Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Aug. 12, 2015
Head debate
Area coaches, experts weigh in
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
CJ Abraham has studied brain injuries and head equipment in
sports for more than 40 years. To this day, he is in disbelief soccer players
aren’t allowed on the pitch without shin guards, but are allowed on the pitch
without any kind of head protection.
“I’d like to see the kids in the world protected,” Abraham
said. “I’d like to see them contribute to society rather than be brain dead.”
In the last few years, professional sports leagues such as
the NFL and the NHL have spent millions of dollars to improve the recognition,
treatment and prevention of head injuries.
In each league, for example, contact to the head is
penalized.
On the surface, soccer doesn’t appear to be doing the same.
There is no regulation at any level of soccer —
professional, college, high school, youth, etc. — around the world mandating
head gear.
There is no rule in any state high school association in the
United States. However, use of such equipment, such as a padded headband,
aren’t discouraged.
“There is no requirement for padded head gear in the sport
because a product that would actually prevent head injuries does not exist,”
said Jason Wille of the Indiana High School Activities Association in
Indianapolis. “I believe some have been tested, but nothing has been found to
prevent those injuries from happening.”
“Players are now allowed to wear a padded headband,” said
Deb Hauser, WIAA associate director. “We are seeing more girls wear them than
boys, but I have seen a few boys wear them.”
To Abraham, this kind of negligence is unacceptable.
“I want to protect kids’ brains,” he said. “I talk to
parents every week about how important their children’s brains are,” Abraham
added. “The brain develops until the age of 25. The people that are injured,
99.9 percent of them don’t have any headgear on.”
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Who is Abraham?
Abraham has been looked to by sports organizations in the
U.S. and Europe for decades when evaluating the seriousness of head injuries.
He has specialized in head injuries since the 1970s.
He is the inventor of the ForceField FFTM Protective
Headgear and founder of ForceField FF Ltd. He was also the inventor of the
football facemask that was licensed to Riddell. His facemask eliminated the
steel facemasks that once existed in football.
Abraham was a U.S. representative to the International
Standards Organization, a member of the Executive Board of the Hockey Equipment
Certification Council, a member of the Safety and Protective Equipment for USA
Hockey and has been an active member of the American Society of Testing and
Materials since 1964. He is also a diplomat in sports and recreation safety and
is qualified as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration specialist in
safety and safety engineering.
Abraham’s research has been the source in several personal
injury and litigation cases regarding head injuries.
“I’m a safety specialist,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of work
to make things safer.”
He’s attended several national meetings about brain injuries
and continues to see a trend: a negligence for the severity of head injuries.
“They can get on the field without their brain being
protected,” Abraham said.
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The debate of head equipment
Longtime soccer purists are worried introducing head gear
will take away the purity of the game.
It’s an argument often heard with football and hockey, where
contact is a part of the game.
“I’d hate to see the game lose its purity,” West Bend West
boys and girls soccer coach Kyle Cruse said.
At the same time, Cruse wasn’t negligent to the seriousness
of head injuries.
“The kicks are stronger than they’ve ever been,” he said.
Cruse played soccer into the 2000s and applauded the sport’s
efforts, and all sports in general, for the greater emphasis that’s been made
on head injuries.
“I played soccer in 2000 and even in 15 years, we had
nothing, no preventative measures,” Cruse said. “Nowadays, there’s all the
preventative stuff, baseline testing. We take it very seriously. We’re very
vigilant.”
But the mystery as to why head gear, such as a padded
headband, isn’t considered more of a priority is just that to most: a mystery.
“I understand why players are hesitant,” said Matt Moeller,
Kettle Moraine Lutheran’s boys soccer coach. “It would take away the joy the
players have when they’re constantly thinking of the head gear.”
There is another theory.
“The debate in soccer is whether or not putting a headband
on a player makes them feel invincible and more likely to be more aggressive
because they have a padded headband on,” Hauser said.
Cruse and Moeller agreed, and Moeller suggested another
theory.
“The headgear may not solve the problem at all,” Moeller
said.
Abraham disagrees.
He said more than 220,000 people wear his headband product
and he has not received any reports of a concussion.
“Why do we have headgear in football, soccer, ice hockey and
rugby?” Abraham asked. “Because they reduce the severity of impact force. No
one can eliminate concussions. Head gear reduces the severity of impact force,
nothing else.”
Moeller and Cruse said they’ve seen more girls use some kind
of head protection.
“I don’t think it’d be bad introduce to it,” Cruse said.
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Are head injuries a problem in soccer?
William Heinz, the chairman of the sports medicine advisory
committee for the National Federation of High School Associations for the past
three years, said they are and they aren’t.
“The injury rate in boys soccer is significantly lower in
football, hockey and lacrosse,” he said. “In the girls game, soccer is No. 1 as
far as concussion rate.”
Boys soccer is fifth according to NFHS’ data in the amount
of head injuries, behind football, hockey, wrestling and lacrosse — all sports
with some kind of head protection.
Why is that?
