vice president of the American College of Sports Medicine, views that practice with concern.

''When I look at a couple of these eighth grade girls in cross-country, they're too skinny and look awful,'' Roberts said. ''They are potentially malnourished.''

Aware of the burnout pattern, Coach Patrick Shane of Brigham Young, the reigning N.C.A.A. women's cross-country champion, said: ''In recruiting, I don't look at stars in 8th, 9th or even 10th grade. Their success means nothing. They haven't grown up yet and matured into young women.''

But a number of coaches and parents contend that it is appropriate to enable some exceptionally talented young runners to take advantage of their skills by training hard and competing at an early age.

Briana Jackucewicz, a 12-year-old from Farmingdale, N.J., competes weekly while training up to 50 miles a week. Briana, who has been racing since she was 6, set a national record for 11-year-old girls last fall, 17 minutes 42 seconds for a 5,000-meter road race. Her older sister, Leisha, now a high school junior, had followed a similar program. Last summer, Leisha had surgery on both legs as a result of running injuries.

Roger Jackucewicz, the girls' father, said he was preparing Briana for high- school competition. Jackucewicz, who rides his bike pacing Briana in predawn training on school days, said he was careful to have her train primarily on soft park trails and not concrete roads. He also said Briana took breaks every few miles and ran at a comfortable pace.

''I like to expose them to things at an early age,'' Jackucewicz said. ''Both girls are expert skiers and do extreme skiing in Canada. Running is just one thing. They're avid readers and at the top of their class in school.''

Renewing Careers

In resurrecting her running career, Julia Stamps may exemplify a development in which female runners rise from turbulent adolescence to regain their zest for running. Stamps ran the New York City Marathon in 2:54:47, outstanding for a first-timer. She placed 30th among women.

''It felt easy,'' Stamps said. ''I ran even pace all the way, about 6:30 per mile, and it took me only a week to recover.''

Stamps plans to run her next marathon in June at the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Diego. She hopes to achieve the qualifying standard for the American women's Olympic marathon trials, 2:48.

Two other former youth stars who have resurrected their careers after severe setbacks are Deena Drossin and Milena Glusac, both contenders in distance events for the 2004 Olympic team. Drossin, 31, who said she lost her love for running in the mid-1990's, set an American women's record for the marathon (2:21:16), her latest in a string of records, last Sunday in London. Glusac, 27, who had five stress fractures and various illnesses that left her bedridden, has won several national road-racing titles and is entered in tomorrow's Boston Marathon.

Enduring repeated injuries, Stamps began to think that she had given up too much for her running career. At Stanford, a torn hamstring muscle and a stress fracture in her lower back sidelined her for two years. Then in March 2001, when she was finally healthy and in her junior season, Stamps blacked out while riding a skateboard.

''I totally shattered my left leg with two complete fractures from top to bottom,'' she recalled. ''Doctors told me I'd never run again.''

Stamps underwent two operations and was on crutches for seven months. In March 2002, while on vacation in Costa Rica, Stamps tried running again. For the first time in years, she felt no pain. By late June, Stamps was running as much as 20 miles and planning for the New York City Marathon. Her recent training pace has increased to six minutes a mile, encouraging her to think she has a chance to make the Olympic team next year.

''I feel fabulous,'' she said. ''Running the marathon didn't hurt a bit. It's a miracle, like I'm running with a halo.''

Youth sports still struggling with dropping participation, high costs and bad coaches, study finds

October 16, 2018

More American children ages 6 to 12 were physically active in 2017, but not to a healthy level, according to data published Tuesday by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association and the Aspen Institute.

Youth sports advocates have for years pushed kids to play more team sports, and those efforts showed some success over the past four years. Physical inactivity dropped slightly over that span, but kids still generally are not getting enough exercise, based on data published in Aspen’s annual “State of Play” youth sports report.

Not even a quarter of children regularly participate in high-calorie-burning sports, according to the report, and the percentage continues to fall. In 2011, 28.7 percent of kids were active at a healthy level; last year, it was 23.9 percent.

The crisis facing American youth sports deepened in 2017 amid that inactivity and a slew of other entrenched issues; volunteer coaches are generally unqualified and the cost of organized sports for kids is prohibitively high, according to the report.

(Jacob Bogage/Washington, D.C.)

Only 35 percent of coaches are trained in core competencies such as basic skills, and 36 percent are trained in strategy and safety and injury prevention. For the third consecutive year, children from low-income households were half as likely to play a significant amount of team sports as children from households earning at least $100,000, the report shows. They were also three times as likely to be physically inactive.

The troubling data is part of youth sports and public health advocates' generational crusade against childhood obesity and inactivity, trends experts say are linked to resource distribution and the soaring business interests tied to childhood athletics, a market valued at $17 billion, according to WinterGreen Research.

“Everyone thinks from the Olympic medal count, we have the best youth sports system in the world. But when you look at some of the sports, these are things parents pay for,” said Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an associate professor at George Washington University who studies youth sports. “If we’re really looking at being a more inclusive and healthier society, we should probably get these kids playing together more out on the field — everybody, not just certain populations that can afford it.”

Experts blame the steep costs and dropping participation on what they call an “up or out” mentality. Competitive travel teams, which can sometimes cost thousands of dollars to join, have crept into increasingly younger age groups, and they take the most talented young athletes for their teams.

The children left behind either grow unsatisfied on regular recreational teams or get the message that a sport isn’t for them.

As winning becomes a priority at earlier ages, coaches and parents are forced to spend more money to keep up. Those funds commonly outpace what recreational leagues and local parks departments are able to spend per child, said Jon Solomon of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program.

The organization convened its annual conference on youth sports' issues Tuesday at the Newseum.

“There’s nothing wrong with being competitive and playing higher competition,” Solomon said, “but what happens is it prices out certain kids, and you get kids to believe that by a certain age, they have to play on a travel team.”

Almost 45 percent of children ages 6 to 12 played a team sport regularly in 2008, according to Aspen’s data. Now only 37 percent do.

(Jacob Bogage/Washington, D.C.)

“It’s really a story of the haves and have-nots in youth sports in America,” said Bob Bigelow, a former NBA player and author of three books on youth sports.

The hypercompetitive and at times expensive atmosphere results from an earlier push for college athletic scholarships, which Aspen experts said have “reshaped” kids playing sports and caused parents and coaches to emphasize winning and elite skill development before children are ready for it.

The top reason kids want to play sports, the report indicates, is a desire to be with friends, not winning. That may have hurt soccer participation, which dropped 9.5 percent year over year due to a U.S. Soccer Federation age group rule change that broke up existing teams, according to the report. (Players are now grouped by birth year, rather than school grade.)

Solomon, who coaches one of his sons' recreational soccer teams, said he saw a noticeable drop in participation in his local league when kids who had played together for years could no longer be on the same teams.

(Jacob Bogage/Washington, D.C.)

“Kids want to play with friends. It’s a lot simpler than we as adults make it out to be,” he said.

“When you let the adults hijack youth sports, their priorities are going to take the place of what the kids want,” added Bigelow.

The report did include some good news.

Sport sampling, or kids playing more than one sport, saw a slight improvement for first time since 2011.

And flag football participation for children ages 6 to 12 outpaced tackle football for the first time, by more than 100,000 kids. That, Solomon said, shows that the sport’s leaders are taking player safety seriously at younger ages, and that parents have more access to flag football leagues.

“That’s a step in the right direction,” he said, “but you have to look at the kids who are being left behind.”

Most of the participation gains, the data shows, come from households with higher incomes.

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The Vikings' Xavier Rhodes blames disappointing season on overworked body

Xavier Rhodes says he'll listen to his body, work less and rest more.

September 1, 2019

An All-Pro cornerback still resides inside Xavier Rhodes, who believes the key to returning to his 2017 form is listening to his own body as he enters the second half of his NFL career.

Rhodes, 29, pinned last year’s mediocre campaign — compared to the shutdown standard he set previously — on frustration from injuries that mounted because of a lack of rest and an unrelenting weekly workout schedule.

By the end of last season, during which Rhodes was listed as questionable five times and played a career-low 74% of snaps since becoming a starter, his broken parts mounted.

“Ankle, hammy, glute, back,” Rhodes said. “Yeah.”

Coach Mike Zimmer challenged Rhodes this offseason, saying the two-time Pro Bowler “needs to play up to his contract,” which pays about $14 million annually.

An offseason of “scaled back” workouts, mixing Pilates, yoga and recovery treatments into his day, has Rhodes feeling primed for a rebound. The Vikings need him — quickly. This season’s runway is short with the Falcons’ Julio Jones, the Packers’ Davante Adams and the Raiders’ Antonio Brown coming in the first three weeks.

“We are just looking for him to be consistent,” defensive coordinator George Edwards said. “He has done a good job of that thus far, and that way he will be consistent when it gets to the game.”

Last season, Rhodes’ injuries made him increasingly unable to use his 79-inch wingspan on receivers. He was the Vikings’ most penalized player with more yellow flags (nine) than pass deflections (seven). More than half of those penalties came in the final five weeks, when he was dealing with hamstring, ankle and groin injuries at the end of the year.

So Rhodes said he reshaped his offseason regimen, which previously called for workouts — strength, agility and field drills — eight hours a day, five days a week. Physical therapy only came afterward.

“A lot of people always tell me, ‘Xavier, your body is tired, listen to it,’ ” Rhodes said. “I’m always the type of guy that feels like I need to work. This year is going to be more resting my body, doing more treatment and watching more film like I always do.”

This season, Rhodes said he’ll listen to his body, which should be welcomed news for the Vikings as they need a healthy shutdown cornerback while two young reserves — Mike Hughes (knee) and Holton Hill (eight-game suspension) — remain unavailable.

“Rest and keeping my weight down, those are my main goals. Everything else is going to pan out,” Rhodes said. “I’ve been playing football for so long, so I’ve got some of the fundamentals down. There are still some things I need to learn. At the same time, I’m a vet now. So it’s more about resting my body, recovering and keeping my mind clear.”

Essential Legal Duties for Athletics Directors and Coaching Staff

By Dan Armstrong, CAA, and Zac Stevenson, CMAA on February 09, 2023

“In leadership, there are no words more important than trust. In any organization, trust must be developed among every member of the team if success is going to be achieved.” – Mike Krzyzewski

Athletic administrators have essential legal duties that must be performed to safeguard the health and well-being of student-athletes. As leaders in the athletic department and school, it is vital that trust is established with all staff in the department to execute that mission professionally, and athletic directors must trust their staff to carry out that mission.

Athletic directors’ knowledge of the essential legal duties only satisfies a portion of the responsibility. The front-line people such as teachers, coaches and athletic trainers must also understand those legal duties for the department to function properly. Every staff member in the department should be on the same page regarding these essential legal duties with a coordinated plan to proactively minimize issues, address problems when they arise, protect students, and reduce the desire to pursue litigation.

The question becomes, “How and why do we educate already busy, underpaid teacher-coaches, non-teacher-coaches, workers, and athletic trainers on the fundamental essential legal duties. How do we get that knowledge to our front-line workers?

The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) has established the 14 fundamental duties in the Leadership Training Course (LTC) 504. Using these 14 categories of legal duties, while not attempting to re-teach the four-hour course to coaches and front-line workers, staff members can be educated through incorporation of these duties during preseason coaches’ meetings and trainings.

1. Planning
The duty to plan transcends all other duties. Written plans must be in place to fulfill all legal duties as imposed by the courts to protect student-athletes from harm. Coaches can be held liable for failing to plan and should have a documented comprehensive plan for their program that includes daily, weekly and monthly plans with detailed descriptions of practices, skills, drills, supervision and emergency response information. Using this duty to plan, emphasize the expectation that coaches should keep these plans for years in the future to protect themselves and the school corporation from possible future litigation. Consult district policies and state law for the required length of time that these records should be retained.

2. Supervision
The duty to supervise should be shared with coaches so that they understand their duty to supervise in both a general and specific manner. General supervision is the supervision of student-athletes for a reasonable time before and after athletic activity. Specific supervision is the supervision of student-athletes while engaged in the activity. While discussing the coach’s duty to supervise it is also a great opportunity to discuss why coaches need to supervise and the issues that arise when supervision is neglected. Use the duty to supervise as a segway to talking about district policies of harassment and social media. Harassment between students and social media issues can lead to problems in locker rooms, buses or in parking lots during general supervision periods. This is an opportunity to share district policies and drive home the duty to supervise to coaches.

