Local ADs, coaches discuss brain injuries in wake of state commission report

After a state commission held a press conference to announce its report on brain injuries in Massachusetts residents, athletic directors and coaches at North Shore high schools voiced their thoughts on the subject as it pertained to student-athletes.”There’s been a heightened awareness on the whole issue,” Lynn Classical girls soccer coach Kerri Altieri said. “We’ve been more careful putting people back on the field, which is a good thing.”The 19-member commission was created in fiscal year 2011 (approved by Gov. Deval Patrick in June 2010) and issued a 28-page report on Monday. While it focused on Bay State residents between the ages of 18 and 59 years old, area high school personnel noted the significance of the issue for MIAA events.”We have a pretty regimented course we follow before we allow anybody else back on the playing field,” said Lynn English athletic director (and former football coach) Gary Molea.The report is the latest in a wave of increased awareness of brain injuries as a health problem, in both the state and the nation. St. John’s Prep athletic director/football coach Jim O’Leary had some thoughts regarding why Bay Staters have focused their lens on the subject.”Massachusetts is a center of medical research,” O’Leary said. “There was the BU study collecting (deceased) people’s brains (to assess) long-term injuries, multiple injuries, and their impact on student-athletes. The Ivy League has new rules in regard to practice. We in Massachusetts are in a situation where the medical resources are all here.”This has been the first year for new state guidelines regarding head injuries in student-athletes, whose cognitive skills are pre-tested on a computer. Should they suffer a head injury, they are re-tested and the results are compared.”Until a doctor or trainer feels they can come back, they’re not allowed back,” Molea said.The City of Lynn has taken additional steps with regard to students’ safety.”At all the preseason meetings, every parent had to come in and sign a form,” Molea said, “not only giving permission, but also (letting us know about) any previous concussion so we can regulate that. The trainer needs to know. Then, the protocol is a little different. It takes a little more time.”Molea said that this fall, three Bulldog student-athletes were sidelined with head injuries.”One football kid missed 2-3 weeks, one missed a week and a half,” he said, adding that a girls soccer player was injured in the last game of the season.”I’m pretty sure she’s back to where she should be,” he said.Altieri said that the Rams girls soccer team had two concussions this season and “a couple of possible concussions,” calling the sport in general “very physical.”In its report, the state commission made several recommendations in terms of funding (calling for 100 percent of motor-vehicle infraction fees to fund state projects on brain injuries) and further action (such as creating five resource centers for individuals with acquired brain injuries). O’Leary described St. John’s as ahead of the curve on the issue.”We have two full-time trainers, we have a number of team doctors who are there at games,” he said. “We have two full-time nurses.”Yet he sounded a note of caution on the issue of state legislation on the matter as it pertains to high schools.”I think it’s good-intentioned, but it’s narrow, too narrow,” he said. “It only covers MIAA schools, not AAU or youth (sports).”Rich Tenorio can be reached at [email protected].