May 2011 Archives

In Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio, the debate about how to accommodate private school students in public school sports leagues has been raging on during legislative sessions this year.

The Texas Senate passed a bill in early May that would have allowed private school students to join the public University Interscholastic League, except in basketball or football. Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston said excluding football and basketball from the bill was critical for its passage, as most of the opposition came from coaches in those two sports.

As it turns out, those concerned about the bill may have their fears assuaged, at least for this coming year. The bill "missed an important midnight deadline to be considered by the House" last week, according to the Dallas Morning News. Unless Sen. Patrick, the bill's author, can attach it to another piece of legislation, the bill is "likely dead."

In Ohio, a referendum to change the way private and public schools get assigned to playoff divisions in eight sports recently fell by a close (332-303) vote. Currently, schools' football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball, and softball teams get placed into Ohio High School Athletic Association divisions strictly based on male and female enrollment figures.

The new proposal suggested a more complicated formula, developed by a Competitive Balance Committee. The formula started with traditional enrollment, added boundary factor (how schools secure students) and a four-year tradition of success factor as ways to add to enrollment, and schools could potentially lose enrollment for a socioeconomic factor (the number of students who participate in free-lunch programs).

"We believe this would have been a fairer way to assign schools in team sports to their tournament divisions," OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross said in a press release.

Approximately 17 percent of the OHSAA schools are private, yet a study showed that 43 percent of the state championships in selected team sports were won by private schools between 1999 and 2010, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

And in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association board of directors approved a proposal last month similar in nature to the recently defeated Ohio referendum, according to The Oklahoman.

The proposal, like Ohio's, focuses on how schools' sports teams get assigned to divisions. Under the new plan, a school would be eligible to move up a class if it met three of the following criteria: having selective enrollment, being within a 15-mile radius of a Class 5A or 6A school, having less than 25 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch, or whether the school's enrollment increased by at least 50 percent in the past three years. In total, the state has 18 private schools, according to the paper.

If a school does meet three or more of those criteria, athletic success will be used as the final determinant as to whether a school will or won't move up in classification (any team moving up will have had to finish in the top-eight teams in the state in more than two of the past five years).

One noteworthy part of the proposal: boys' and girls' basketball, soccer, cross country, and track will get lumped together, according to the Tulsa World. That means if one gender's team is ready to advance a class, both the boys' and girls' teams would get bumped up together.

That particular clause drew some ire from school administrators in the state.

"The association is supposed to be there for the kids," Heritage Hall athletic director Rod Warner said to The Oklahoman. "If one team is 28-0 and say the other gender is 0-23, how is it fair that the 0-23 team has to move up when it cannot compete in the class it is already in?"

The OSSAA will now send the proposal to all 484 member schools for a vote, with hopes of implementation for the 2011-12 school year.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Virtually all student-athletes should be turning to water instead of energy drinks (containing caffeine) or sports drinks (such as Gatorade) during and after exercise, according to a new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"For most children engaging in routine physical activity, plain water is best," Dr. Holly Benjamin, from the AAP Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness, and co-author of the report, told CNN.

The exception, at least for sports drinks, comes for athletes who engage in prolonged vigorous activity, says the study. Or, as Dr. Benjamin told NPR,"That's for my high-level athlete, who's exercising like crazy, sweating intensely, for more than an hour at a time."

The report clarifies sports drinks to be "beverages that may contain carbohydrates, minerals, electrolytes, and flavoring and are intended to replenish water and electrolytes lost through sweating during exercise." Energy drinks, on the other hand, include "substances that act as nonnutritive stimulants, such as caffeine, guarana ..."

The authors conclude that energy drinks have no place in a student-athlete's diet, citing dental erosion, obesity, and caffeine addiction as three possible side effects. The report continually stresses the importance of teaching children and parents the substantial difference between sports and energy drinks, as both are often targeted toward the same audience.

Sports drinks don't fare much better, though. The authors note that the carbohydrates in sports drinks can also lead to dental erosion and obesity in youths, and recommend that "children and adolescents should be taught to drink water routinely as an initial beverage of choice as long as daily dietary caloric and other nutrient needs are being met." (Again, it's worth noting that they do suggest sports drinks for athletes engaging in more than one hour of vigorous activity at a time, so Derrick Rose can feel free to continue promoting Gatorade.)

One part of the report that shocked this sports-drink-loving author: Children and adolescents often meet their daily electrolyte requirements through their normal diet. So, those claims about sports drinks replacing lost electrolyes really only apply to those vigorous exercisers.

The authors also note that since beverage-makers had agreed to phase out carbonated beverages in schools by the 2009-10 school year, they've upped their promotion of sports drinks as a healthier alternative. A 2007 study by the Institute of Medicine cited in the report recommended that schools prohibit energy-drink use (even for athletes), ban the sale of carbonated beverages in school, and restrict the use of sports drinks to only student-athletes engaged in intense, prolonged physical activities.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Chicago public schools issued a guide this week to help outline ways that schools can bring recess back into their schedules. Most schools in the district haven't scheduled recess since the 1970s.

