Archive for November, 2010

SILVER CITY — Instant replay in football is available in the National Football League and at the college football level. But, with this past weekend’s playoff game in New Mexico high school football with Silver and Raton — a 22-21 Raton win — having questionable calls, I’ve been asked should there be instant replay in high school sports?

Officials have always been the ones that get the scrutiny about close games going one way or the other. As a coach myself, I have always preached to my players to win by enough of a margin so that a bad call won’t effect the outcome of the game or match. In all my years of being involved in sports, I have seen it over and over again. But, with teams that are so evenly matched, sometimes that’s an impossible feat to accomplish, and there are simply some calls that have to be made the right way because they could inadervtantly effect the outcome of the games.

If we go back to this past Saturday’s playoff game in Silver City, I would have to take a look at the film to see if Iseha Conklin did fumble the ball before crossing the end zone. Although I was standing in back of the end zone, I was to busy taking photographs to pay attention to where the ball was and I didn’t have the goal-line view of him crossing the end zone. The play was ruled a fumble, and Raton got the ball and still had to punt it back to Silver, giving them another shot at scoring again.

On another questionable call, during that fumble recovery,Raton’s quarterback was in the pocket and threw the ball away, getting an intentional grounding penalty. The question was whether or not he was in the end zone when he tallied the penalty. If he was in the end zone, again this would be a game-changing call because Silver would have been given two points and the ball back with about four minutes to play in the game. The Colts would have had the lead and possibly been able to run out the clock. We don’t know what would have happened, but the controversy sure leads to maybe installing replay in playoff games in high school sports. If you are a Raton fan, that intentionally grounding penalty might be argued that he was out of the pocket and that there was a receiver in the area of the ball.
Remember officials are human beings. They aren’t perfect. Over the year, each official will get one or two calls wrong, but that’s human error. It’s just hard to take when those calls are in a playoff game, and maybe helps in the outcome of that contest.

I’m not saying both calls at the end of the game were the right ones made, and I’m not saying they were wrong. I don’t know for sure unless I saw film and the angles were worthy of looking at both plays. There were a lot of factors and variables that went into this game. As a Silver fan, you can’t dwell on those calls. With the final punt of Raton, a personal foul penalty led to pushing the Colts further back toward their goal line to try and make a comeback. In fact, several penalties were tallied against the Colts that put a wrench in their offensive and defensive attacks. These penalties and mistakes did affect Silver’s rhythm throughout the contest.

But, the game did spark a new debate in high school sports on whether or not instant replay should be a hot topic as we move into the 2011 season. No doubt, there are a lot of pros and cons to the situation, and someday we might just see instant replay in high schools sports. After all, this country is all about winning. Winners get the payday, while losers have to go back and try harder the next year.

You would have to feel bad for Silver fans and the players if you base the success of their season on that one game. Remember that the Colts — up until that point — had only one loss and picked up a pretty impressive District 3-3A championship on the gridiron. Having a three-week layoff did have an impact on this team, and they almost overcame that adversity. The Colts just ran into a very tough Raton squad, and those Tigers were better than a No. 7 seed would indicate. It’s just that the other six teams were pretty darn good as well, and it’s safe to assume that this week’s playoff games will have one or two questionable calls. As sports gets more competitive, those calls become more frequent and are harder to overcome.

So once again, I ask the question… Should high school sports have instant replay? The answer lies in each and every one of us, and maybe someday we will see it at our high school level.

There are times when Hameed Ahmed is studying in the house near Corn Hill he shares with three other University of Rochester squash teammates, and it sounds like a United Nations summit.

“It’s not rare to hear different foreign languages in other rooms,” Ahmed says. “The guys are calling home.”

To Switzerland. Ukraine. England. And, in Ahmed’s case, Finland.

“Our squad of 20 is represented by players from 13 countries,” says Yellowjackets coach Martin Heath, a native of Scotland. “It’s pretty cool to have all these kids from all over the world.”

The squash team isn’t the only local squad taking the melting pot theory to extremes. The Nazareth men’s soccer team features 13 foreigners.

Take a look at local college team’s rosters, and start humming “We Are The World”:

•The Geneseo men’s hockey team includes two players from Japan and one from New Zealand.
•Hobart/William Smith in Geneva features athletes from Italy, Denmark, Colombia and Greece.
•St. John Fisher has a football player from Germany and a men’s soccer player from Trinidad and Tobago.
•Monroe Community College’s athletes include two men’s soccer players from the United Kingdom.
•Freshman guard Jessica Huang, born in America but raised in Taiwan, plays for the Nazareth women’s basketball team.
The standard-bearer is the UR squash team. In addition to the four who live together in Corn Hill, others hail from British Virgin Islands, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico.

