I think I may be doing a lot of writing this winter from my home office, by the looks of it. It seems like just yesterday that I was listening to the hummingbirds three feet away from my desk. Today the snow falls deep, giving me an opportunity to take it slow,  and have fun snow shoeing in the winter wonderland.

Early this morning, as a major New England winter storm began, a friend and I went for a long snowshoe adventure on the conservation trails all around my home. As cold and quiet as it was deep in the woods, we marveled at the stillness of life. Just a month before we were kayaking on the now frozen river, which now provides safe passage for the deer and coyotes. We were tempted to cross at Caleb's Cove to explore the paths across from my home, but decided to wait and try in two-week's time.

While my friend was almost certain that the ice was solid, and urged me to "come on, it's a wonderland over there," I was not so sure. I promised him that if it remained below freezing for the next two weeks I would be game to join him. In situations like this I need to be 110% sure. When kids are involved I need to be 150% certain.

As the wind and snow began to pick up, and the trudging became more difficult, I let my mind drift to the halcyon winter days when my sons were very young. Some of the happiest times we had were sledding down the local hills. (Looking back over the years, I wonder why I never bought my sons snow shoes. They are safe, fun and provide an excellent opportunity for family fun.)  Our dog Caleb (yes, the swimming cove is now named for him) loved to sit on my lap as we raced his "brothers" down the hills. He let me hold him like a kid, with his legs out front. Maybe a bit dangerous but I reasoned that as long as we did not go over any jumps or head in the direction of trees it was safe.

I think winter sports bring out the little kid in us all. What adult is not tempted to sit on a sno-tube and barrel down a local hill? Who can say no to the chance to ice-skate on a glass-smooth frozen pond? Or toss a snow ball at a friend, or pitch in with the snow man production?

When it came to protecting my kids I was very cautious and educated enough on the potential winter dangers to keep them safe. At least I thought I was educated. Looking back over the years at some of the hazards and accidents I know I am much wiser now. Two of the worst accidents that happened (like most accidents) were preventable and I pass them on to you in the hopes that they may help prevent a needless trip to the hospital, cutting short your fun. 

One of our favorite sledding hills was at the local high school. As long as the kids stayed away from the line of trees to one side (my only rule), I thought they were safe. One day as I was loading up the car and the kids were taking some last runs, I turned to head back to the hill just in time to see Spencer veer of course as he hit an ice patch, catapulting him in the direction of the guard-rail that separated the hill from the road at the back of the school. Seconds later, unable to bail out he careened into the metal rail full force. An emergency trip to the hospital and fifteen stitches above his lip later, we all agreed that he was "lucky" it was not worse. From that time on I made sure that the high school custodians put bales of hay all along the rail to protect all the sledders. Sadly, they no longer put out the hay. Instead, there is a large sign that reads "Sled At Your Own Risk."

The second serious accident involved a helmet-less head crashing backwards on to a mogul during a snow boarding trip. A concussion can bring a wonderful trip to an end very quickly. Enough said.

And be sure to check out the MomsTeam Feature Article  this week.

At the beginning of the month, 8-year-old Gabriel Mendoza was hanging on the crossbar of a soccer goal post during a soccer game in South Mountain, Arizona, when it fell on him. He was the ninth boy in the past three years to die from a falling goal post. News reports of his death did not say whether the goal post was anchored or, if it was anchored, whether it was anchored incorrectly.

The accident is eerily similar to the death of Zachary Tran, a 6-year old 1st grader from Vernon Hills, Illinois, who died when an unanchored soccer goal post fell on him in the fall of 2003. Zachary was at soccer practice when his mother last saw him practicing around the goal. She asked Zach to stop hanging from the goal post and pay attention to the coach because she needed to take one of the children in her carpool to the restroom.

Several minutes later, while no one was looking, the goal somehow fell on Zach, causing massive head trauma. Paramedics were unable to revive him, and Zachary was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital less than an hour later. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest due to massive head injuries.

