IHSA

IHSA Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - 2005-06

Sports Medicine Advisory Committee

April 20 , 2006

The IHSA Sports Medicine Advisory meeting at the IHSA office in Bloomington, Illinois, on Wednesday, April 20, 2006, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Committee members present were Gregory Gaa, Todd Cassens, Dr. Cynthia LaBella, Dr. James Green, Dr. Richard Everett, Dr. William Marcuzzo, Senator John Davidson. Committee members not present were, Dr. Preston Wollin and John Wator. Assistant Executive Director Kurt Gibson was also in attendance.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BOARD ACTION

None brought forward.

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURAL RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Dennis Snep, head football coach at Belleville (West) High School, presented the annual Football Playoff Injury Report to the committee. The committee continues to be pleased with coach Snep’s work on the report and applauds his efforts in compiling the data. Over the past few years, the committee has worked with coach Snep to attempt to improve the reporting of injuries by schools and to chart the specific location of injuries that are occurring during the football playoffs. The committee recommends continuing to work with coach Snep on the playoff injury report and have directed the IHSA staff and coach Snep to work on developing two items for next year:

A training piece for schools to review prior to completing their report. The training piece will offer greater description to classifying injuries, which hopefully will increase the consistency of reporting.

Follow up letters that will be sent to schools that report either knee injuries or concussions. These follow up letters will better enable coach Snep to chart such injuries as a part of the injury report.

A copy of this year’s football playoff injury report can be found at www.ihsa.org.

2. At their November meeting, the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee undertook a review of the Pre-Participation Exam Form that is available to schools on the IHSA website. The committee reviews the form every few years to ensure that it is current and still meeting the needs for the membership. After review, the committee continues to be pleased with the form and sees no need to alter it at this time.

3. The committee heard a report from Greg Gaa concerning the development of a set of guidelines that schools could review or use in helping them determine when, or whether, a player should resume playing following an injury. This ‘return from injury form’ would only provide schools with some tips coaches could use in those cases when a player has been injured and not received any medical attention or care from a physician. Work will continue on the form and a more formal draft will be examined by the committee at their next meeting in November.

4. The committee reviewed a series of presentations concerning steroids, supplements, and training techniques. The presentations are designed to serve as follow up to the steroid initiative begun last fall by the association. The presentations will be a part of a curriculum that will be available to member schools in August of 2006.

5. The committee heard a presentation from members representing the Illinois Chiropractic Society concerning IHSA By-Law 2.150. The ICS expressed concern over the current rule, which allows only those physicians licensed to practice medicine in all its branches to administer athletic physicals for high school athletes in Illinois. In December of 2002, the IHSA membership amended the by-law to include nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants to also have signature authority on an athletic physical, provided that the NP or PA has a written agreement with a licensed physician. This recent amendment kept the physical by-law in line with the Illinois School Code, which has long been the standard accepted by the membership. The ICS will be submitting additional information to the committee for their review later this spring or summer. It is expected that the ICS will work with an IHSA member school to draft a by-law proposal for review by the IHSA Legislative Commission during the 2006-07 school term.