It’s because sports like football, hockey and lacrosse have
higher boys participation numbers than girls, thus less people to get a
concussion.
Another reason concussion rates are higher in football,
hockey and lacrosse is because those sports are considered collision sports,
where the contact is almost unavoidable.
Soccer is considered a contact sport, where contact is
avoidable and not a necessary part of the game.
“A lot of the focus has been on football because that’s
where the highest concussions are,” Heinz said. “We came out with regulations
to help with that.”
Heinz denied the notion that heading a ball is the main
cause for concussions in soccer. The more common head injury in soccer often
occurs when two players bump heads.
“What we’re emphasizing in soccer is fair play and the way
the game is designed,” Heinz said. “We also emphasize the referees need to call
the rules as they’re written.”
“Style of play plays a role,” he added. “The head injury
rate in soccer has been very stable for the last nine years. We had a bump when
we started to focus more on concussions, but that was because people were
better reporting it.”
Better recognition and greater acceptance to severity of
head injuries has been the biggest step made by society, Heinz said.
“All the sports are better because of the awareness,” he
said. “(In the past) they may or may not have been evaluated on the sideline.
We’ve really changed from that attitude. If there’s any doubt, we don’t let
them play, not letting them play through symptoms. There is no such thing as a
minor head injury.”
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How has coaching changed?
Not only have coaching styles changed, but so has coaches’
education in recognizing a potential head injury and what they should do about
it.
“There’s a lot of bad things that can happen because of the
contact,” said Cruse, who’s coached soccer for seven years. “The prevention has
to come from us as coaches to teach them to properly head the ball.”
Moeller has been a soccer coach for 14 years. In his career,
he has taken a different approach.
“I know in my coaching, we emphasize a lot of strengthening
of the neck muscles,” Moeller said. “It helps stabilize the head and we teach
hitting technique.”
At the same time, Moeller doesn’t spend a lot of time
teaching headers, but for different reasons.
“There’s other ways to attack and defend soccer without
heading extensively,” he said.
Moeller’s approach was supported in a research article
written by Abraham a few years ago. Pediatric neurologists said children are
more susceptible to neurological trauma than adults. The reason is because a
child’s neck muscles and brain aren’t as developed as adults. In addition, some
of the long-term effects of head injuries may not be seen in a child until he
or she reaches adulthood.
Dr. Cynthia L. Bealieu once wrote findings showing that
children who suffered injuries in the first five to six years exhibited less
recovery and a greater impairment to intellectual skills, as compared with
children between 6 and 16. The age at which the injury was received and its
severity dictates the rate and extent of recovering from deficits in language,
memory, attention, academic and decision-making skills.
Abraham’s research article also said Italian researchers
suggested soccer players are six times more likely to develop motor neuronal
disease than the general population. The illness is incurable. British
neurologists have connected illnesses such as motor neuron disease, Parkinson’s
disease and Alzheimer’s disease to repeated brain trauma even without receiving
a concussion. Heading the ball, impacting of heads or an elbow to the temple of
the soccer player can be the precursor to the ultimate neurological problem.
Moeller runs several youth soccer camps, starting in third
grade. In grades three through six, heading is not taught.
“They’re at risk because their neck muscles aren’t
developed,” Moeller said.
He begins to teach it at the seventh- grade level, but only
for proper technique. He admitted earlier in his career, this agenda wasn’t the
norm.
“We’ve got a lot more training the last few years to
recognize the symptoms and we’re more careful with how we treat (head
injuries),” Moeller said, adding most of the head injuries he’s seen in his
career isn’t from headers, but from head to ground, head to the goalpost, etc.
❑
Class action suit dismissed
On Aug. 27, a class action lawsuit was filed by soccer
players and parents against FIFA and other soccer organizations, claiming a
disregard by the organizations surrounding the severity of head injuries,
especially untreated ones.
The lawsuit, which was a 132-page complaint filed in
California, was filed on behalf of seven players, including four younger than
17.
In addition to FIFA, U.S. Soccer, U.S. Youth Soccer, AYSO,
U.S. Club Soccer and California Youth Soccer Association were also sued.
In March, a motion was made to dismiss the suit.
On July 16, a judge, in a 46-page decision, dismissed the
suit, saying the plaintiffs couldn’t use the courts to change FIFA’s “laws of
the game,” noting it was their decision to play soccer.
The lawsuit acknowledged the risk of injury.
“Certain injuries, or the impacts from them, are preventable
and the governing soccer authorities have the power to enact and enforce rules
that would prevent or minimize injuries,” the complaint says. “This case arises
from the failure of soccer’s governing authorities to take steps to reduce
injuries.”
The suit sought for rule changes, including limiting headers
to players younger than 17 and making it easier to substitute during games for
players who may be experiencing a head injury.
The plaintiffs also sought medical monitoring for people who
have played the sport since 2002, but no money damages were requested.
“Those who participate in a sporting activity that poses an
inherent risk of injury generally assume the risk that they may be injured
while doing so,” said Chief Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who dismissed the case.
