Process called into question, gravely flawed – Facts in Dispute – Will future US Lacrosse events seek other locations outside Florida due to this decision?   Yesterday’s decision by the FHSAA to mandate helmets for the Girl’s High School Lacrosse players have set off a number of alarm bells throughout the lacrosse world.  Whether you agree with the desire to make the game safer (and there is PLENTY of disagreement between the two sides on this equation) the process itself raised more questions than it answered.  All day discussions with interested parties have led FLN to believe that this decision might well have repercussions beyond just the issue of head gear. FLN will attempt to lay out the steps that have been taken so far and try to give insight into the making of this decision. The actual request to consider the ruling was first proposed as an ‘Agenda Item Request for Board of Directors Meeting’ with the name of Wambles on the bottom of the Request.  This would correspond with Russell Wambles, the Athletic Director at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando.  Mr. Wambles is listed on the FHSAA web site (http://www.fhsaa.org/gov/board/2013-14) as a member of the Board of Directors.  According to the link Mr. Wambles’ term expires this month.     The original Agenda Item Request is listed here: http://www.fhsaa.org/sites/default/files/orig_uploads/gov/board/2013-14/agenda/june/136-138.pdf According to the Request the rationale for the request lists the following excerpt: “The number of head injuries in girls lacrosse exceeds that in football and boys lacrosse in some schools.  Data from Orange Co. schools shows that one school had twice as many concussions in girls lacrosse than football and boys lacrosse combined.  One school had 7 concussions and another 6 in girls lacrosse.  It is imperative that our membership act quickly.” Sources that have discussed the issue with FLN have confirmed that this vote was not a slam dunk by any means.  The proposal was first placed in the Operations Committee, made up of four members of the Board of Directors, including Mr. Wambles, on this past Monday.  US Lacrosse officials were asked to appear for this committee meeting and presented testimony on concussion statistics and the ways that USL was researching the issue, with the stated goal to make the sport safer for their participants.  Mr. Wambles then made the initial proposal and none of the other three members of the Committee would second the motion due to the factual evidence presented to them.  It was then determined (probably via the rules of the FHSAA) that the proposal would NOT die in committee (a number of people affiliated with the FHSAA indicated that it was pretty unusual for a denied motion to proceed out of committee) and would be forwarded to the full Board of Directors for consideration. At the Tuesday Board meeting 14 of the 16 Board Members (two were not able to attend) listened to presentations from Mr. Wambles and from Sharon Tice, a mother of a local high school girl whose career ended due to a concussion.  At no point during the two presentations was USL allowed to present any factual evidence to rebut what was being said to the full Board. At that point all debate was cut off by the chair of the meeting and a vote quickly ensued.  When the final vote was held it was 8-6 in the affirmative to pass the proposal.  When the minutes are released FLN will analyze and ask for Board members to go on the record with their decision-making thoughts. The fact that it was only 8 votes for, with two absent, out of 16 means that this might well NOT be a done deal.  Sources confirmed to me that there will be a move to re-open discussion in the September Board meeting (the next scheduled meeting) and that it will again be sent to the Operations Committee to start the process.  Meanwhile the FHSAA will be continuing their own due diligence into potential vendor products.  Given that Mr. Wambles is leaving the Board this month that might remove one of the 8 affirmatives.  If the two Board members that missed the vote also are willing to vote ‘No’ that would mean the ruling is overturned in the September timeframe. One particular issue that rankled a number of participants was how the presentations to the full Board were handled.  The US Lacrosse representatives were not granted presentation time (they had presented to the Operations Committee and did not want to take up the time allotted for discussion, which was set at 20 minutes TOTAL by the Chair), were not given a copy of the meeting agenda and not given the names of the Board members.  The US Lacrosse representatives indicated that they would be willing to take questions, but none were asked of them.  The two attendees from USL were Bruce Griffin, Director of Health and Sport Safety (not exactly a title to be taken lightly) and Melissa Coyne, Director of the Women’s Game.  Why their input held so little sway or interest from a Board that would not ask them any questions (very few of which are knowledgeable about the sport, to be charitable) is something only the Board members who ignored their expertise can answer. One thing to remember is that US Lacrosse holds national events and that Florida has been the beneficiary of a number of those events, including the January US National Team events at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.  Will USL look elsewhere for these events after being treated so poorly by the FHSAA this past week?  