Team of Experts

Last week many of the technology manufacturers who have been working diligently to produce products to make helmeted sports such as football safer were dealt a severe, if not crippling, blow by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) when, out of the blue, it decided to view modification of helmets with third-party after-market add-ons as voiding its certification, which could only be regained if the helmet is retested with the add-on.

Ordinarily, teen athletes do not assume the initiative to defend the civil rights of vulnerable minority children. Amid their other activities and interests, teens usually join sports teams to play, and not to take political stands. But when they faced Granby in suburban Montreal on Saturday, June 8, the previously undefeated FC Brossard U14 AA boys soccer team took a stand that helped make life better for dozens of other boys they had never met.

Two things have weighed heavily on my mind the past two weeks: the tornadoes that have ravaged the Oklahoma City area, and the professional and amateur storm chasers who risk their lives to follow them.  

On May 20, 2013, as I watched coverage of the EF-5 Newcastle-Moore tornado on CNN, I was worried about the football community in Newcastle, a town I had grown to know, respect and appreciate over the 8 months I spent visiting last year while producing and directing The Smartest Team documentary.