3. Selecting/Training of Coaches
Do head coaches hire their own staff? What thought goes into hiring that staff when it is so difficult to find qualified assistant coaches? Do head coaches operate like CEOs? What procedures are in place for hiring qualified and certified staff? Discuss with coaches their duty to hire properly trained assistant coaches. Drive home any state mandatory coaching accreditation requirements along with any school district requirements such as CPR Certification.

4. Technique Instruction
Related to the duty of selecting and training coaches, is the duty to provide proper technique instruction that is sport specificand using qualified instructors. Inform coaches of the importance of utilizing multiple methods of communicating proper technique. Coaches should also know that they need to thoroughly inform athletes of risks involved in participation. We live in a time when lawsuits can be filed quickly when athletes are injured. Someone must pay the medical expenses that result from injury. Lawsuits based on improper technique instruction by coaches that may have led to the injury is one way to recover those medical expenses. Use this duty to discuss policies and expectations. In the age of the smartphone, filming technique instruction can create a paper trail if injury does occur.

5. Warnings
Student-athletes must be provided warnings regarding all the risks related to participation in athletics. Warnings should be shared in a detailed, clear, concise manner through multiple types of media. Adding sport-specific cautionary forms and other measures such as warning posters and announcements can add effectiveness to the warning process and increase safety in participation while reassuring parents and staff that protections are in place.

6. Safe Playing Environment
Discuss with coaches the importance that any issues with equipment, facilities or playing surfaces should be corrected immediately and prior to any participation. Coaches should conduct these inspections prior to participation every day. Include custodial and maintenance staff in these communications and stress the importance of rectifying issues immediately. Use the duty to provide a safe playing environment to discuss policies such as lightning, other threatening weather, and heat indexes and warnings with coaches.

7. Protective Equipment
Ensure athletes wear appropriate protective equipment for the activity. Enforce consistent use of safety equipment. Remind coaches and staff to remain current with the NFHS and state regulations regarding protective equipment. Coaches, trainers and equipment managers must be knowledgeable and vigilant regarding protective equipment. Athletes must be adequately warned about the use of protective equipment in a detailed, clear and repeated manner. Use different methods of communication such as verbal reminders, written guidelines and informational posters in locker rooms.

8. Evaluating Conditioning
Evaluate athletes for initial preparedness to safely participate in a sport or activity. This is especially important in the first practices and ongoing throughout the season. Use the duty to evaluate conditioning to discuss working athletes in slowly if they have not been conditioning prior to the season.

Discuss thresholds for heat indexes and adherence to heat index guidelines and recommendations. Establish who determines measuring heat indexes and warnings and when precautions are implemented. Remind coaches to err on the side of caution and practice protective judgement when weather conditions warrant. Administrators do not get a second chance if an athlete is injured due to negligence. 

Use the duty to evaluate conditioning to discuss the importance of physicals and to establish who is responsible to ensure every athlete has a valid physical or other paperwork on file prior to participation. Discuss the importance of enforcement during the summer and off-season. Discussing concussion policies and protocols under the evaluating conditioning duty is a way to ensure all coaches are aware of the seriousness of head injuries and proper processes when an athlete has a concussion.

9. Evaluating Injury
Who evaluates injuries to athletes? Who makes a judgment on whether an athlete should play? Coaches need to understand that the evaluation of injury must be conducted by medical professionals and that coaches cannot supersede the education and licensing of medical professionals. Discuss and clearly define whose role it is to make medical decisions.

10. Matching/Equating Athletes
Athletic administrators and coaches must match and equate athletes in practice and competition based on the following criteria: s ize, age, strength, skill level, experience and incapacitating conditions. Ensure that coaches and personnel understand what it means to match and equate athletes. Provide examples to staff of proper practice techniques and highlight examples of improper use from an individual and team perspective.

11. Medical Assistance
We have an obligation to offer medical assistance to athletes and those in our facilities. This duty can be difficult for coaches and personnel to understand after directing them not to evaluate injury past the level of their training. Discuss the difference between diagnosing and evaluating an injury or medical problem and providing first aid or life-saving techniques. Take the opportunity to discuss why they must provide immediate medical assistance. This is a great opportunity to review the locations of all AED units. Include a trainer or school nurse in this conversation and invite these professionals to coaches’ meetings.

12. Emergency Response Plan
Detailed emergency response plans should be posted inside and outside of all athletic facilities. These plans should be specific to each facility as every facility has different challenges that should be addressed in each plan. Discuss this emergency response plan with all coaches and staff and review where these plans are located. Stress the importance of why coaches and staff need to know the emergency response plan for each location and conduct practice drills for staff and students.

13. Safe Transportation
Discuss the duty of safely transporting athletes to and from a sporting event. What is the school corporation policy regarding athletic transportation? Discuss transportation expectations that are in place while riding on school-provided transportation. Use this time to discuss expectations and what school corporation policy is regarding athletes riding to and from events. If policy allows for students to ride separately from district transportation, discuss how this is clearly communicated and documented.

14. Sport-Related Disclosures
Discuss with all department coaches and staff the importance of always providing factual and true information to athletes. Work with school counselors and administrators on placing athletes on the right path for course work to satisfy NCAA/NAIA college requirements for admission. Provide accurate information to athletes and parents related to registering on the NCAA/NAIA Clearinghouse. Ensure the requirement is met to disclose whether the school corporation offers medical insurance coverage or disclose if the district does not offer coverage but requires athletes to have insurance coverage prior to participation.

BONUS DUTY! 15. Best Practices for Preventing and Addressing Bad Acts
Always follow school corporation or district policies. Communicate policies to all stakeholders and ensure all coaches and staff are well trained. Instill strong communications habits with coaches and staff and clearly define a conduit for reporting issues. Do policies exist for self-reporting incidents? Stress the importance of listening as a habit and to pay attention to conversations and actions.

If something feels like a bad act, call the principal and superintendent immediately. A failure to notify can and will result in issues. Coach coaches and staff to respond immediately if they know of a bad act and to never wait to see if hearsay and rumor is true. Stress that they should never ignore the fringe. Small problems add up to large problems that can lead to permanent damage to a program and can harm individuals. All of these duties and best practices will serve to safeguard students, staff and ourselves!

The information provided in this article is not a substitute for legal advice. There may be nuances of state or local law that could affect implementation of strategies or policies discussed. Readers are strongly encouraged to seek the advice of their state association or school district legal counsel.

Employment Law Do’s and Don’ts Regarding High School Coaches

By Lee Green, J.D. on April 06, 202

Employment Law Key Issues

Several legal claims leading to lawsuits typically arise related to the suspension or termination of coaches. The first issue is whether the coach was wrongfully punished or terminated – allegations are often made that the suspended or discharged plaintiff was deprived of due process or suffered a breach of their contracts to teach and/or coach.

The second common question is whether the plaintiff was discriminated against on the basis of protected class status related to race, color, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

A third concern is whether the suspended or discharged coach was defamed or sustained “false light publicity” (a release of information placing the individual in a false light in the public eye) during the process.

Another issue is whether the adverse action against the suspended or fired athletic personnel was in retaliation for protected “whistleblowing” actions by the plaintiff (e.g., the filing of a Title IX complaint regarding sports inequities or sexual harassment).

The following civil lawsuit, Anderson v. Oak Ridge Schools, litigated before a U.S. District Court in Tennessee, initially resulted in a March 18, 2019, $1.715 million jury award in favor of a coach who alleged he was deprived of due process, suffered a breach of contract, was discriminated against based on his age, was defamed, sustained false light publicity, and had been retaliated against when he was constructively discharged after 36 years of service as a chemistry teacher and head track coach at Oak Ridge High School. The school district tried to “appeal” by filing a motion for a JNOV (a Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict, in which the presiding judge overrules a jury’s decision) or, in the alternative, for a new trial. On January 30, 2020, the District Court issued a written ruling analyzing each of the coach’s claims in the case.

Anderson v. Oak Ridge Schools

In April 2015, Oak Ridge (Tennessee) High School chemistry teacher and head track coach Edward Anderson was suspended and demoted for misconduct related to a track meet in South Carolina to which he and three assistant coaches had taken the Oak Ridge team. Allegedly, Anderson failed to adequately communicate to parents the team’s travel plans for the meet, including the name of the hotel at which they would be staying, its location, meal plans for the student-athletes, and other details regarding the trip.

On the team’s night of arrival, with the meet scheduled for the next day, assistant coaches supposedly notified Anderson that the hotel was unsafe and that both drug-dealing and prostitution was taking place on-site, advising him that the team should find other lodging site. No advance arrangements had been made to feed the student-athletes and the lack of restaurants in the area led to them being taken to Walmart to buy food for their stay, despite the lack of refrigerators or microwaves in the hotel rooms. The athletes were allowed to stay in whichever of the team’s hotel rooms they wished, leading to a girl spending the night in a boy’s room and engaging in inappropriate conduct which other athletes photographed on their phones and later shared with other students and school administrators.

Throughout that first night at the hotel, several parents were informed by their children on the team about the incidents that were occurring, but Anderson allegedly failed to answer phone calls and text messages from those parents, instead the next morning driving the boy and girl who had engaged in the inappropriate conduct home to Tennessee and leaving the other 55 student-athletes under the supervision of the three assistant coaches.

Within two days of the April 11 track meet, Anderson was suspended for three weeks and demoted to assistant coach. Toward the end of April, allegations surfaced that in 2003, Anderson had inappropriately touched a female student (12 years earlier), an assertion denied by Anderson and regarding which the County District Attorney chose not to take action because of the time lapse and lack of substantiating evidence. District administrators, however, indefinitely suspended Anderson without pay from both teaching and coaching pending a thorough investigation, at which time he decided to retire both from his academic and athletics positions.

Anderson sued the district and several of its administrators who had been involved in the decision-making related to the temporary suspension and demotion following the track meet and the later-imposed, unpaid, indefinite suspension, seeking front pay and back pay for constructive discharge, monies related to the breach of his contracts to teach and coach, compensation for deprivation of his constitutional rights (age discrimination), punitive damages for defamation and false light publicity, compensation for retaliatory discharge, and all attorneys’ fees, court costs, and litigation expenses.

After a seven-day trial, on March 18, 2019, a jury awarded Anderson $1,715,097. Pursuant to the motion by the defendants for the District Court Judge to either overrule the jury or order a new trial, on January 30, 2020, the court issued a written opinion analyzing each of the coach’s claims in the case, again resulting in a victory for the coach in the case. The Oak Ridge District then filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, but instead of incurring the additional litigation costs of the appellate process, on May 23, 2020, settled the case by agreeing to pay Anderson $1.75 million.

The following are the conclusions contained in the January 30, 2020, District Court decision analyzing each of the coach’s claims, with the ruling serving as a template for what schools and athletic administrators should expect when disciplining or terminating coaches and thereby illustrating some of the important do’s and don’ts of sports employment law.

Due Process and Constructive Discharge

In his January 30, 2020, written decision, District Judge Bruce Guyton stated, “the court finds that [the sanctions imposed on Anderson] triggered his due process rights, which he did not receive. Further, the court agrees that there is sufficient evidence to find that he was forced to retire or constructively discharged. No procedures were used and [the defendants] did not provide him with a copy of the charges and a statement of his legal rights, duties and recourse before taking the adverse action.”

The court’s extended analysis made it clear that an important “Do” is for schools, if possible, to structure employment agreements with coaches to be “terminable at will.” A significant “Don’t” is that the appointment should not be rolled into a teaching contract, because if it is, then the coach will have extensive due process rights that would not have applied if the deal had been one-year, terminable-at-will, and non-renewable-at-the-discretion- of-the-school. The terminable-at-will appointment should include a specific statement that renewal of the coaching position is not guaranteed, non-renewal does not require any sort of “just cause,” and that the school may choose not to renew for any reason whatsoever. It is important to note that in some states, coaching appointments may be subject to collective bargaining agreements and termination-at-will principles may be modified by a CBA.