The one responsible for bringing these players together is Heath, a former international player who was ranked as high as No. 4 in the world.

“(Squash) is played in over 108 countries, but it’s a small community,” Heath says. “I’ve still got a name. They might not have heard of UR, but they’ve heard of me.”

Heath, 37, is the U.S. junior national coach and finds most of his players at international tournaments.

“The trick for me is to get players not quite good enough to turn pro but still very strong,” he says.

In many countries, playing sports in college is not an option.

“There are no college sports at all in Finland,” Ahmed says. “If I played squash there, I would train with the national team.”

UR rose to No. 2 last year before finishing fourth in the final poll.

Ahmed says the team’s common thread — living far away from home — is the tie that binds.

“That’s the reason everyone gets along,” the two-time All-American and aspiring writer says. “The world gets smaller when you’re far away from home. Even though I’m from Finland, the guy from Switzerland feels Finnish to me.”

Sunday nights are special to the four teammates/roommates: Ahmed, Beni Fischer (Switzerland), Edwin Goncharuk (born in Italy before his parents immigrated to Ukraine) and Will Newnham (England).

“It’s a time when everyone can sit down, take turns and make a meal,” Ahmed says. “That’s when you can introduce your country’s own food.”

The Nazareth men’s soccer team features eight players from England, one from Ireland, one from Scotland and one from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Another was born in Senegal. Two players from Sweden graduated last year.

Like the UR squash team, the common thread is the coach. Danny Gilbertson was born and raised in London, and still has strong ties to England and parts beyond.

Like many of the players he coaches, Gilbertson came to America as a teenager. He played soccer at Plymouth State (N.H.) and earned regional All-America honors.

Gilbertson goes straight to the video when recruiting foreign players.

“The video footage is so good that you can really get a good idea what type of player they are,” he says. “I’ll e-mail them or call them straight away, and forge a relationship. Then, you see if they fit into the program.”

It’s a system that works. Gilbertson led the Golden Flyers to NCAA Division III Tournament appearances in 2005 and ‘06, setting a school record for wins with 15 in ‘06.

The Golden Flyers were 10-7-2 this fall.

While Gilbertson hears about many players through the Internet or through contacts, sometimes the player will contact him. That was the case with Ryan Foley, a freshman midfielder from Waterford, Ireland.

“I always wanted to come to America,” Foley says, “so I contacted Coach.”

Gilbertson checked out the young player and “noticed he had some good accolades.”

The two began corresponding, and Foley even brought his family to the Pittsford campus last spring for a visit.

This season, he was second on the team in scoring (8 goals, 6 assists), behind England native Rikesh Kotak.

While the Nazareth foreigners are surprised by the supersized food portions in America, they aren’t immune to some guilty eating pleasures.

“I love garbage plates,” says Chris Wilkinson, a freshman midfielder who grew up in England but spent five years in Dubai.

And what was that experience like?

“It’s a nice place to live,” Wilkinson says, “but warmer than here.”

Tell students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to show up for an appointment to learn how to manage a calendar, and here’s what’s going to happen: They won’t show up, they’ll forget their calendar, or they won’t follow through, says David Parker, a researcher at Wayne State University.

Instead, Parker and colleagues argue, college students with ADHD benefit from a more inclusive, personal model of learning how to manage their time and organize their lives.

These researchers found that college students got enormous benefits in scholastic life from a “coaching” model designed by the Edge Foundation, an organization that helps young people with ADHD reach their potential in their academic and personal lives. They presented their results Friday at an international ADHD conference sponsored by the non-profit organization Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, known as CHADD.

At eight universities and two community colleges, a total of 110 undergraduates participated in the study, which lasted from fall 2009 to spring 2010. They were randomly assigned to either the coaching program or the “comparison” group, which did not receive this intervention. Everyone in the study had the same access to the other services that their universities offered.

The coaching in the study targeted eight central areas of students’ lives: scheduling, goal setting, confidence building, organizing, focusing, prioritizing, and persisting at tasks. Students engaged in weekly 30-minute phone calls with their coaches – in some cases, in person or via Skype when available – in addition to e-mail and text check-ins when needed. They had no more than two weeks off of the program during the study.

Coaches helped students plot a course for the goals that they set for themselves, Robert Tudisco, executive director of Edge Foundation, said.

One important limitation of the study is that researchers did not track which students were taking medication, or which students were receiving other kinds of therapy beyond coaching. That means that it’s unknown whether medication or therapy contributed to the benefit seen in students in the Edge program.

Results will appear in the Journal of Postsecondary Education later this year, said researcher Sharon Field of Wayne State University.

Coaching made a significant difference in students’ organization, time management skills, and their ability to assume control of things like studying, Field said. Students reported less stress and a greater sense of calm as a result of the coaching.