The economic impact of these events was always positive to the state and has the FHSAA just unwittingly hurt those Florida-based bidders for national events? ————- The Request also has attached a potential helmet for the Board to research, with an advertisement for the helmet provided by the web site www.hrpsports.com, located in Somersworth, NH. FLN placed a call to the manufacturer and spoke at length with Luke Janetos, the President of the company (HRP Sports). HRP started in 1991 to produce protective gear for the sport of Moto-Cross.  A few years back Luke’s daughter started to play lacrosse and he found no protective gear for his daughter to wear and so he designed one, which the company holds the patent on and manufactures for sale. Much of our discussion centered on the role he feels his product will play.  He specifically stated that the headgear is NOT designed to reduce the possibility of concussions but is more designed to eliminate cuts and bruises.  He was VERY specific about this.  And the reason for stating so was also very clear. As someone who has researched the issue substantially as part of his product development (the headgear is being tested simultaneously with US Lacrosse and ASTM (http://www.astm.org/), Mr. Janetos stated the following:  “We do not really know at this point what really causes concussions . . . the research is still in its infancy.  What we do know is that if your high school player gets a cut, abrasion or bruise in the head area and you take her to the doctor or emergency room the overwhelming likelihood is that the child will be diagnosed with a concussion to play it safe”. This is a very key statement to the efficacy of the decision made by the FHSAA.  Remember the claim made above in the Agenda Item about the Rationale for the decision.  If concussions are the KEY concern then it is fair to ask what empirical data was presented to the FHSAA Board both before and during the discussions A simple online search turned up an April of 2014 Washington Post article talking about the ‘daunting task’ of reducing the number of concussions in high school girl’s soccer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/reducing-the-number-of-concussions-in-high-school-girls-soccer-is-a-daunting-task/2014/04/24/4054f470-c6ff-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html). Buried in this article is a chart:     The data from this chart was provided by: https://highschool.riostudies.com/ I cut off the last entry, Wrestling, to make this easier to see. The RIO is headquartered at the Colorado School of Public Health and the home page shows that the NFHS, the National Federation of State High School Associations is listed as a link so the organization is working with them.  The RIO is a centrally-collected database of sports injuries.  And their data is summarized nicely in the above chart.  It should be noted that Girl’s Soccer concussion rate is 13.41 per 10,000 while Girl’s Lacrosse is 8.14 per 10,000.  This means that Soccer is 64.7% MORE LIKELY to cause concussions than Lacrosse.  Yet no move has been made to combat this. FLN spoke with Dr. Dawn Comstock of the Colorado School and she described to me how the data was collected for those statistics.  The data is thorough and supplied by Certified Athletic Trainers, so the data entered has been developed by someone certainly qualified to do so.  Interestingly enough Dr. Comstock was familiar with the US Lacrosse concussion studies and spoke highly of the researcher leading the project. Going back to the conversation with Mr. Janetos he clearly stated to me, according to his formed opinion from his experience and research, that one reason the concussion numbers have gone up has NOTHING to do with TRUE concussions but the way the medical professionals are taking the safe way out of diagnosing one if they are not sure.  He followed up on the example from above of a lacrosse player going to the doctor or emergency room with a cut in the scalp from a lax stick and reiterated that the doctor will likely diagnose a concussion as part of the report just to play it safe, particularly if the patient has ANY other complaints that might not have anything to do with the actual cut. It is Mr. Janetos’ contention that the concussion issue is more of a ‘measurement’ issue than a true increase in concussions themselves.  Readers need to take this comment very seriously.  Mr. Janetos’ company stands to sell a lot of product to Florida high school teams but he is still honest enough to state that any improvements to recorded concussion rates are more likely because of the reduction in questionably measured concussions, not a reduction in the real thing.  By eliminating the scalp wounds and light bruises through the use of his head gear that will reduce doctor visits and reduce reporting of them. Which is why he states so emphatically that his head gear is NOT designed to reduce concussions because the research on concussions is not at a stage where we can definitively diagnose them.  And that a real concussion will likely happen REGARDLESS of whether the head gear is worn or not.  This is an important point in all this because Mr. Wambles specifically picked out Mr. Janetos’ model as his solution even though the product still does not have the blessing of the organization that is putting substantial resources into researching the issue.  If the hand-picked solution is not ready for the mass market then what happens if the FHSAA cannot find a suitable product? However, Mr. Janetos does believe strongly that the ability to reduce non-concussion head injuries is a good thing and that he hopes US Lacrosse will go along with the Florida ruling as a test study to see what results.  It is an opinion that should not be dismissed lightly and should be part of the overall industry discussion. Which brings us to the key point in this process. What was the empirical data presented by Mr. Wambles and those that agreed with him to the full FHSAA Board of Directors?  