Breach of Contract

With regard to Anderson allegedly breaching specific terms of his teaching and coaching contracts, the court stated, “there was sufficient evidence in the record that [Anderson] was vindicated [against all charges of breaching his contracts].”

The court’s extended analysis made it clear that even with annual terminable-at-will appointments, in the event that a coach (like Anderson) is suspended or dismissed mid-season for misconduct, then the school may need to demonstrate “just cause” for the punishment. An important “Do” for schools to establish in advance the critically important duties of the coach’s job, the failure of which to fulfill would give rise to the school’s authority to impose sanctions. A corresponding “Don’t” is that the school must avoid failing to carefully follow proper procedures if the choice is made to impose sanctions on athletics personnel “for cause.”

The following is a non-exhaustive list of specific duties that might be imposed on coaches and included as conditions in employment contracts and coaching handbooks that may give rise to a “breach” justifying suspension or termination:

• Knowing participation in any violation of NFHS, state association or school district rules or federal, state or local laws.
• Violation of any provision of the school’s coaching handbook, including student-athlete eligibility requirements, protocols for protecting the health-safety-welfare of student athletes, requirements regarding the protection of student-athletes from discrimination, hazing, sexual harassment, or abusive treatment by athletics personnel.
• Conviction of or pleading guilty to felony criminal charges or to any misdemeanor crime against minors.
• Wagering on sports events in violation of gambling laws.
• Conviction of or pleading guilty to the use of controlled substances.
• Misconduct in violation of the stated mission of the school’s athletic program.
• Fraud or financial mismanagement in the performance of the coaching duties.
• Any act of violence or abusive treatment of a student-athlete, coach, school staff member or community member.
• Failure to adequately supervise assistant coaches, volunteer coaches, athletic trainers, or other athletics personnel resulting in their violation of any of the above-stated duties.

Protected Class Discrimination (Age)

Title VII (the part of federal civil rights law applicable to employment) prohibits adverse actions against an employee based on race, color, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability, and – as of the June 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Bostock case – LGBTQ status.

Anderson claimed that his initial suspension, demotion and later-imposed unpaid suspension were partially conditioned on the fact that after 36 years of teaching and coaching, he was one of the oldest staff members at Oak Ridge High School. However, in its May 2019 disposition of the dispute, the jury decided that age had not been a factor in the sanctions levied against Anderson and declined to assign any damages for such discrimination, a determination upheld in the court’s January 2020 written opinion in the case.

An important “Do” for schools in structuring contracts for coaches is to avoid including any reference that would imply that the hiring decision, treatment on the job, or evaluation for continuing employment, are in any way conditioned on the age or stage of life of the athletic personnel. A significant “Don’t” is to avoid making any oral comments to coaches, even in jest, regarding youthfulness, energy level or other characteristics that might be interpreted as related to age. In EEOC complaints and federal lawsuits, it is often casual language and joking banter that “boomerangs” back to result in a successful age discrimination claim.

Defamation and False Light Publicity

The January 2020 written opinion by the court upheld the jury’s May 2019 decision that Anderson had been defamed and victimized by false light publicity (communications placing him in a false light in the public eye) and awarding him – out of $1,715,097 total, $880,000 for the damage to his reputation based on the two causes of action.

The important “Do” for schools is to refuse to make any comment to the media regarding employment decisions and to avoid any internal gossiping among athletic personnel and staff regarding such issues with coaches. The $880,000 for defamation and false light publicity was largely conditioned on the comments by one district administrator that Anderson “was going to jail,” when he was in fact never even charged with a crime. The most significant “Don’t” is to avoid any communications to outsiders or insiders that would support proof of a false and defamatory statement having been made against a coach with actual malice (reckless disregard for its truth).

Retaliation

Anderson’s retaliation claims were dismissed both by the jury and in the court’s written opinion, because he was unable to establish that he had engaged in any protected whistle-blowing or complaint activity that was used by the district to support the sanctions levied against him. The most important “Do” related to retaliation is to have a procedure in place for athletics personnel to submit written complaints about any aspect of the school’s athletic program and the most significant “Don’t” is to avoid refusing to accept complaints submitted per procedure and to avoid denigrating those complaints, especially where there is a clear legal right to make the complaint (e.g. Title IX issues, student-athlete constitutional rights, hazing or sexual harassment concerns, student-athlete disability accommodations, and other such protected activities).

The Role of Athletic Directors in Injury Prevention

By Ben Sieck on March 10, 2015

The benefits of high school sports are innumerable, but they come with an unavoidable drawback – injuries. The reality of athletic competition is bodies break down and injuries happen.

Despite this reality, efforts are always being made to minimize the risk of injury for the 7.7 million participants in high school sports. While that task might involve many individuals within the high school setting, perhaps no one plays a more significant role than the school’s athletic director.

Even in those schools that employ an athletic trainer, the athletic director coordinates communication among all groups – athletes, coaches, parents – to ensure all safeguards are in place.

Routine checks of facilities where practices and games are held is one preventative task handled by athletic directors.

Mike McGurk, athletic director at Lee’s Summit North (Missouri) High School, said this can include checking fields for disrepair and monitoring gym surfaces and padding, among other things.

Gary Stevens, athletic administrator at Saco (Maine) Thornton Academy, said inclement weather is another factor athletic directors need to monitor. Extreme heat and bitter cold can exacerbate medical conditions or injuries.

“Schools should develop plans and protocols for addressing August preseason weather, or those cold snaps that can hit the Northeast during the winter,” Stevens said.

He also said the preparation process extends to the athletes themselves. Pre-participation physical exams are essential to determining if athletes are fit to participate, and if there are any additional medical concerns.

“I also am a strong advocate of yearly health history updates where parents and students document any other factors that may contribute to potential injury,” Stevens said.

He said these reports give trainers and administrators information on joints and ligaments, but also allergies and other medical concerns. All are factors in making accurate decisions on participation.
Sandy Freres, athletic administrator at The Prairie School in Racine (Wisconsin), suggests teaching athletes and their parents about the importance of proper hydration, nutrition and sleep. They should be aware of the benefits of meeting those needs, and the dangers of not doing so. 

Stevens echoed Freres’ sentiment.

“I firmly believe that many injuries could be prevented if students took care of themselves nutritionally when they are not participating in the activity,” Stevens said. “Eating balanced meals and having proper hydration ensures a healthier body, less fatigue and better conditioning, which are all connected to athletic performance.”

McGurk said education on nutrition and sleep ties in with another preventative measure – de-emphasizing specialization and promoting rest.

“One reason we are seeing more and more injuries is from overuse – kids are specializing at an earlier age and using the same muscles and joints without rest,” he said. “They aren’t resting their bodies and continue to play 50-plus softball games in a summer, and then go right into fall softball.”

McGurk said athletic directors are responsible for educating parents, coaches and athletes about these dangers. Those are the parties most directly involved in the decision-making process.

Athletic directors cannot solve every problem that arises; however, they can play a large role in who handles those problems on a day-to-day basis. Hiring the right coaches and athletic training personnel is crucial to preventing and treating injuries.

Amy Molina, athletic director at the U-32 School in Montpelier, Vermont, said an athletic trainer’s job begins and ends with injury prevention.

“This is accomplished in several ways – helping to educate athletes and coaches on best practice regarding strength and conditioning, stretching and nutrition,” she said. “The goal of our athletic trainer is to not have any injuries caused by overuse or poor conditioning.”

Stevens said athletic trainers should be properly equipped and supported by athletic directors.

“In my school, our athletic trainer is part of our team and has an equal status to each and all of our coaches,” he said. “Athletic trainers bring professional expertise to the equation, and their input needs to be valued when all decisions about programming are made.”

Ultimately, coaches are the ones working closest with athletes. Thus, they shoulder a significant responsibility in injury prevention. Administrators must invest in their coaches as well.

Rick Lilly, activities director at John Handley High School in Winchester, Virginia, said communication is an athletic department’s best tool in the fight against injury. Without collaboration between administration, trainers and coaches, athlete safety is jeopardized.

“School leaders must take an active role in the design and implementation of appropriate professional development for coaches,” Lilly said. “I believe the single most important component to injury prevention is to have coaches that properly teach safe practices and create a culture of respect and safety.”

Coaches almost universally support the benefits of a strength and conditioning program for their athletes, but McGurk said it matters in more than just the win-and-loss column. He said it works wonders for injury prevention as well since stronger, well-conditioned athletes are less likely to get injured. These programs are yet another way athletic administrators can stay one step ahead of injuries.
Although there is no way to eliminate all injuries from athletic competition, administrators must be prepared.

Molina, a trained scuba diver, said her experience in the water has application for athletic departments.

“I was taught to ‘plan my dive and dive my plan.’ That mantra saved my life when underwater,” she said. “Coaches must have the same mindset, not just for the X’s and O’s, but to ensure the safety of our athletes at all times.”

Creating then Scamming the System

Athletic Directors should avoid conflict of interest situations by being the athletic director and a coach. This is because the athletic director/coach will favor the sport they coach and not equally support other sports. This kind of stuff has been going on for years. There is no place for an athletic director that would do this. Also, the athletic director/coach has no accountability, (the fox guarding the hen house).

As the saying goes: "Did you leave your mark on running or did running leave a mark on you (injury)?"

Preventing a sports injury (i.e. from overuse, an ACL injury, etc).
1. Kids should have plenty of time for "free play".
2. Physical Education in schools should involve movement activities, not just sport skills.
3. Athletes should be "screened" twice a year using the Functional Movement Screen and Y-Balance Screen.
4. Growth Spurt knowledge is important also.
5. Participate in a variety of sports, do not specialize to early. The only exceptions would be gymnastics and figure skating.
The high jump, pole vault, shot put and discus are higher risk movement activities compared to running and body weight activities. We will work on body weight and running activities. Let your middle and high school coach focus the these field events over a period of months and years.

Well, many of the field events require skills outside of straight-line speed. There is ample technique involved in sprinting and distance running. But, even more technique involved in shot, discus, long jump, triple jump, high jump, javelin, pole vault and hammer. Granted, I'm a bit biased, but to me sprinting is a base or fundamental sport, meaning it provides the physiological support upon which other sports can be built. Everybody should learn how to sprint. After that, after gaining a lucid understanding of what an athlete's body can do well, then let's start suggesting a myriad of other sports and activities.

Field events are not early specialization activities. The earlier you try to specialize in these events, the more likelihood you will not be participating in them in high school because you will already have overuse injuries from them. Most coaches (not all) have no  patience when it comes to working with athletes. Coaches try to specialize youth in activities at a young age, this leads to overuse injuries, catastrophic injuries  (pole vault -spinal cord) or at best, physical movement problems.

Patience  is important in coaching. It is the athletic directors job to monitor these coaches.
Field events (except for the long jump) are used as an introduction to the activity and are not in Tracks Meets!!
We do not guarantee anyone that they will be allowed to participate in any field event except the long jump.
We will put the athlete through various tests/drills to see if they can physically handle the field event.  
So do not expect to participate in any field event.
Be prepared to participate in running events only. Participating in a field event is considered a bonus.
Field Events are considered "higher risk" activities as compared to running activities, thus we place them in a separate category. Field event athletic development requires much more than just "jumping, throwing, or vaulting!! The skill part of the event, "high jumping, throwing the discus or shot, pole vaulting", is the final part of development, not the starting point!! So, you DO NOT NEED high jump, pole vault, or throwing equipment to develop these future field event athletes.

Improving Surveillance of Catastrophic Sport Injuries in High School Sports

By Kristen Kucera, Ph.D., MSPH, ATC, LAT on April 13, 2016 hstShare

Currently, there are more than 7.8 million participants in high school sports in the United States. The benefits of playing a sport go beyond the physical impact of improved cardiovascular fitness, strength and balance, and encompass psychological and social factors as well.

These benefits, however, do not come without some risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates more than 2.6 million emergency department visits per year are due to youth sports injuries. As sport participation numbers increase, it is more important than ever to minimize risk for all participants.

Catastrophic sports injuries and illnesses are defined as severe conditions that result in death, permanent or temporary disability, or events that would have resulted in death without immediate medical action, such as sudden cardiac arrest. Though rare, catastrophic sports injuries and illnesses have a major impact on the athletes, families, and sporting and medical communities, including both immediate and long-term effects associated with the event, such as the cost of emergency and medical care, psychological and sociological costs to the individuals and sports community, and years of life lost in the case of a fatality.