“Overwhelmingly we heard, from student after student, that coaching helps students to live what they considered more ‘balanced’ lives,” she said.

Students took the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) test, which measures learning strategies and related skills, before and after the coaching program. Those in the coaching program gained more than 180 points on the second try, while the comparison group’s gains were much more modest. Coached students especially made strides in the area of “self-regulation,” which measures time-management and concentration.

Making such coaching accessible to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds is a priority going forward, Tudisco said. For the study, participants received coaching free of charge. Going forward, the Edge Foundation is working toward underwriting the cost of the program, which is normally $400 per month for unlimited access to the coach.

In a separate session of the conference, Michael Posner, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon and National Medal of Science recipient, discussed his research on novel ADHD treatments also. He studies the brain’s networks of attention, and spoke about interventions that can help those networks. For example, computer-based exercises may help attention, as may meditation.

Joanna Fowler, another National Medal of Science recipient, looks at the role of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. She noted that drugs such as cocaine that people abuse raise dopamine levels in the reward center of the brain. Ritalin is similar. This work may lead to a greater understanding of ADHD and treatments as well.

Bigger, stronger, faster. If you don’t happen to be the parent of a kid engaged in a competitive sport, this trend among youthful athletes of all ages may have gone unnoticed.

Pewee football teams often have kids who 20 or 30 years ago could have passed for high-school freshmen. Many youth-soccer squads have at least a couple of preteen players about as tall as their parents. It’s a rare upper-division high-school girls’ basketball or volleyball team that doesn’t have several 6-foot-plus members.

All this is a more-or-less natural result of American nutrition and health care, genetics, and training and conditioning for one or more sports that often start at the preschool level.

Still, it’s a fine line for pediatricians and youth-development experts who, on one hand, worry that the littlest and not-so-little athletes are overdoing the workouts, but at the same time espouse a “get a move on” message to encourage physical fitness and battle obesity.

Researchers are finding that fewer kids are taking part in organized sports beyond grade school, largely because of the emphasis on competition over participation. By some estimates, 70 percent of participating kids leave organized sports before age 13.

One side effect of the sizing-up trend, though, may be more frequent and more severe injuries among participants in youth sports.

A study published last month in the journal Pediatrics tracked concussions among athletes in organized youth sports between 1997 and 2007, using a national surveillance network of hospital emergency rooms.

Researchers from Brown University found that the pace of ER visits for concussions had nearly doubled among 8- to 13-year-olds, and more than tripled among players 14 through 19.

The lead researcher, Dr. Lisa Bakhos, said she’s not sure if the increases reflect a real increase in the incidence of injury rather than a greater awareness of the danger of the brain injury among parents and coaches.

“But we do speculate that youth sports are getting extremely competitive, and kids, in general, are getting bigger; so you end up with 8-year-olds with 13-year-old bodies but the maturity still of 8-year-olds.”

The study used data on sports participation in an attempt to quantify the concussion exposure for various games, and the researchers noted that about 9 percent fewer 7- to 17-year-olds were taking part in the top five sports in 2007 than in 1997.

That’s bad news for recreational leagues and kids in general, but also for those still playing.

Michael McCrea, head of the ProHealth Care Neuroscience Center and Research Institute in Waukesha, Wis., an expert on sports concussions and ways to measure their impact, noted that participation in many sports has become year-round. “So maybe participation is down, but for those playing, say football, the number of exposures (to a certain type of injury) seems to be certainly higher than a decade ago.”

Many sports-medicine doctors report that up to 75 percent of the injuries they treat in those under 18 result from overuse and overtraining.

For concussions, there’s growing evidence that major knockout blows may not be the only type of injury to fear. Several recent studies suggest that multiple minor blows to the forehead — like those experienced by, say, football linemen or any soccer player who does a lot of heading — can also traumatize key learning and memory regions of the brain, particularly in younger brains.

On the plus side, there is growing awareness about the dangers of youth-sports injury in general and concussions particularly. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Neurology have issued new guidelines and recommendations on sports concussions.

The pediatricians note that neither protective gear nor any therapy other than mental and physical rest are effective in preventing or treating a concussion, and suggest that return to play must be a gradual resumption of activity accompanied by monitoring of symptoms by a health-care professional.

The neurologists call for removing any athlete suspected of having a concussion from play and not returning him or her until cleared by a neurologist or other physician with experience in concussions. They also urged that “a certified athletic trainer should be present at all sporting events, including practices, where athletes are at risk of concussion.”

A recent review of high-school sports medicine by Scripps Howard News Service found that only about a third of the nation’s high schools with a sports program have a full-time athletic trainer — mainly due to cost concerns — and that professional medical help for youth sports in a community often follows the availability of certified trainers in the local schools.