Injury prevention

Wearing a mouth guard has been proven to help prevent dental injuries, which is why they are required in a number of college and high school sports, including football, lacrosse, field hockey and ice hockey. 

Baseball and basketball are two sports in which dental injuries are common, but few players wear mouth guards.

The American Dental Association and the International Academy of Sports Dentistry recommend using mouth protection for 30 activities. While some athletes claim mouth guards are uncomfortable and affect breathing and communication, there is no conclusive evidence that breathing or adequate oxygen levels are compromised, even during strenuous physical activity.

Treatment

Knocked out (e.g. avulsed) tooth

A football game inflicts bumps, bruises and pain on many of its participants, but there is another "game" which offers similar trappings without the physical abuse: the game of social media.

Social media is woven into the fabric and culture of American life.  But it also poses potential pitfalls to a high school student-athlete already trying to balance books and the ball.  To be sure, social media or social networking provides a platform where players can connect with fans and share not only their exploits on the field but their personal lives as well.  But a high school athlete needs to be educated on proper social etiquette when posting on sites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.  One ill-advised "Tweet" or Facebook status update could result in game suspension, suspension from the team, or even loss of a college athletic scholarship.

As a recent Aspen Institute research paper notes, just about every signal parents and youth athletes receive today from the prevailing youth sports culture supports the idea that high doses of one sport at an early age is the only pathway to athletic stardom. 

Well, not every signal.

We at MomsTEAM, for one, have been fighting that culture, and trying for the past 15 years to debunk the many myths that have grown up around the supposed need for kids to specialize in a single sport before adolescence.

In its ongoing effort to minimize the risk of injury in high school football, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Football Rules Committee has expanded the provisions of unnecessary roughness to include contact with a defenseless player, one of six changes to the 2015 football rules.

The revised Rule 9-4-3g  will now read, “No player or non-player shall make any contact with an opponent, including a defenseless player, which is deemed unnecessary or excessive and which incites roughness.”

Commenting on the change, Bob Colgate, director of sports and sports medicine at the NFHS and editor of the NFHS football rules, said the revised rule would apply, for example, when a defensive player not in the vicinity of the ball was “blindsided” by a blocker on the offensive team.