On average, 55 catastrophic sport-related injuries and illnesses occur each year in high school sports with an average of 22 per year being fatal.[1] In 2013-14, there were 80 catastrophic sport-related injuries and illnesses in the United States with 62 (78%) occurring at the high school level and 35 (41%) being fatal.[1]

The most common types of sport-related catastrophic injuries and illnesses are due to acute trauma to the head, neck, spinal cord, internal organs or blunt chest impacts (commotio cordis); environmental and exertional-related events such as heat stroke, exertional sickling and anaphylaxis; and sudden cardiac arrest.[2]

One of the ways a safe sport environment can be achieved is through regular surveillance or collection of catastrophic sport-related injury and illness data. Surveillance is the ongoing and systematic collection of data (data in) and the analysis and reporting of these data to those who need it (data out). Surveillance provides both the starting and end points for safety and injury and illness prevention activities.

As an example, from 1965 to 1974 there were on average 19.3 traumatic head and neck injury deaths per year in football.[3] In the mid-1970s, rule changes were introduced banning head-first tackling and a helmet standard was adopted. These initiatives, coupled with improved medical care, resulted in a 60 percent reduction in the number of traumatic head and neck injury deaths in football from 1975 to 1984 (Figure 1). Other similar examples can be found in pole vault, swimming and diving, and cheerleading.

Quantifying how many of these events occur and describing the characteristics of and circumstances surrounding these events guides our prevention efforts (starting point) and determines whether safety and prevention strategies have resulted in improvements (end point).

There is a sufficient need for information about how to prevent these serious events. The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSIR) has been collecting data to provide these starting and end points for football since 1965 and for all sports since 1982. The NCCSIR is a primary source for published and unpublished catastrophic sport injury information.

The NCCSIR has historically obtained information largely from publicly available news media reports and national and state sport organizations, such as the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). In order to understand how to prevent these events in the future, it is critical that we know how many and how often catastrophic events occur. Reliance on news media reports means that only the events that reach the media are captured. For some catastrophic sport-related events, this method may provide an adequate picture; however, for other events that do not receive media attention, we may only get the “tip of the iceberg.” Therefore, in order to be most effective, surveillance systems should strive to actively capture health outcomes as they occur.

To improve the capture of these events, NCCSIR and the Consortium for Catastrophic Injury Monitoring in Sport have developed a national centralized reporting site where anyone can report a catastrophic sport injury or illness: http://www.sportinjuryreport.org. Anyone – parents, athletes, athletic trainers, coaches, school administrators and others – can report the event and basic information about what happened at the reporting site. NCCSIR and the Consortium review these initial reports and then follow up with the individuals in order to collect more detailed information about the injury or illness, including equipment worn, environmental conditions, emergency and medical care provided, and long-term outcomes.

NCCSIR gathers any available information about the event including the sport played, activity at the time of the event, type and severity of the injury, and the outcome. NCCSIR summarizes this information in annual reports submitted to national organizations like the NFHS and groups charged with minimizing risk of injury for participants. Safety and sports medicine committees review this information annually to recommend changes in rules, equipment, coaching and training techniques, and medical care, and to assess whether past recommendations resulted in fewer and/or less severe catastrophic events.

Schools and individuals can assist NCCSIR and the Consortium by reporting catastrophic sport injury and illness events to http://www.sportinjuryreport.org. This reporting site is a major step toward improving the capture of catastrophic sport injury and illness events and increasing our understanding about how they can be prevented. To learn more about NCCSIR and the Consortium, please visit: http://nccsir.unc.edu. 

Citations
1. Kucera, K.L., Yau, R., Thomas, L.C., Wolff, C., & Cantu, R.C. (2015). Catastrophic Sports Injury Research: Thirty-second Annual Report, Fall 1982 – Spring 2014. National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. Chapel Hill, NC. Pp 44. [URL: http://nccsir.unc.edu/reports/]
2. Casa, D., Guskiewicz, K., Anderson, S., Courson, R., Heck, J., Jimenez, C., et al. (2012). National athletic trainers' association position statement: preventing sudden death in sports. Journal of Athletic Training, 47(1), 96-118.
3. Kucera, K.L., Klossner, D., Colgate, B., & Cantu, R.C. (2016). Annual Survey of Football Injury Research: 1931-2015. American Football Coaches Association, National Athletic Trainers’ Association, National Collegiate Athletics Association, & National Federation of State High School Associations. Waco, TX, Indianapolis, IN. Pp 38. [URL: http://nccsir.unc.edu/reports/]

We offer "Pole Vault Testing" and "High Jump Testing." This gives a potential athlete the opportunity to see if they are ready and able to handle these field events.

Must be age 12 or older to be considered for a field event. Liability is the reason for this, safety is the main goal. Being able to high jump, throw, or vault at an age less than 12 is not a good reason to participate. So do not sign your child up just for a field event, they may not be able to participate in it.

Signing a Waiver Form does not guarantee that you will be accepted to participate in that field event.

Field Events are high risk activities. We are not in the risk taking business.

Field Events do not require early specialization.

Well rounded athletes are more successful in field events. So the well rounded  athlete comes first, the field event will  not turn you into a well rounded athlete.

The high jump and throws are one side of the body activities which is not good for young athletes (overuse injury risk). So it is best not to spend to much time on it.

Field event equipment are not toys. Stay off of the high jump pit at all times!!

70% of kids drop out of sports by age 13. Reason: adults (coaches and parents). Adults tend to take the fun out of sports and try to force kids to participate in activities they can not handle.

The largest threat to high risk youth sports is the cost of liability insurance for the school district (tax payer money). This includes sports like football, pole vault, and the high jump. So some sports are at risk of being eliminated in some school districts in the USA.

Some options for parents: If your child does not qualify to participate in a field event:

1. Coach your own child. Shot put and discus's are cheap. The high jump equipment can be used.
2. Ask your middle or high school coach to coach your child during the summer.
3. Best option(smartest option): wait until your child enters the 7th or 8th grade before getting involved in these field events. The schools coach will decide if a field event is for you or not.

Here are 10 things I learned from Gray Cook during (and before) the FMS workshop that I want to share with you:

 1) As a coach, or clinician, always use a checklist

If you are a coach, or are getting evaluated by one, make sure a checklist, or standard operating procedure is used.

Especially for very experienced coaches, it can be tempting to discard protocol and arrive at decisions based on incomplete data.

This is a big mistake.

A systematic approach to assessing and analyzing a problem is far more reliable than making judgments by selectively gathering data. Creating a checklist ensures that no stone is left unturned so that your judgment is not based on a hunch, but quantifiable and factual evidence.

The greatest value, in my opinion, of the Functional Movement Screen is that it standardizes movement analysis. It’s a systematic approach that requires the completion of a checklist.

2) Analyze patterns, not parts first

It’s easy to break the body down into parts such as specific muscles, or joints. Given the body has many moving parts, assessing the body can quickly become overwhelming.

Instead of breaking down the body into its component parts, it’s a better approach to analyze movement first. Our body moves as one unit where all the parts are connected. If the body moves efficiently without pain, we don’t have to worry about over-analyzing all the parts.

If one of the movements is dysfunctional, we can continue assessing other related movements before worrying about the component parts. The underlying issue may not be a problem of a part being tight, or weak, but an underlying neurological (i.e. motor control) issue.

3) First move well, then move often

Focusing on movement efficiency (or moving well) should be a chief aim of a properly constructed strength and conditioning program.

Movement efficiency requires a combination of mobility (i.e. flexibility and range of motion within the joints) and stability (i.e. motor control and postural musculature).

Sequentially, achieving optimal fitness and athleticism looks like this:

Mobility => Stability => Strength => Power

The more mobile you are, the more potential you have to move well. When mobility is able to be controlled, then you get functional movement. Once you have functional movement, move as often as possible and challenge your body with strength and then power exercises.

4) Don’t add strength to dysfunction

Of all the things Gray Cook has said in his career, this may be the most famous in fitness circles. If you have a dysfunctional movement pattern, adding weight to that movement pattern will make the dysfunction worse.

For example, if your knees cave in during a squat because your glutes are weak and your inner thighs are tight, those problems will only worsen if you add weight.

While it’s a tough pill to swallow and may hurt the ego, laying off the weights to focus on flexibility and stability may be the best course of action to correct movement dysfunction and prevent future injury.

5) Previous injury is the #1 predictor of future injury

Have you ever sprained your ankle? Or maybe pulled a hamstring?

The probability is high that while you were recovering from those injuries, the way your body moved changed…in a not-so-good way.

For example, if you sprain your left ankle, several “compensations” may occur:

• You begin to put more pressure on your right foot vs. your injured left foot
• Your left hip becomes weaker relative to your right
• When you run, or squat in the gym, the asymmetry gets worse
• Your right hip becomes stiffer because it’s overworked
• And so on, and so on.

The body is one interconnected unit, so any compensation can cause a variety of problems throughout the entire chain. That’s part of the reason why previous injuries are the #1 predictor of future injury.

6) The hips are the powerhouse of the body

While the bench press may be a very popular measure of strength, the greatest power the body can produce comes from the hips.

In particular, the hip hinge (bending of the hips) is the most powerful lift. It’s a reason why most people can deadlift more weight than they squat. Hinging of the hips is less of a forward bend and more of a sitting back motion where the hips push behind the heels while the back remains straight and the knees stay slightly bent.

In addition to the hinge, the hips can produce significant power rotationally. In sports, a powerful swing in baseball, or drive in golf is from rotational hip power.

It is not by coincidence that when doctors assess bone mineral density, measurements are taken from the hips and spine. Keeping your hips strong and powerful may lead to greater longevity.

7) Asymmetry is a big risk factor for injury

While excessive tightness, or weakness in the body is certainly not good, research shows that functional asymmetries between the right and left sides of the body are a much higher risk factor for injury.

If your right hip is tight, but your left hip is flexible, this asymmetry can lead to a cascade of problems throughout your entire body.

In a video I saw recently, Gray joked that he tells high school football players, “If you’re going to be tight, be tight on both sides. Then you’re just slow. If you’re tight on one side, your going to rip yourself in half.”

8) Infant development is key to understanding human movement

Most fitness professionals teach exercise from a standing position, but this is the opposite of how we learn to move as infants. The topic of infant development and its influence on exercise is easily worthy of a book.

As infants, we breathe, then grip, then roll, then crawl. Eventually, we sit, kneel, squat, then stand. So technically, we squat before we can stand.

This developmental sequence has important implications for how we should learn to exercise and how to correct dysfunctional movement patterns.

9) Your hamstrings are tight for a reason

If you have tight hamstrings, stretching them may have little effect on relieving tightness. If you stretch them today, they’ll be tight again tomorrow.

Why you may ask? Because something is causing the tightness.

So what is behind the tightness? What is driving it?

There are many possible reasons.

For example, if you have weak glutes (butt muscles), any activity from walking to squatting is going to require the hamstrings to work overtime. This will cause the hamstrings to shorten and remain flexed.

If you have a tight muscle, keep in mind it’s tight for a reason and simply stretching it may not fix the underlying cause.

10) If your knees hurt while you squat, it doesn’t mean squatting is generally bad for your knees

There is a lot of debate about squatting “below parallel”, which is when your hips drop below the plane of your knees. There are many doctors who believe this is bad for your knees. I’ve even done a video on how deep should you squat.

If you feel pain in your knees as you squat, you need to get your knees checked out ASAP. But that doesn’t mean squatting is bad, or squatting below parallel is bad. It’s not. It’s a very natural human movement and the knees experience more pressure at a 90 degree angle during the squat

Want to create a better athlete? Create a better sprinter. Sprinting involves a use of total body musculature and coordination that is conducive to performing well in all sports. Think back throughout your life. Odds are good that the people who were able to run short distances (100m, 200m, 400m) fast just happened to be pretty good playing numerous sports. In fact, I don’t know anybody who is extremely fast who is a poor all-around athlete.

