Editor’s note – Jay Watts is the NFHS Girls Lacrosse Rules Committee Chair, the  GHSA (Georgia) Girls Lacrosse Coordinator and Assistant AD/ Head Girls Lacrosse Coach at The Westminster Schools I am the chair of the NFHS Girls Lacrosse Rules Committee and a high school girls lacrosse coach in Atlanta, GA. I am writing in hopes that the FHSAA will reconsider its decision to mandate headgear for high school girls lacrosse players in your state for the upcoming season. I have been involved with girls lacrosse for almost 20 years now, and I have seen many changes in the sport that have enhanced both the level of play and the safety of its competitors. I know that the subject of headgear has drawn a great deal of negative attention from coaches and players in your state, but I do believe that your original decision was intended Chto protect local athletes. Nonetheless, I am concerned that putting headgear on girls this spring will have the opposite effect. It will make girls lacrosse in Florida more dangerous and put your athletes at greater risk for serious injuries heading into the spring season.  The recent headgear mandate goes against all non-biased third party research on this matter, and I know of no independent study that supports the idea that headgear will protect athletes from concussions or other serious head injuries. Having been a volunteer at the local and national levels with US Lacrosse for almost 15 years, I believe strongly in US Lacrosse’s mission and trust that their actions are intended to protect both male and female players from harm. I strongly encourage you to follow their direction electronic cigarette price in this area and wait for the results of their headgear study which has been conducted with the cooperation and support of the ASTM and certified trainers from around the country. In the process of studying a variety of headgear options for girls lacrosse, they have actually discovered that some of the headgear currently on the market increases the force of impact when a ball strikes a player on the head. In other words, the headgear makes contact more dangerous and more likely to cause head injury, not less. I believe it is in the best interest of your student-athletes for you to wait for the results of the US Lacrosse headgear study and allow the market to produce products that comply with the new ASTM standards. Having worked with the NFHS and the GHSA for many years, I know that you have an incredibly difficult and often thankless job to do. I also know that you must weigh the pros and cons of your decision against a variety of variables, some of which may not even be known to the public on matters like this.  However, given that this particular decision involves athlete safety and given that US Lacrosse, the national governing body of men’s and women’s lacrosse, has been working on this very topic for several years now, I urge you to be patient and wait for the results of their research. I hope that you will postpone your headgear mandate until the results of their study become public. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or would like further discussion on this matter. Sincerely, Jay Watts