Was it solely the type of data that the RIO gathers?  Or other sources?  Given the cost involved to Florida athletes this decision process needs to see the spotlight of the public.  About 160 Florida High Schools field varsity girl’s teams.  At 25 players per school and $60-70 per head gear the cost is $240,000 to $280,000 to outfit everyone.  This is not trivial in today’s economic environment and the details of the decision need to be made public. Participants in the meeting have told FLN that no data was provided to them at the meeting and that the Board’s decision seemed already pre-determined by the 8 who voted for it. After the vote was held a Board member tasked Alex Ozuna, the FHSAA Lacrosse Sport Administrator with finding a solution that fits the ruling.  Good luck Alex.  Let’s hope that Board member who doesn’t want to get their hands dirty is honest enough to admit it if no solution is found. ————— US Lacrosse chimed in with their own comments today in response to the ruling: http://www.uslacrosse.org/multimedia-center/press-releases-news/postid/650/us-lacrosse-comment-on-florida-helmet-ruling.aspx The response: US Lacrosse Vice-President of Games Operations Ann Kitt Carpenetti issued comments on the vote by the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) that mandates the use of helmets by high school girls lacrosse players in Florida, effective with the start of the 2015 season. Carpenetti’s comments: “US Lacrosse appreciates the FHSAA Board of Directors’ concern about athlete safety, but we don’t understand why they chose to disregard the information provided to them by the sport’s national governing body. Members of our staff were available at the FHSAA’s recent meeting to provide an in-person update on the headgear issue and to share information about what is being done to address this important player safety issue in hopes of avoiding the introduction of this short-sighted and vague mandate. “Prevention of head injuries in both men’s and women’s lacrosse continues to be a priority of US Lacrosse. Led by the respected physicians and researchers who comprise our Sports Science and Safety Committee, we are actively engaged in numerous interventions focused on reducing the risk of head injury in both men’s and women’s lacrosse, and we have been recognized among the national sports medicine community for our collaboration and proactivity in this regard. Additionally, US Lacrosse continues to fund and lead research to better understand the frequency and severity of head injury specific to both men’s and women’s lacrosse, and we have been working with ASTM International for more than a year to develop a consensus headgear standard for women’s lacrosse based on the results of that research and the importance of appropriately balancing player safety with game integrity. We believe that the standard will be approved this fall. “It is simply irresponsible to enact rule mandates requiring head protection in women’s lacrosse without a clear understanding of the mechanism of head injury in a version of the sport that is entirely different from its male counterpart, and without head protection designed and manufactured specifically to mitigate that injury mechanism. In both cases, US Lacrosse is providing prudent, focused leadership based on well-founded medical and research protocols.” US Lacrosse is encouraging coaches and athletic directors in Florida to contact FHSAA board members to overturn this week’s mandate. US Lacrosse considers any mandate for headgear before the ASTM’s performance standard is finalized to be premature. Additionally, having the FHSAA encourage all high school coaches to become at least Level 1 certified through the US Lacrosse Coaching Education Program and requiring all schools to use two US Lacrosse certified officials per game will enhance player safety. ————— We at FLN have reached out to Russell Wambles for comment and hope to have it today or tomorrow.  We have also invited him to appear tomorrow to tape a podcast with myself and Wells Dusenbury for broadcast on ESPN 106.3 in West Palm Beach.  We also hope to have a US Lacrosse representative and other lacrosse interested parties too.  This writer has purposely not taken a position on this because frankly it didn’t occur to me that the FHSAA was even considering it.  We will keep an open mind and listen to both sides before taking our own editorial thoughts. There are two major considerations involved here; whether the ruling was premature or even not helpful or whether it is with great foresight.  Right now it’s too early to tell either way. In future coverage we are going to take a closer look at the deliberations to see if any false statements or false data were supplied and what affect that might have on the decision-making process.  And FLN will also be talking to other lacrosse parties that might be affected by this rush to move.  In order to do this the FHSAA overrode their normal approach to phase in a major rule change over two years and we need to hear from them as to why. And another factor that will be discussed is why does the FHSAA follow the dictates of the NFHS when it comes to potential games played against MIAA teams but ignores the same NFHS dictates when it comes to the helmet issue.  The NFHS is fully on board with the efforts of US Lacrosse and works with them on the safety issue.  Why doesn’t the FHSAA do the same thing? FLN will request the minutes of the meeting next week (the FHSAA offices are closed on Fridays in the summer) and we will take a long, hard look at the process in further detail.