Schools don’t have to track youth head injuries in Washington. Two Pierce County legislators want to change that
Head injuries suffered by high school athletes today are largely met with a serious response. Gone is the era of ignorance when coaches and parents would minimize blows to the skull as having one’s “bell rung,” then exhort a young player to shake it off and get back on the field.
Washington has been at the forefront of this turnaround. In 2009, the state adopted a law barring youth athletes who show signs of concussion from returning to play or practice without a licensed healthcare provider’s OK. That was before the NFL came clean on its concussion crisis and before much of the research on the disorder known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, came to light.
But Washington still has a lot to learn about protecting young people from head trauma.
The public is certainly shocked by on-field tragedies like the death of Kenney Bui; the prep football player from Seattle died in 2015, three days after being hospitalized with a head injury that knocked him out of a game. There’s also growing awareness of long-term neurological damage away from the field. Case in point: the suicide of Washington State University quarterback Tyler Hilinski in 2018; autopsy results showed evidence of CTE.
Stories like these, though powerful, can’t capture the full scope of Washington’s youth head-injury problem. What’s needed is a trove of statewide data for experts to dig into.
Two Pierce County area legislators this year have proposed that high schools be required to track such information. A report would be published every fall for public inspection and for study by state university researchers.
House Bill 2731 is a sensible bipartisan idea offered by Rep. Morgan Irwin (R-Enumclaw) and Mari Leavitt (D-University Place). It directs the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to collect head injury information for 9th through 12th grade athletes at the WIAA’s roughly 800 member schools.
The list of proposed data points could fill a large spreadsheet: the student’s grade and gender; concussion history; head injury date, location and surface (including whether it happened at practice or in competition); whether protective equipment was worn; who examined the student on site; whether the student was removed from the activity; and when (or if) the student was authorized to return.
WIAA officials have voiced recordkeeping concerns; they also say they lack authority to make schools comply. But the organization has enforced a growing number of concussion protocols over the last decade, and it’s capable of building on that success now.
Wisely, the bill was broadly drafted to encompass all head injuries, not just those diagnosed as concussions. This aligns with a major medical study in 2018, which found that the repetition of hits to the head, not the severity, is the greatest predictor of whether teenagers have brain degeneration later in life.
Is all of this meant to build a case for eliminating youth football? Irwin says no. The idea is “not to fundamentally change the sports our children are participating in, but to ensure we’re conducting them in the safest manner possible,” he told the House Education Committee at a hearing on his bill Monday.
He cited the example of Michigan, where data found a high incidence of concussions among high school cheerleaders but also found most happened at practice; officials were then able to adjust practice routines and surfaces to reduce the number significantly.
The Washington database, as proposed, wouldn’t plug every gap in the knowledge of youth head injuries. It wouldn’t mandate recordkeeping for middle school sports, nor track injuries at recess or in PE class.
But lawmakers should view it as a good starting point. It’s good for universities that want to contribute to national head injury research. It’s good for coaches and schools that want to promote an active, reasonably safe lifestyle. And it’s good for families who ultimately must use informed judgment to decide which activities their kids pursue.