Want to create a better athlete? Create a better sprinter. Sprinting involves a use of total body musculature and coordination that is conducive to performing well in all sports. Think back throughout your life. Odds are good that the people who were able to run short distances (100m, 200m, 400m) fast just happened to be pretty good playing numerous sports. In fact, I don’t know anybody who is extremely fast who is a poor all-around athlete.

Milo F. Bryant

CSCS, NSCA-CPT, TPI-CGFI, FMS, USATF   

In a room full of kids, Milo is the biggest, loudest, goofiest and most active one there. His passion lies in finding better means and methods of getting his younger brethren to move, to explore the communication between their brains and muscles and the interaction of those with the environment. After that, it’s all about getting them moving more often!   

Milo is the founder of the Coalition for Launching Active Youth (C.L.A.Y.), an organization he established to help the fight against sugar, boredom, video games, televisions and adults who have lost their inner child. Fundamental movement is Milo’s weapon of choice. But give him a ball, bat, racquet and some space, and inactivity and obesity don’t stand a chance!  

Milo gets children, and those of us not so childlike, moving nationally and internationally while educating them on youth health and fitness. He is an advisory board member of TPI and regularly appears on the Golf Channel’s “Golf Fitness Academy.” Milo is a co-author of “Movement: Functional Movement Systems: Screening, Assessment, Corrective Strategies” and also writes a physical fitness column. But mostly, Milo spends his time working on that doctorate degree in movement-induced laughter and fun!

3 Targeted Moves for a Faster Run

The key to unlocking speed is in the functionality of your load-bearing joints. These three simple movements will align and fire the hip flexors and free up the shoulders for maximum arm swing.

Any runner, competitive or otherwise, wants to run faster, longer. There’s nothing better than the feeling of athletic power, unlimited gas in the tank. But we can’t talk about speed and strength without addressing functionality.

Running can be hard on the body. And doubly so if you’re out of alignment. Impact from each stride travels through the body and if the eight load-bearing joints (shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles) aren’t aligned, you’re asking for trouble. This alone is a good reason to incorporate dynamic warm ups and cool downs before and after your runs.

A common pitfall for many runners is driving forward motion from the shoulders rather than the hips. “If you’re running with your elbows winging out and your shoulders rounded forward, it could be because your hips aren’t activated,” says Brian Bradley, fitness director of Elev8d Fitness, the new home workout program from the experts of Sonima. “People are tearing their rotator cuff running because they are overcompensating with the shoulders.”

The Shoulder Problem

The shoulders, Bradley explains, shouldn’t factor into the forward motion of the run. “It’s just not natural for you to drive your gait from your shoulders.” When the back and shoulders are rounded forward and the hips are tucked under and inactive, then the shoulders take over for the gait, rotating forward and back. The hips should be the driver of the stride and this compensation is a surefire path to injury.

In order to be a functional runner, the arms should swing back and forth, and the shoulders should be down and back. If you look at a professional runner, you’ll notice they are upright, shoulders pulled back, upper back relatively still. Their arms swing, but their shoulders aren’t punching forward and back.

Your body should operate like a well-oiled machine—joints, muscles, and skeleton working in concert. If you have full range motion in the load-bearing joints and your hips are driving the forward motion, this will naturally take your shoulders out of the equation. A smooth stride and pace is really all about functionality.

A Sequence for Function and Speed

It is essential to set your body into proper alignment before you introduce impact and rapid movement. These three exercises, excerpted from one of Elev8d Fitness’ 8-minute home workouts, free up the shoulders and activate the hips so that you are prepared to stress your system with cardio (or strength training, for that matter).

To improve range of movement in the upper body, you need to free up the scapula, the shoulder blade bone. “The first exercise in this sequence, Active Cows Face, teaches the arm bone how to function correctly in relationship with the shoulder blade. It’s really the same with the relationship between the femur and pelvis.” This simple movement addresses range of motion in the shoulder, which shifts the mid-back, the thoracic spine, and the pelvis into better alignment.

Sequence, Bradley stresses, is everything. Only when your shoulders are in a better position are you ready for the next exercise, Mountain Climbers. “With your shoulders down and back, you’re ready to load them and fire your deep hip muscles,” he explains. “Your core will stabilize this second movement.” Activating your core and hips further establishes function in the spine and shoulders.

Finally, the Downward Dog Bent Knee requires you load up the torso and the shoulders and hold the very position that was just activated by the Mountain Climbers. You’ll notice that in this final, static position that your upper body wants to collapse. It is crucial here to pull the weight off your hands by pulling your hips back, tilting your pelvis forward and firing the front hip flexors.

How Does This Translate to Running?

Once you’ve aligned your joints and activated your hips, how do you optimize for speed? The key, says Bradley, is the arm swing. Leg stride is actually the easy part. “The body naturally knows how to run, your legs know how to move,” he says. “But if you want to be the fastest person, you need to learn to arm pump as fast as you can.” The hips are driving the movement, yes, but the arm swing will take your pace to a new level.

North Dakota, Minnesota sports participation numbers continue transformation

Nov 10, 2019

Track, softball, soccer and video gaming all are showing increases. But it's hard to pinpoint true trends as population in the states continues to grow.

t’s been a good couple of years in North Dakota for high school runners, softball players and soccer players — and even for kids who like to play video games.

As quickly as North Dakota has changed in the last decade, the state’s high-schoolers — and the activities that take up their spare time — have changed with it. More are playing soccer and surging into high school track and field programs, or jumping into the state’s growing high school softball leagues. And though it’s not a “sport” in the traditional sense, e-sports — competitive video games — are poised to come to more high schools around the state.

The team sports on this month’s state tournament calendar — volleyball and football — have held at relatively steady participation levels. Volleyball’s 2018 season participation, for example, strays less than 2 percent below its 2011 participation. The same is true of football, where figures have also held steady for much of the last decade, although there are increasingly more nine-man, as opposed to 11-man, teams, and numbers are lower than they were in the 2000s.

https://infogram.com/sports-changes-1hke60ypjnp125r?live

The data on students’ shifting habits comes from the National Federation of High Schools and the North Dakota High School Activities Association, organizations that track the number of students who participate in a wide range of sports, fine arts programs, music activities and the like. The numbers are a window into a changing state that’s growing very, very quickly, making it hard to pinpoint which factors are driving changes. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Grand Forks grew by about 7.4 percent between 2010 and 2018, while the state grew by about 13 percent.

For those like Mark Rerick, the athletic director for Grand Forks Public Schools, the state’s growth has made it tough to figure how much upticks in sports participation come from student enthusiasm and how much comes from a growing population. In the 2014-15 school year, there were 1,319 local high school-level “participations,” a statistic that counts each student playing in each program (which means multi-sport athletes get counted more than once). That statistic in the 2018-19 school year was 1,509 — a 14.4 percent increase.

But besides the shifting state population, there are a range of other factors in play. One of the largest changes in the last decade has come in softball, where North Dakota High School Activities Association Executive Director Matt Fetsch said numbers have exploded as more schools have created programs. But there’s a web of other pressures, too, from local sports culture to growing “travel” teams that have changed how North Dakota’s children play sports.

There might be no better example than track and field. Jeff Bakke, who coaches the boys’ team at Red River High School, points out that high school coaches are grappling with a relatively recent trend in which high school athletes specialize in a single sport, sometimes playing it year-round. Efforts to bring those students back to high school athletics often get them involved in track and field, where their unique athletic talents often transfer most quickly to competitive success.

“Track is such a catch-all sport. It’s so beneficial to any athlete, no matter what sport they’re in,” Bakke said. “Even if they are doing, maybe summer or spring basketball or hockey, they’re still able to join us. That’s one of the reasons that, at least in Red River, we’ve boosted numbers, because we’ve worked with some of those kids and they’re willing to give it a try.”

The numbers suggest that’s a phenomenon happening statewide. Between 2013 and 2019, track and field participation has grown by nearly 1,000 total participants, from 3,753 to 4,716. In Minnesota, those numbers have grown from 30,713 to 33,371 during the same period.

A big part of that phenomenon is the growth of “travel” sports — competitive, non-scholastic youth clubs that often travel to play. Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a professor of sports management at George Washington University, echoed Bakke’s observation: oftentimes, high school sports participation suffers as students elect to play for travel teams. There may be some key differences for a rural place like North Dakota, she said, given travel teams are generally less common in rural areas. Meanwhile, local sports like high school football teams, for example, are more easily accessible for everyday students and more institutionally ingrained in the community than they might be in larger cities.

And football has one of the most difficult trend lines to explain. In North Dakota, 9- and 11-man high school football has held relatively steady in total participation numbers from 2011 to 2018, never straying much from about 4,050 players, with slightly rising statewide enrollments. But they’re down significantly from mid-2000s numbers, which put total football players at about 4,500 in 2007. Earlier numbers from that decade are reportedly even higher.

Across the border, Minnesota State High School League documents show about 26,500 players in 2012, but with numbers falling off across the rest of the decade.

It’s unclear how much the sport’s cultural currency holds it aloft in rural areas, or how much rising state population will or won’t affect those player numbers or how much declining participation in the sport elsewhere will affect North Dakota. Meanwhile, Fetsch, of the NDHSAA, said that with large high schools opening in some urban areas, but also rural schools with declining enrollments, football programs are seeing pressure on participation numbers in both directions.

Students are grappling with as much stress as ever, according to numerous observers. Jason Heydt, who coaches volleyball at Red River High School, points out that he has seen students with increasingly busy schedules in recent decades.

“Kids are specializing (in sports) earlier, and whether it’s the parents or just the pressure (on) themselves, some of the kids get burned out,” he said, mentioning academics, multiple sports and jobs that students oftentimes navigate. “You want kids to be kids. They need to be able to relax and not have pressure, pressure, pressure, but have some down time, too.”

One of the newest additions to the pantheon of high school activities — and perhaps most unlike anything that’s come before it — are video games. Rerick said it’s best to think of them not really as sports per se, but as activities, like drama or debate. And, he said, there’s a growing club league that soon could turn into something even more vibrant. Even universities are seeing an emergence of e-sports, with the University of Jamestown, Dickinson State University and Bismarck State College all forming competitive e-sports teams.

After all, advocates point out, it stands to teach kids the same kind of collaborative, team-building skills they’ll learn in plenty of other activities that don’t require breaking a sweat — be it debate or music.

“(And) we don’t have our drama department finish a play and then run stairs for 20 minutes,” said Rerick, Grand Forks Public Schools’ athletic director, said.

Repetitive, High-Impact Sports Linked to Stress Fractures in Girls

ScienceDaily (Apr. 4, 2011) — Children are urged to participate in sports at younger and younger ages and at greater levels of intensity. While weight-bearing activity is generally thought to increase bone density, a study from Children's Hospital Boston finds that for preadolescent and adolescent girls, too much high-impact activity can lead to stress fractures.

If these are detected too late in children and adolescent athletes, they pose a risk of true fracture, deformity or growth disturbance requiring surgical treatment, say the researchers, led by Alison Field, ScD, of Children's Division of Adolescent Medicine, and Mininder S. Kocher, MD, MPH, associate director of Sports Medicine at Children's.

The study, published online April 4 by the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, followed 6831 girls aged 9 to 15 participating in the large national Growing Up Today Study, co-founded by Field. During the 7 years after enrollment, 4 percent of the girls developed a stress fracture. The most significant predictors were high-impact activities, particularly running, basketball, cheerleading and gymnastics.

"This is the first study to look prospectively at causes of stress fracture among a general sample of adolescent girls," says Field, who is also affiliated with Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Most research has been on specialized groups, such as army recruits or college athletes, making it difficult to figure out if the results apply to average adolescents. Our study was large enough to look at risk associated not only with hours per week of activity, but also hours per week in a variety of different activities."

When the researchers adjusted for other risk factors (age, later onset of menstruation and family history of osteoporosis and low bone density), the association between high-impact sports and fractures only strengthened. Girls engaging in 8 or more hours of high-impact activity per week were twice as likely to have a stress fracture as those engaged in such activity for 4 hours or fewer.

"We are seeing stress fractures more frequently in our pediatric and adolescent athletes," says Kocher, senior author on the report. "This likely reflects increased intensity and volume of youth sports. Kids are often playing on multiple teams, including town and travel teams, and participating in high intensity showcases and tournaments. It's not uncommon to see young athletes participating in more than 20 hours of sports per week."