While I have never witnessed a soccer goal fall on a child, I will never forget the raw and blustery late autumn afternoon a few years back when I was running a soccer practice for a group of nine- and ten year-olds. A game was being played on an adjacent field. Suddenly, a snow squall struck. A gust of wind sent one of the goals crashing to the ground. We all looked to see what caused the loud noise and were shocked when we saw what had happened. Fortunately, no one was injured. But, to this day, I still remember the sound of that goal toppling over and I shudder each time I think what might have happened had it fallen over on a child.

A chilling reminder

There are between 395,000 and 600,000 soccer goals in the United States. Many are unsafe because they are unstable and either unanchored or not correctly anchored or counterbalanced. In addition, even properly secured goalposts pose an unnecessary danger to players, primarily goalies, because the vast majority are unpadded. Even though goalies comprise only six percent of soccer players, they suffer nineteen percent of all soccer injuries. When a player collides with the post of a heavy, stationary goal post, the player absorbs all of the impact of the collision.

Soccer goals can weigh up to 400 pounds and are top-heavy because the bars are made of metal. While anchoring unsafe goals goes a long way to prevent incidents, the ultimate answer is to revamp soccer goals, using lighter materials and tip-resistant design. A new ASTM standard for tip-resistant soccer goal (F2673-08) has recently been released. 

Something to smile about

Many leagues have invested in the proper anchor systems and there are countless sports groups who implement precautions to prevent catastrophic injury from soccer goals. There are also non-profit organizations working tirelessly to educate coaches and parents on ways to prevent death or injury. One such organization is Anchored for Safety, which was established by Zachary Tran's family to provide tools to empower individuals and groups to make soccer goals safe in their area. The site includes recommendations for safe handling, repositioning and storage of soccer goals.

We need to work harder so that no more children like Gabriel Mendoza and Zachary Tran die from falling soccer goalposts.  All of these deaths are preventable!

I read with interest a recent ( June 3, 2008) article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Steroid testing ends to mixed reviews- "Florida's decision last summer to implement a steroid testing program for high school athletes made national headlines.
But now that most state-sanctioned sporting events have ended, so has the one-year pilot program.
The result?

Of approximately 600 athletes, only one tested positive, said FHSAA spokeswoman Cristina Alvarez."

8.6 million dollars later and I can only imagine what types of programs that money could have gone towards. I wrote about this in a Washington Post Op-Ed which ran on December 5, 2006 and will share it with you in the hopes that it may save another state from wasting money.

Spend Money on Sports Programs Not Drug Testing High School Athletes

Washington Post Dec. 5, 2006

Last Tuesday, John Walters, the White House director of National Drug Policy, and Deputy Secretary of Education Ray Simon, announced with great fanfare at a high school in Florida that $8.6 million in federal money had been earmarked for student drug testing programs across the country.

That money would be better spent to fund programs designed to increase participation in after-school sports programs that could reduce drug usage by our teens and stem the epidemic of childhood obesity.

There is an urgent need to reform the interscholastic sports programs in the nation's public middle and high schools to provide for full inclusion.

The current public high school model - one first-year team, one varsity, one sub varsity - might have made sense at the time it was adopted in 1924, when the number of roster spots was roughly equal to the number of those who wanted to play. But it makes no sense today, when the number of those who want to continue playing sports in middle school and high school far exceeds the finite number of spots available.

It is especially important for teenagers to know that they belong; that they fit in. Cutting tells teenagers that they don't fit in, that they don't belong. This is the wrong message to send during adolescence. As the most prominent of all high school extracurricular activities, athletics continues to confer on its participants the highest levels of status and prestige in our teenage culture. The feeling by athletes that they are special tends to lead to disharmony, the creation of cliques, and to reinforcing the jock culture, not to promoting feelings of community, full inclusion, and cooperative learning that schools work so hard to instill. Adopting a policy of full inclusion would be especially beneficial for teenage boys, for whom sports would provide an outlet for their aggression and help them connect socially with other boys.

