The NCAA News - News Features

Panel still seeking less contact in spring football practice

BY SALLY HUGGINS
STAFF WRITER

Authors of legislation to reduce the number of contact days in spring football are planning to have their proposal considered at the 1997 NCAA Convention, despite opposition from Division I football coaches and even though the NCAA Council no longer supports it.

The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports developed the legislation in an attempt to deal with an injury rate that is twice that of the fall season.

The American Football Coaches Association, the competitive-safeguards committee and the Council all acknowledge that the spring injury rate is too high, but they differ in how to approach the problem.

The competitive-safeguards committee believes the best solution is to reduce the number of contact days in spring football practice, which is the basis of Proposal No. 2-126 (in the Second Publication of Proposed Legislation). The proposed legislation, which was presented to the Council in August, seeks to reduce the number of permissible contact days in Divisions I and II spring football from 10 to five days.

At first, the Council agreed to sponsor the proposal but it reconsidered in October after the Division I Steering Committee withdrew its support, noting opposition from football coaches and the need for further study.

The Division II Steering Committee continues to support the legislation.

"In August, the Council decided to put forward the legislation because it was our last opportunity to put forth this legislation for the 1997 Convention," said Council member Dennis A. Farrell, commissioner of the Big West Conference and the person who made the motion to withdraw the Council's support. "But we also agreed to take the interim time to talk to coaches and see what their support would be. In the ensuing months it became clear that there was legitimate opposition. Even in August, there was a question as to whether this would be the way to go with this issue."

Grant Teaff, executive director of the AFCA, used the time to poll the AFCA membership about reducing the number of contact days in spring football.

"We completed a survey of our members concerning spring practice and the number of contact days and presented that information to the Council," Teaff said. "There had been some misunderstanding about the level of support among football coaches.

"We applaud the decision of the Council. There would have been a useless fight on the Convention floor. If the contact days need to be cut back, we will look at it again."

Proposal No. 2-126 is the competitive-safeguard committee's response to data collected through the NCAA Injury Surveillance System (ISS). Those data show an overall spring football injury rate more than double that of fall football practice. They also show severe-injury rates are two to three times higher in the spring. Of those severe injuries, the study shows, more than 80 percent occur in contact practices.

Because most of the injuries occur in designated spring contact practices, the competitive-safeguards committee believes that the focus for reducing injuries should be the contact practices. When the number of spring football contact days was reduced from 15 days to 10 in 1991, research showed that the injury rate dropped almost 20 percent.

Football coaches have argued that the injury rate has increased again despite the fewer contact practices. But the competitive-safeguards committee contends that only the injury rate the first year after the change provides a valid comparison. G. Dennis Wilson, director of physical education at Auburn University and chair of the competitive-safeguards committee, said that coaches change the content of their practices, which can affect the injury rate. Thus, he says the first year is the only valid comparison.

Teaff said the AFCA is working with the committee to decrease the spring injury rate, but he believes that reducing the number of contact days is premature and might be counterproductive.

"We have gone from 36 days sometime ago to 20 then to 15 then to 10. And now they are talking about five," Teaff said. "As you decrease the number of opportunities for contact, you increase the intensity of the contacts that you have. This is a contact sport."

The committee acknowledges that an emphasis on injury concerns needs to accompany the proposed legislation. That was not done the last time the contact days were reduced.

"It should be stressed that the committee is not against spring football," Wilson said. "We're against injuries in spring football. Our feeling is we should not expose a student-athlete to a risk greater than they're exposed to during the competitive season.

"The baseline risk should be the competitive season. You should conduct practice as safely as the season."

The NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has given its endorsement to the proposal. Also supporting the legislation are the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine and the College/University Athletic Trainers' Committee of the National Athletic Trainers' Association.

"The epidemiological studies of injury during spring football, combined with our own experience as sports medicine specialists, leads us to conclude that these changes are prudent in enhancing the health and safety of those involved in collegiate football," said Dr. T. David Sisk, president of the society.

In giving its support to the proposed legislation, the NATA committee noted that "the data detail a greater than two-fold increase in the injury rate/risk during the nontraditional season, when compared with the traditional season. We believe that to expose the student-athlete to such a risk is not in the best interests of the student-athlete."

Farrell said the steering committee wants the competitive-safeguards committee to sit down with the AFCA and craft legislation that would be acceptable to both parties.

"We all are concerned about the injury rate," Farrell said. "But there may be another way to get at it rather than through reducing the contact days."

Teaff said four AFCA schools tested a prototype spring practice using tackles that did not take players to the ground. The results were inconclusive in that the experiment, which was only for one season. Another idea involved a team having no contact for the first two days, but the results of that experiment also were inconclusive, he said.

"We have been working with the committee to come up with ways to whittle away at those numbers in spring practice. That is our goal and our purpose," Teaff said. "But we've just begun working on this issue. We need to continue to solve the problem and not eliminate spring practice."

The proposed legislation also prohibits contact in spring practice until at least the third practice and prohibits shoulder pads from being used during noncontact days.

The NATA committee said that "the addition of shoulder pads to noncontact day apparel has redefined noncontact as nontackle, with the only difference being not taking the opponent down to the ground."

Farrell said another suggestion has been to have noncontact days between all contact days to allow players to recuperate. Another recommendation has been to specify what activities are allowed on contact and noncontact days.

"You can limit the number of contact days," he said, "but if coaches still are going at it with intensity in the five or six days, you will still have injuries."

Despite the AFCA opposition and the lack of Council support, the competitive-safeguards committee has not given up on Proposal No. 2-126, Wilson said.

"Our proposal is in the book (Second Publication of Proposed Legislation) and it will go forward," he said. "Before it goes to the floor, we will try to get the Division I Steering Committee back behind it again."

Wilson said he received few questions from the Council when he presented the proposal in August and therefore was surprised when he learned that Council support had been withdrawn. He was not asked to appear at the Council's October meeting.

Teaff said that an agreement can be reached on how to reduce the spring injury rate without reducing contact practice days. He said he is optimistic because the committee and the AFCA have a good working relationship.

"The committee has been given a responsibility and they are doing their job in gathering information and making recommendations," Teaff said. "For the first time in a long time, we are able to talk to each other."