Each hour of high-impact activity per week increased fracture risk by about 8 percent. Basketball, cheerleading/gymnastics and running were independent predictors.

"The youth athlete is specializing in a single sport at a younger age," says Kocher. "This does not allow for cross-training or relative rest, as the athlete is constantly doing the same pattern of movement and impact. Small injuries are being made in the bone with greater cumulative frequency than the body can handle."

The key to the treatment of stress fractures is early recognition, Kocher adds. If recognized early, most stress fractures will heal fully with activity restriction.

"Kids should not play through pain," he says. "'No pain-No gain' is not an appropriate adage for the young athlete."

The study was supported by the Department of Orthopedics at Children's Hospital Boston and the National Institutes of Health.

How to Teach a Long Jump Run-Up in 7 Easy Steps

Tips to Help Young Athletes Develop a Long Jump Run-Up

How should a young athlete measure out their long or triple jump run-up? Where should they start on the runway? How long should their run-up be? These are some of the most common questions that I am asked.

Firstly, it is worth knowing that a young athlete can use exactly the same run-up for both the long jump and the triple jump. Therefore, once an athlete has developed a long jump run-up, they also have a triple jump run-up.

My method for determining where an athlete should start on the runway is outlined in the seven following steps:

Step 1:

Firstly, the coach needs to have an idea of what is an appropriate length run-up for a young athlete. This can be done by matching their age with a recommended number of strides in their run-up. As a starting guide:

• 10 years = 10-11 strides
• 11 years = 10-12 strides
• 12 years = 11-13 strides
• 13 years = 12-14 strides
• 14 years = 13-15 strides
• 15 years = 14-16 strides
• 16 years = 15-17 strides
• 17 years = 15-21 strides

Step 2:

Find out which foot the athlete jumps off. Is it their left or right foot that hits the board? This is their “take-off” foot.

Step 3:

Ask the athlete to show you how they like to stand at the start of their run-up. Is their take-off foot forward or back? If it is forward, the athlete will need to take an even number of steps in their run-up to ensure that this foot hits the board. If it is back, they will need to take an odd number of steps in their run-up.

(TIP: Some athletes will tell you that they “don’t know” which foot they like forward at the start of a long jump run-up. If this occurs, ask them to show you a standing “On Your Marks” racing position. The position that they take is generally how they will begin their long jump run-up).

Step 4:

Using the information gained from Steps 1-3 you can now determine the exact number of strides that the athlete will initially use in their run-up.

e.g. A 13 year-old athlete should take about 12-14 strides in their run-up. If they take-off to jump from their right foot and stand at the start of their run-up with this foot back, they need to take an odd number of strides. Therefore, the coach would advise the athlete to take 13 strides in their run-up.

If this same athlete likes to start their run-up with their take-off foot forward and therefore needs to use an even number of strides (12 or 14) to hit the board, I advise using the lower number (12) first and later lengthening the run-up to 14 strides if the athlete and/or coach feels that a 12-stride run-up is too short.

Step 5:

Ask the athlete to stand on the runway with their back to the sand pit and with the heel of their front foot on the take-off board foul line. They should stand exactly as they would to begin a long jump run-up. The athlete then runs up the runway, away from the pit, as you count their strides and then place a marker (e.g. some tape) where the  “take-off” (e.g.13th) stride falls.

Repeat the above three times; preferably five times if possible. (Allow the athlete to rest between each!) You will finish with 3 or 5 markers next to the runway, depending on the number of times you repeat the exercise.

Once done, leave the middle of the 3 or 5 markers in place and remove the others. The remaining marker is from where the athlete can now practice their run-up.

(TIP: The athlete should run away from the pit as if they are running towards the pit – fast and with building speed. Discourage the athlete from counting their steps; this is the coach’s role. Simply ask the athlete to run to a point along the runway which will be well past their “take-off” stride).

Step 6:

Now facing the pit, the athlete places their front foot next to the marker, runs back towards the board and “pops-up” (takes off) into the pit. Note where their last (take-off) stride lands in relation to the take-off board.

Repeat the above several times. If the athlete’s foot is consistently behind the take-off board, say 20cm, then move the start marker 20cm forward. If their foot is beyond the take-off board then move the marker back. Try to avoid moving the marker after every trial run. Only move it once it is obvious that you have to.

Repeat the run-up and marker adjustment a few times to establish a consistent approach run onto the take-off board.

(TIP: Never allow the athlete to just “run through” and step on the board to test their run-up. They need to at least complete the take-off phase of the jump to properly assess the run-up’s accuracy).

Step 7:

Once you and the athlete are happy with their run-up and they are hitting the board relatively consistently, measure the distance accurately with a tape measure and record it for future use.

(TIP: Pull the tape measure along the edge of the runway, not down the middle, to ensure that it is straight).

Note:

• It is important to be aware that a head or tail wind will affect the run-up. A head wind may mean moving the marker slightly forward and a tail wind may mean moving the marker slightly back.
• The above is a starting point. As the run-up is fine-tuned, an athlete and coach may experiment with adding or subtracting strides from the run-up and even changing which foot begins forward at the start of the run-up.

Do You Have Any Ideas?

I would love to hear if you have any tips for teaching long/triple jump run-ups. You can leave a message by clicking on “Leave a Comment” located on the left sidebar or by scrolling down to the “Leave a Reply” box below.

Further Reading

Articles:

Where to Stand on the Long Jump Board to Measure a Run-Up

How to Teach Young Athletes to Long Jump

Teach Young Long Jumpers to Swing on a Trapeze

10 of the Biggest Mistakes Young Athletes Make in the Long Jump

University of Colorado Conducts Investigation Into Running Program

Nov 18, 2022

Former student athletes allege a fixation on weight and medical privacy violations, among other complaints.

The University of Colorado is conducting what it calls an “independent, comprehensive fact-finding inquiry” into practices at its legendary cross-country program.

The investigation into the Boulder-based program—which has produced multiple NCAA champions and eventual Olympians—comes following allegations by former athletes pertaining to body composition analysis, training methods, and overall culture.

The accusations center around CU’s two highly decorated coaches and the head dietitian on its athletic department staff. Head coach Mark Wetmore is currently in his 29th year at the university and his 27th at the helm of the program; associate head coach Heather Burroughs, a three-time cross-country All-American at CU who ran under Wetmore, is now in her 17th season on staff. Laura Anderson is a registered dietitian who has worked for the university since 2014 and was promoted to associate athletic director for performance nutrition in 2018.

Steve Hurlbert, director of communications and chief spokesperson for CU Boulder, said the school takes the allegations seriously, but could not yet address them specifically.

“While the inquiry is ongoing, to ensure the integrity of the process and respect the participation of the past and present athletes, coaches, and staff, CU Boulder and the Athletics Department will not comment until it is complete,” he said. (His full statement is below.)

Runner’s World spoke to Kate Intile—the former CU runner who brought the allegations to the school—and five other former student athletes who said they were contacted by investigators. (Several of these runners said multiple peers had also been contacted, indicating the investigation is extensive.) Three in addition to Intile participated in interviews for the inquiry, which is being conducted by two members of the University of Colorado system’s internal audit team and an outside attorney.

Runner’s World requested interviews with Wetmore, Burroughs, and Anderson. Wetmore addressed questions by email, and Anderson also provided an emailed statement.

Hurlbert could not provide an estimate on when findings would be available. When they are complete, he said, they “will be provided to CU Boulder’s Athletic Director and Chief Operating Officer for any subsequent determination on personnel or policy.” They will also be made available to Runner’s World and the public, “while respecting [the university’s] legal obligations and commitment to the well-being and anonymity of those who participated.”

The origins of the complaints

The inquiry began after Intile—a walk-on who ran for the school from 2017–19, before she was cut from the team—collected, by phone or in writing, her own experiences and those of 13 of her former teammates. In communications with school officials, she described conditions on the team as “toxic.”

The complaints were wide-ranging, but a common theme involved frequent body composition testing, accompanied by nutrition advice that focused on restriction and weight loss. “Their approach was unprofessional, demeaning, and harsh,” Intile said, adding, “it led to so many eating disorders.”

Said Intile: “Some of the things they measure can work, but I think it was completely handled irresponsibly, and with a lack of precaution or awareness or protections for their athletes’ physical and mental well-being.”

Intile requested a meeting with athletic director Rick George, and in March, had a Zoom call with him and Jill Keegan, senior associate athletic director for compliance and senior women’s administrator. Afterward, Intile sent the stories she’d collected and was told they would be reviewed.

In May, Intile expressed her concerns in a Washington Post article about mental health and suicide risk in NCAA athletes. The article cited a statement from the university that body composition measurements were recently made voluntary.

Unsatisfied with school officials’ response to the article and the outcome of her meeting with George and Keegan, Intile forwarded the stories she’d collected and a link to the Post article to the university president, Todd Saliman, and the University of Colorado Athletics Office of Compliance Services, copying George, Keegan, and several other compliance officials.

On June 7, Keegan replied that the university would conduct an inquiry in response. Runners were interviewed over the summer months, they told Runner’s World.

A shifting conversation

The idea that lighter is faster has permeated elite and collegiate running for decades. But in recent years, researchers have increasingly documented the risks of disordered eating, eating disorders, and restricting food intake among athletes. As a result of these findings and student complaints, many schools have faced criticism for an undue emphasis on monitoring and regulating weight and body composition.

The University of Oregon faced a controversy about body composition last fall. Head coach Robert Johnson’s contract was not renewed this year. Earlier this month, nearly 20 athletes from track and field programs around the country detailed pressures to reduce their body fat, with physically and psychologically harmful results, in the New York Times.

In his emailed statements, Wetmore disputed what athletes told Runner’s World about CU’s standards and practices.

“Weight is an irrelevant measure as it tells us nothing about our athletes’ health or fitness,” he said. “We don’t know any of our athletes’ weights. But body composition is one factor that influences an athlete’s health and performance.

“We try to utilize the most contemporary, responsible sport science,” he continued, “and hire excellent support staff to enable our athletes to train as elite athletes, recover adequately, and be knowledgeable about how to fuel and care for themselves.”

In her statement, Anderson, the dietitian, said she placed athletes’ health above performance goals. “My mission is to provide student-athletes with education and data that will enable them to reach their athletic goals,” she said. “This information is always conveyed responsibly, privately, and with the athlete’s overall health in mind. Poor health will always trump performance and the physical and mental well-being of our student-athletes is the foundation for everything I do.”

Reports allege harmful practices

In interviews with Runner’s World, several athletes—including Intile; Gabe Fendel, a male runner who competed for the school from 2018–20; and three female runners who requested anonymity to protect their privacy—described negative experiences with body composition tests and what they viewed as a fixation on them by Anderson, Burroughs, and Wetmore.

Athletes were banned from practice and races until they had their body composition assessed, said one athlete. “They’d say, ‘You have three days to go see Laura, or we’re not taking you to this meet.’”

Multiple times per year, Anderson would weigh them and take measurements of subcutaneous fat at seven parts of the body—including the front of the thigh, on the chest between the nipple and armpit, and the abdomen—using measurement devices called calipers. With those, she’d calculate a score called the “sum of seven,” the athletes said.

This number—typically used in formulas to calculate overall body fat percentage and the ratio of fat to lean mass—was charted over time. The runners expressed confusion about what, exactly, the sum of seven represented. But female athletes received a consistent message, they said: the lower the number, the better.

Skinfold measurements are often used to measure body composition in high-level athletes when more accurate but involved tests such as DEXA scans aren’t available or practical. When used properly, any of these methods can help identify whether athletes are fueling well enough to support their training and health, said Kate Ackerman, M.D., a sports endocrinologist and director of the Wu-Tsai Human Performance Alliance and Boston Children’s Hospital Female Athlete Program. CU also used DEXA, but less frequently, student athletes reported.

Wetmore said body composition results were primarily used at CU to protect athletes’ health and fine-tune their routines—for example, leading coaches to add more high-weight strength training to the team’s program to increase muscle mass and prevent injury, or, when combined with bone density levels, compelling them in some cases to keep individual runners’ mileage lower.