Under full inclusion, teams would be added as necessary to meet the demand, even if it meant fielding two or three more teams. Every athlete would practice, but only athletes in good academic standing and with no disciplinary problems would suit up for games. To ensure that schools would field the most competitive teams, the most skilled players would still get the bulk of the playing time at the varsity level.

The extra teams could be funded through the additional user fees, with money raised by booster clubs and/or by parents of the athletes themselves, some of whom could be recruited as volunteer coaches. Government money now spent on drug testing of athletes could be redirected to fund more sports teams.

According to a February 2006 Gallup Youth Study, one in five teens is now overweight with only 21 percent of teens claiming to participate in sports or recreation five to six days a week and only 19 percent of our teens participating in vigorous sports or physical activity five to six days a week. Children who are cut from sports teams will not exercise as frequently as they would if they were playing sports; they are much more likely to spend their afternoons watching television, becoming obese, and getting into trouble.

Another recent study found a positive association between playing interscholastic sports and an increase in the number of an athlete's friends who are academically oriented. The study also found that participation in interscholastic sports "significantly increased social ties between students and parents, students and the school, parents and the school, and parents and parents ... and a reduction in illicit drug and alcohol use."

Signs that the time to eliminate exclusion from school sports teams surfaces on a daily basis. Last week marked the conclusion of the 2006 fall school, club and town sports seasons. If the nation's newspapers are any guide, it was the most troubled and violent youth sports season on record.

A policy of full inclusion for interscholastic sports at the middle and high school level would also eliminate one of the principal reasons for parental misconduct in youth sports.

Given the intense competition for the limited roster spots on high school teams, no wonder so many parents are led by our winner-take-all society to act in inappropriate ways - to become violent when they see their child's chances at winning one of the coveted spots threatened by a coach who decides to sit him or her on the bench.

It simply makes no sense whatsoever from a public health standpoint to continue the cutting policy that contributes to an overall decline in physical fitness among adolescents and young adults and does nothing to combat drug use by keeping teens busy in after-school programs such as sports.

Brooke de Lench is the author of Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (HarperCollins Sept. 2006) and editor-in-chief of MomsTeam.com.

The best way to ensure that athletes who suffer concussions playing sports have the best possible outcome in both the short and long term is to educate them and their parents about the importance of self-reporting and the parent's role in the critical return to play decision.

The first right of parents under the Parent's Concussion Bill of Rights is to expect that their child's athletic program will hold a conconcussion education and safety meeting for parents and athletes before every season Ideally, the meeting should include presentations by:

• checking for signs of deteriorating mental status requiring immediate hospitalization,

• ensuring that their child gets the cognitive rest required,

• monitoring for continuing signs and symptoms of post-concussion syndrome that must clear completely before an athlete should be allowed to return to play, and

• educating their child about the dangers they face if they fail to report symptoms or begin playing again before symptoms have cleared.

Medical doctors familiar with the grading and evaluation of concussions and return to play guidelines to educate parents on the important role they play in their child's recovery from a suspected concussion, especially in terms of:

• Former athletes who can share personal stories about the consequences of continuing to play with concussion symptoms and/or the long term health consequences of multiple concussions, such as reoccurring headaches, depression, and concentration and memory problems; and

• Parents of concussed athletes who can emphasize how critical it is that, in making the all-important return-to-play decision, parents put a child's long term future and well-being above short-term athletic success; that parents constantly evaluate, along with their child if she is old enough, whether the risk of chronic, major depression or early signs of Alzheimer's down the road may make ending a career the best choice.

Regardless of who the program calls to make presentations at the meeting, the goal should be to provide parents and athletes with the all-important information they need to decide when it is safe to return to play, whether it be the next game, next season or not at all. To reinforce the message of the meeting, parents should be furnished with information to take home, such as articles from this website or obtained from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) as part of its "Heads Up" kit (which contains a good video on concussions that be a substitute for live
presentations).

Parents are in the best position to help their child see that their health should not take a back seat to short term individual and team success, but they need to know, also, that the program is not sending out a different message.