But body composition testing can have harmful effects on collegiate athletes when not conducted responsibly. Testing frequently, conveying results without appropriate sensitivity, or aiming to manipulate these numbers can trigger disordered eating and eating disorders, and contribute to a condition called relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), a mismatch between energy intake and expenditure that can lead to menstrual irregularities, weak bones, and other injuries and long-term health problems.

And skinfold tests are particularly invasive, involving measurements in sensitive parts of the body. “Exercise physiologists use skinfolds in a setting where they feel that the athlete can comfortably [handle the process and results]—and here we’re talking about elite athletes who are used to making those slight changes and are used to being hyper-scrutinized,” Ackerman said.

But she advises against using them in teenagers. “Skinfolds can even be dangerous, from a mental health perspective,” in athletes of any age, she said.

Underclassmen or athletes who already have eating disorders, or are at risk for them, are especially vulnerable. Plus, fine-tuning of body composition is unlikely to be beneficial for athletic performance at this stage, she said. There are many other factors, such as sleep and adjusting to a new training program, that can improve how young athletes train and race.

Athletes’ statements about their CU experiences reflected these dangers. For example, one female athlete sustained an injury that required time away from running shortly before arriving on campus. As soon as she returned to training, she said she was sent to see Anderson for testing. “They wanted me to strive to go back to the body I had my senior year of high school,” the runner said.

The next fall, she reached the weight and measurements Anderson recommended. At first, she performed well, making the top seven on the team in cross country and traveling to compete. Later in the season, she sustained a fracture she attributes to a combination of training hard and eating too little.

Throughout her collegiate career, attaining the ideal body composition loomed large in her mind. “I thought about what I was eating and food more than I thought about classes, more than I thought about training,” she said.

That runner and Intile said they were often told to lose weight from specific parts of their body. “[Anderson] would tell me where I had too much fat, which for me, was my inner thigh and under my arms, on my tricep,” the runner, who requested anonymity, said.

In addition, students’ scores were frequently shared and comparisons encouraged, several athletes said. An athlete requesting anonymity reported that, at a women’s team meeting during the pandemic, Anderson shared average sum of seven scores for previous teams. “She basically said, your team’s average is way higher than previous years, and you can see that the higher the average, the worse the team did at nationals,” one of the runners said. “On the back of the sheet was a list of foods that she had approved.”

At one of Intile’s appointments, she said, Anderson pulled up another student’s spreadsheet, which included her weight and measurements. “She said, ‘Here’s her sum of seven, and she’s running well—that’s what you want to aim toward,’” Intile said.

That lack of confidentiality appears to run afoul of medical privacy laws. “It’s a complete HIPAA violation to compare one athlete to another and share that information with other athletes,” Ackerman said.

Wetmore disputed claims that tests were required or that results were shared. “Body composition measurements have never been mandatory. Only consultations with our nutritionist, on average twice per semester, have been mandatory,” he said. “What happens in those appointments was at the joint discretion of our athletes and nutritionist.” (Athletes who spoke to Runner’s World said their body composition was measured four or five times per year.)

To make the voluntary nature of the testing clear, he said, the department recently began requiring athletes in all sports to sign a form indicating they understand the measurements aren’t required. “If they choose to participate, the athletes can decide who, if anyone, can see this data,” he said.

In the past, Burroughs would see the scores of athletes who participated in testing about once per semester, but Wetmore said he never received them.

“We think it’s more likely that athletes inevitably compare themselves to their teammates, to their competitors, to athletes who are running faster, and perhaps most often to their younger selves,” he said. “For some athletes, any discussion of nutrition, fueling or strength-to-weight ratio, no matter how well-intended, might feel like a criticism. But none of them can honestly cite an example when an athlete was punished or rewarded for their body composition values.”

Opposing opinions

Not every athlete shares the viewpoints raised in the allegations. One former team member, who also spoke to investigators but asked to remain anonymous to protect her privacy, said she’d struggled with an eating disorder and depression during her time on the CU team. Burroughs, Wetmore, and Anderson were supportive; Burroughs, in particular, helped her get the care she needed during a mental health crisis.

“These people whose jobs are on the line, whose characters are being questioned, these are the people that actually helped pull me out of all of those horrible situations,” she said, calling the investigation a “witch hunt” instigated by athletes who weren’t running well. “I just feel like Mark and Heather are fantastic people, they care deeply. And the nutrition staff does everything they can to try to help people.”

Intile expressed a different view, describing a sink-or-swim, win-at-all-costs mindset that she fears will come at great cost.

“A lot of people who are great in high school don’t go on to be great in college; it’s a totally different ball game,” Intile said. “But I really truly believe what they do at CU is dangerous. I believe it’s a matter of time until they have a tragedy on their hands, like a lot of other schools have.”

From her perspective, change is needed at CU and throughout the NCAA system. “The more light brought to it, the better,” she said. “I hope it makes other coaches in schools check themselves and say, ‘Okay, if that’s going to happen to the best team in the nation, let’s check our program. Let’s think about how we’re dealing with body comp. Let’s think about how we talk to our athletes.’”

CU Boulder Statement:

An independent, comprehensive fact-finding inquiry is currently underway of the CU Boulder cross-country program based on allegations pertaining to its use of body composition analysis, training methods and overall culture.

CU Boulder has taken these allegations seriously and acted swiftly in response. CU Boulder and its Athletics Department requested the assistance of the University of Colorado system office to conduct the inquiry. While the inquiry is ongoing, to ensure the integrity of the process and respect the participation of the past and present athletes, coaches, and staff, CU Boulder and the Athletics Department will not comment until it is complete. Results of the inquiry will be provided to CU Boulder’s Athletic Director and Chief Operating Officer for any subsequent determination on personnel or policy.

We continue to support our student-athletes while the review process continues.

Female college athletes say pressure to cut body fat is toxic

Nov 13, 2022

Audra Koopman wanted to be leaner and more powerful.

She also wanted to eat. But, she said, she could sense what her track and field coaches at Penn State wanted: for her to have less body fat.

 Coaches never told her to achieve a specific body fat percentage, Koopman said, but a lowered score on periodic body composition tests generally earned a pat on the back.
“It’s interesting how a lot of us have kind of been brainwashed into thinking that that is something that’s good for you and it is good for you to lose your period and it is good for you to have that feeling of hunger in your stomach,” said Koopman, who competed in long jump and short sprints from 2017-21.
But as she ate less and her body fat dropped, she was not running any faster. It made her wonder why the scores mattered so much.
Across the US, many collegiate athletic departments are asking or requiring student-athletes to measure their body composition, producing data that can help schools gauge whether the athletes are optimally training, resting, and eating.
But The New York Times spoke with nearly 20 female current and former athletes across the Power 5 conferences, many of whom have found body composition tests to be invasive, inconsequential to their performance, and triggering for those who had eating disorders or were predisposed to them. The tests are just one aspect of a culture in women’s college sports in which weight, body image, and body composition are often discussed in harmful ways — or not discussed at all, even though they are important factors in the athletes’ physical and mental health.
Body composition data often overemphasize the correlation between body fat percentage and athletic performance, while understating other key factors such as sleep and hydration, said Dr Paula Quatromoni, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Boston University and an expert on sports nutrition and eating disorders.
Stef Strack, the founder of Voice in Sport, a digital platform for girls and women in sports that offers mental health resources and mentorship, said she had heard mixed feedback about the use of the tests.
“A lot of the struggles come in when the culture and the environment isn’t great,” Strack said. “And when you add data prioritized over how athletes feel, that’s when you get to some of these broader systemic issues that women are facing regarding body image, confidence, and comparison.”
What the science says
There are several ways to assess body composition. At Penn State, Koopman was measured with a Bod Pod, a human-size, egg-shaped capsule. She would sit on a bench inside it for a few minutes while the machine calculated her body fat, muscle, and bone density and returned a score. Some schools employ a DEXA Scan, which uses a hovering arm to make measurements as athletes lie on a table.
After The Oregonian reported on concerns from athletes at the University of Oregon about how DEXA Scans were being used in 2021, the school said teams could no longer require athletes to be tested for body fat percentage or share the results with coaches.
Quatromoni said schools should not use body composition tests to measure body fat.
“This practice is steeped in weight stigma, stereotypes, and misinformation,” Quatromoni wrote in an email. “It is not based on sports science, and rarely is the practice managed or monitored closely by qualified health professionals to have any positive outcome. Instead, it can have devastating consequences for the athlete and will sabotage the very goals that athletes and coaches pursue.”
Most of the female current and former athletes interviewed by the New York Times did not know whether their coaches received the results of the tests, however, they suspected that they did.
Many felt awkward discussing their weight with male coaches, whose comments, the women said, ranged from questions about their sexual activity to urges to get rid of their “muffin top,” referring to belly fat. And although none said the tests were mandatory, many felt it would be frowned upon if they asked to opt-out.
Koopman discussed her tests only with a school nutritionist. Somehow, she said, her coaches always seemed to know her results.
Kristina Petersen, Penn State’s associate athletics director of strategic communications, said in an email that the school’s “general practice” was not to share the test results with coaches.
“Like other institutions, Penn State employs a number of resources — including the ‘Bod Pod’ — to help our student-athletes understand and track body composition, avoid injury, overcome setbacks, and enhance overall athletic performance,” Petersen said.
In May 2019, the University of Kansas announced a collaboration with the University of Kansas Health System that allowed staff members to report to medical professionals instead of physicians employed by the athletic department, with the goal of minimizing potential conflicts of interest between coaches and the sports medicine staff.
Body composition tests are not mandatory at the university unless a student-athlete has a previously identified medical condition that requires monitoring, a Kansas spokesperson said.
Dan Beckler, a former senior associate athletic director at Kansas, said sports dietitians would give the athletes recommendations based on the results but would not share information with coaches without the students’ consent.
Koopman, the former Penn State athlete, said the information should be shared only in certain situations. Koopman is now helping to coach track at one of the high schools she grew up near in Colorado and plans to attend graduate school.
The body composition tests can be beneficial, she said, depending on how they are used and how the information is shared.
“If somebody is really having issues with something, maybe that’s when you bring in the body scan,” she said. “But if not, I feel like I would have been much better off not knowing about it at all.”
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Reeling from suicides, college athletes press NCAA: ‘This is a crisis’

At least five college athletes have died by suicide in recent months, sparking calls for more support from the NCAA.

By Molly Hensley-Clancy

Updated May 20, 2022 at 8:56 p.m. EDT|Published May 19, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Former CU Buffs cross country standouts coming to defense of coach Mark Wetmore

A Colorado cross country program that built a renowned national reputation behind an ethos of character, dedication and success was blitzed by troubling allegations on the eve of the NCAA championships two weeks ago.

In the time since, many of the former Buffaloes greats mentored by coach Mark Wetmore have come to his defense. As is Wetmore himself.

Wetmore spoke to BuffZone regarding the allegations of mistreatment and mental abuse put forward by former Colorado runner Kate Intile, as detailed most prominently in a Runner’s World article published two weeks ago. An independent investigation remains ongoing, and Wetmore admitted to uncertainty surrounding his CU career of three decades.

Intile’s allegations specifically named Wetmore, 19-year associate head coach (and CU cross country alum) Heather Burroughs, and Laura Anderson, CU’s associate athletic director of performance nutrition.

Intile’s allegations first surfaced publicly in a May article in the Washington Post, which focused on a broader examination of mental health needs across NCAA athletics. In that piece, Intile described monthly body composition tests at CU conducted before large windows that looked upon an active weight room. The Runner’s World article — published on Nov. 18, one day ahead of the NCAA championships — expounded on Intile’s claims and focused on Wetmore’s program, with Intile alleging CU’s “approach was unprofessional, demeaning, and harsh,” and that it “led to so many eating disorders.”

According to Wetmore, as well as Tabor Scholl, a former CU All-American and one-time teammate of Intile who is leading a drive to defend Wetmore, Burroughs and Anderson, those body composition tests never were mandatory.

“Of the allegations that I’ve seen, from one of the letters that went around and what was in the Washington Post, my opinion is that they are 100% untrue,” Wetmore said. “Not a matter of a difference of opinion. Not a matter of misremembering. The ones that I’ve seen, in my opinion, are 100% untrue.

“We try to run a program that’s respectful of everybody. Of people who are stars and people who are not stars. I was not a star. But that one woman, for reasons of her own, has expressed displeasure with her time here.”

The dynamic of body composition tests with elite women’s distance runners, particularly at the collegiate level, has become a growing concern as many schools, including CU, have expanded their mental health resources for all student-athletes. It was in October of 2021 when Oregon cross country coach Robert Johnson was accused by six former athletes of cultivating a culture of body shaming. Johnson’s contract was not renewed following the 2021-22 school year.

Intile spent two years in CU’s program, 2017 and 2018, at a time when the women’s cross country program was dominant. The 2018 women’s squad won the team national championship behind an individual title from Dani Jones. Scholl finished 15th and the Buffs were so loaded they had a future Olympian in the steeplechase, Val Constein, as their sixth finisher.

Intile transferred to Oregon State and, according to Scholl, “no one heard from her for two years.” Yet on the very day the Oregon news broke in the fall of 2021, Scholl said she received a message from Intile inquiring about her experience at CU.

“This is not making a (body shaming) conversation open to talk about,” Scholl said. “There have been articles that have done that. And people have come forward and have had positive conversations. It’s been great. This wasn’t creating a positive conversation of change. It was just creating a conversation of a vendetta of some sort.”

Scholl has devoted time the past few weeks to gathering testimonials from current and former CU runners in defense of Wetmore, Burroughs and Anderson. She turned over 15 in all, 13 from women’s runners, to CU athletic director Rick George as well as the leader of the investigative team.

Wetmore has spent 28 years at CU, the past 26 as the head cross country and track and field coach. His Buff squads have won eight cross country NCAA team titles (five men, three women) and 21 individual national titles (cross country and track). Former CU runners often have turned to Wetmore and Burroughs to continue coaching them as professionals, none more prominently than former Buffs All-Americans Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn, who in 2016 became the first American women to win Olympic medals in their respective events (both won bronze; Simpson in the 1,500 and Coburn in the steeplechase).

Honors and accolades, of course, do not make a coach or a program immune to missteps. Yet Simpson, still a volunteer coach with the Buffs, believes all anyone needs to know regarding the character of Wetmore and Burroughs is how most former Buffs runners thrive in their pro careers, whether they are Olympians or weekend warriors.

“I’m not naive. I know on the same team, different athletes have different experiences and some people leave hurt,” Simpson said. “But, describing the conditions on the team as ‘toxic’ is just grossly inaccurate. Even more so, the picture (Intile) is painting of coaches Mark and Heather, and the team nutritionist, Laura. It’s really unfortunate.

“So many runners leave Mark and Heather’s program at CU and go on to chase even bigger and more challenging running dreams. And then achieve them. The Olympians are often the first to come to mind but there are dozens more who graduated with enough strength and love for the sport to take on the marathon, trail running, ultra running, join local running clubs, and have continued to enjoy running as they become professionals in something else. That’s evidence of a broad positive impact that Mark and Heather have had on the students who come through their cross country program.”

For now, all Wetmore, Burroughs and Anderson — who was staunchly defended by Wetmore and Simpson in their respective interviews with BuffZone — can do is wait until the independent investigation is complete. Envisioning the CU running programs without Wetmore sounds implausible, yet asked if he is concerned at all about his job status, Wetmore replied: “I don’t know. I’ll have to see what they’ve heard from other people. Maybe they’ll unearth something about me that I don’t even know.”

Wetmore added, “It was uplifting, I have to admit,” to hear how his former runners are coming to his defense. He readily admits there are demands within his program, but they are demands in tune with operating an elite athletics program. And they are demands that, in his experience, the vast majority of athletes within the CU program are eager to embrace.

“We’re told that we’re here to compete for and win championships,” Wetmore said. “That’s the phrase. ‘Compete for and win championships.’ Which I’m in favor of. I like it. That’s what I’m trying to do in my trade. Trying to be elite. Successful. But maybe that’s not what the University of Colorado really wants. Maybe they need to rethink that and have a different goal. It isn’t oppressive. People have fun. People have pleasant memories. Hundreds of people have gone through the program and had a wonderful time. A few hundred people were at a reunion last fall. It isn’t oppressive. But maybe the small few who find it so will end up dictating a new role for athletics at CU.”

Recess quality influences student behavior, social-emotional development

Date:July 9, 2021Source:Oregon State UniversitySummary:Recess quality, not just the amount of time spent away from the classroom, plays a major role in whether children experience the full physical, mental and social-emotional benefits of recess, a new study has found.

Recess quality, not just the amount of time spent away from the classroom, plays a major role in whether children experience the full physical, mental and social-emotional benefits of recess, a new study from Oregon State University found.

quotNot all recess is created equal,quot said William Massey, study author and an assistant professor in OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences. With schools returning to full-time in-person classes this fall, he said, quotNow is a good time to rethink, 'How do we create schools that are more child-friendly?' I think ensuring quality access to play time and space during the school day is a way we can do that.quot

Massey's study, published this week in the Journal of School Health, involved in-person observation of third- and fifth-grade students at 25 schools across five states during the 2018-19 school year. The schools covered a wide range of socioeconomic status and racial and ethnic diversity.

Researchers measured recess quality on a number of factors, including whether the schoolyard offered physical and environmental safety; whether kids had opportunities to play and had the requisite space and equipment; whether there were opportunities for inclusion; and if they had diverse options for play.

A safe space with basic playground equipment might seem like a given, but that's not always the case, Massey said.

quotI've been on playgrounds where the kids go outside, and it's a parking lot with high fences, no play structure, no balls, no jump-ropes, no chalk -- they're literally outside, and there's nothing to do,quot he said. He has also seen large holes from construction, broken glass, used condoms and needles in play spaces.

Researchers also looked at student behavior and the occurrence of verbal and physical conflict, as well as conflict resolution; and watched what adults on the playground were doing.

quotA lot of my previous research shows that adults are one of the most important entities on the playground,quot Massey said. quotOne of the most important things is: Do adults model and encourage positive interactions with the students, and do they actually engage with the students themselves? The more adults engage with and play with students at recess, the more kids play, the more physical activity there is and the less conflict there is.quot

Schools that ranked highly on these measures saw associated positive outcomes in classroom behavior and socio-emotional markers. There was significant correlation between high-quality recess and higher scores in student resilience, self-control, adaptive classroom behaviors and executive function, Massey said.

Based on these findings and his previous research on recess, Massey argues that schools should look at recess as a critical part of the school day -- which means investing adequate time and resources into it.

Schools don't need expensive play structures to accomplish that, he said. Simple, low-cost measures like having an adult do a safety sweep of the playground every morning, or making sure the soccer field is already set up so kids can maximize even 10- or 15-minute recess breaks, would make a big difference.

As schools emerge from the pandemic, Massey said there's a chance for teachers to recognize the importance of kids' social and emotional development and need for play, but some may also think they need to cram all the missed content from the last year into as short a time as possible.

quotI would argue that's a huge mistake. Kids don't have the capacity to come in stressed and traumatized and out of the rhythm of school, and have all that dumped on them,quot he said. quotThese findings show that recess is not detrimental to what we want to see in the classroom, but rather, it's complementary.quot

Raymond (Ray) Joseph Thomas

December 1, 1930 - April 25, 2021

Ray passed away in Livermore, California surrounded by his four children: Gerald Thomas of Folsom, Janet Thomas of Castro Valley, Colleen Hornbacker (Kurt) of Livermore, and Gregory Thomas (Joanie) of San Jose. Many of his beloved grandchildren were also by his side.

Ray was born in Dickinson, North Dakota to his loving parents Frances and Raphael Thomas. He attended St. Patrick's Catholic School and Dickinson High School where he excelled at sports and academics. College at Dickinson State was interrupted by his service in the Navy (Korean War) on the USS Princeton as an Aviation Electronics Technician. Ray had a tremendous respect for the military that continued throughout his well-lived life.  

While he was on military leave, he attended his best friend's wedding as best man in Oakland, CA. He met and fell in love with the maid of honor, Kathleen (Kay) McGee, the bride's sister. In one of his many love letters, Ray stated, quotYou're the only gal for mequot...which was true, since they were married for 64 ½ years until Kay's passing in January 2020.

He started his career in 1957, teaching P.E. and coaching various sports at A.B. Morris Junior High School and then Canyon Middle School in Castro Valley in 1977. After retiring from teaching in 1985, he worked as the tasting room manager at Wente Bros. Sparkling Wine Cellars and Concannon Vineyards. He attended both St. Charles Borromeo and St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Livermore with Kay by his side. He was a devout Catholic, which was evident through his kindness and acts of service.

Ray Thomas was a teacher, coach, painter, athlete, prankster, wine connoisseur, and quite often had a twinkle in his eye and was just full of fun! He was a loving husband, wonderful father, and lit up every time he saw his   grandchildren: Kathleen, Taryn, Meghan, Lauren, Grant, Connor, and Riley. His Easter egg hunts were legendary, along with his Castro Valley sports teams, and his passion for life. He truly cared about his family, friends, and students.

Ray was preceded in death by his loving wife, his parents, brothers Robert Thomas and Richard Thomas, and sister Marie Kubisiak. He is survived by his four children, his grandchildren, his brother Thomas Thomas, sister-in-law Jean Thomas, numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, and many dear friends.

His burial with military honors will be held Tuesday, June 1^st at 11am at St. Michael Cemetery in Livermore. A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday, June 2^nd at 11am at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Livermore, with a reception to follow.

In lieu of flowers, and to continue the Ray Thomas Legacy through Canyon Middle School sports, donations in Ray’s memory can be made to Canyon Athletic Boosters, c/o Athletic Director, 19600 Cull Canyon Rd, Castro Valley, CA 94552. 

Former Roosevelt cross country coach Steve Breninger loses battle with lung disease

By Greeley Tribune | citydesk@greeleytribune.com | PUBLISHED: June 28, 2015 at 11:58 p.m. | UPDATED: May 13, 2020 at 8:27 a.m.

Steve Breninger was a runner.

During his 13 years as the head coach of the Roosevelt cross country program, he could often be found running right alongside his pupils during long, exhausting races.

Beyond being a runner, he was also a fighter.

For years, he fought his battle with a lung disease called Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, doing so with his trademark smile and unbridled energy.

On Sunday, Breninger lost that fight, dying at the age of 49.

In addition to being a coach, Breninger spent years as a math teacher at Roosevelt.

But, according to longtime former Rough Riders athletic director Linda Klipp, Breninger was much more than just a coach and a teacher.

“Steve was one of the good guys,” Klipp said. “Steve loved his kids. They were family for him. So, he has impacted so many lives. And, cross country is kind of a unique sport with unique kids, and they bond like family.”

Breninger spent the last 14 years married to his wife, Carolyn.

His memorial service will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Loveland Church of Christ and 3 p.m. at the Johnstown cemetery.

Breninger’s Facebook page has been flooded by posts from students Breninger has taught, athletes he has coached, friends, family and colleagues.

He was a Johnstown native who went to high school at Roosevelt before returning to teach and coach two decades ago.

“He is a Rough Rider, he was a Rough Rider in high school and continued his career here,” Roosevelt athletic director Ken Howell said. “He means a lot to a lot of families and a lot of kids. … He lived what he did, and loved it.”

Ed Eastin coached Roosevelt’s football team for 13 years before retiring four years ago.

Eastin met Breninger at track meets in the eastern part of the state before the two spent more than two decades as colleagues at Roosevelt.

“He was very important to the community, he was very important to the people around him, he made an impact on the kids and the students he coached and taught,” Eastin said of Breninger. “He was always involved in some type of community activity. So, it’s a loss for the whole community.”

Klipp was the athletic director for most of Breninger’s tenure as head cross country coach of the Rough Riders.

Klipp’s introduction to the sport of cross country came courtesy of Breninger.

“Before I was the athletic director, I had never been to a cross country meet,” Klipp said. “(Breninger) had kind of been bugging me and said, ‘Linda, you do have a responsibility to show up to these.’ I got there and it was at Kent Denver, I’ll never forget it, and he was an assistant coach, at that time, under Randall Hess.

“So, I get to the cross country meet, and here’s my assistant coach running side-by-side with all the runners, just lobbing along. And, I said, ‘Really? Do coaches do that?’ And somebody turned around and said, ‘No, but Steve does.’ “

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