As it turns out, the return of recess to Chicago may have major health benefits for students, according to a soon-to-be-presented study out of the University of Scranton.

Dr. Ronald W. Deitrick, director of the exercise-science program at the University of Scranton's Department of Exercise Science and Sport, launched a 10-week pilot walking program for a group of 12-year-olds during recess. Students walked for 25 minutes during recess, three times per week.

After 10 weeks, students who hadn't participated in the program gained an average of four pounds, while those who did take part gained only one pound, and significantly reduced their percentage of body fat.

"This was only for 10 weeks," said Deitrick in a press release. "Imagine what we could do to address the childhood-obesity problem and prevent adult obesity if this was what students nationwide did during recess. We need to revolutionize the way we think about walking."

Deitrick will be officially presenting the study at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in early June. (He was not immediately available to comment on the study.)

Let's jump back to Chicago, where only 42 percent of principals surveyed by the district said their school currently had scheduled recess time.

A provision in the contract between the district and the Chicago Teachers' Union makes it so individual schools decide whether to schedule recess during the day. In theory, each school has a committee (made up of administrators, teachers, and parents) that votes on the school's scheduling process; however, union officials say the committee process has been left in the dust recently. The newly released 34-page recess guide requires schools to set up a recess committee, which would determine each year whether to include recess in the schedule.

The guide makes mention of a 2009 study from the Journal of Pediatrics that found 15 minutes or more of daily recess improved students' classroom behavior. (As someone currently reading Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain , the improved behavior finding makes sense, as exercise releases certain calming chemicals in the brain and essentially primes the brain for learning.)

The recess guide also references first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! fitness campaign and a recommendation from the White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity that elementary schools provide their students regular access to recess.
"Recess should be considered a vital and healthy part of a complete school day for all of our students," said Terry Mazany, Chicago's interim chief executive officer, in a press release. "We hope this plan will provide the blueprint needed to return recess to our elementary schools."

In a survey of 200 Chicago principals, 65 said they've noticed improved school climate since implementing recess, and 57 cited the benefit of physical exercise.

The district expects next school year to be a transitional one for most schools, and expects recess to return to schools on a widescale basis in the 2012-13 school year.

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Professional football may currently be on hold, but the NFL still plans on distributing grants to help pay for new and resurfaced youth-football fields, despite reports to the contrary.

The NFL Grassroots Field Grant Program, established in 1998, provides up to $200,000 worth of matching grants to nonprofit, community-based organizations, middle schools, and high schools looking to improve the conditions of their football fields. Applicants can request up to $50,000 for "general field support" (projects not related to the field surface, such as the installation/refurbishment of lights, bleachers, or concession stands), or up to $200,000 for the resurfacing of a football field.

Dan Donovan, head of finances for the New Hampshire-based Nashua school district, told the district's board of education this week that the NFL wouldn't be distributing any new field grants until the resolution of the league's ongoing lockout, according to the Nashua Telegraph. The district was hoping for a $200,000 matching grant from the NFL to help subsidize the cost of the installation of new turf at its football stadium, which could end up around $700,000 total.

The Nashua stadium, which opened in 2001, only had an eight-year warranty on its now 10-year-old turf. Donovan told the board of ed that the turf has soft spots that wouldn't currently pass safety tests.

According to Stacy Hynes, the district's director of grants, the district submitted its application for the grant by the Dec.15, 2010, deadline and was originally told that a decision would be made by February, one way or the other. District officials have yet to hear a final decision from the NFL. (The NFL Grassroots Program's website doesn't specify a date by which winners of the grants would be decided or notified.)

Yesterday, however, officials from the NFL said the lockout will have no bearing on the status of the NFL Grassroots Program's future grants.

"I'm not sure why they would say this has anything to do with the work stoppage," Alexia Gallagher, director of NFL's director of youth football, said Wednesday, to the Telegraph. "We have not altered our giving strategy at all."

Gallagher said the grant awards should be announced somewhere in the middle of June. Roughly 100 schools and organizations applied for the grants, with a total of about $2.5 million up for grabs.

"It's a very stringent review process. We really need to conduct our due diligence with the number of applications," she told the Telegraph. "It's a thorough review. We conduct site visits, really making sure these projects are viable and have community support."

So, that settles it, right? Well, not exactly.

After hearing the NFL's response, Hynes isn't stepping down from what she said. She told the Telegraph that the Local Initiative Support Corporation, a Boston-based organization that partners with the NFL Youth Football Fund to handle the grants, told her the grants would take longer this year because of the NFL lockout. Hynes also provided the paper with a timeline that the district received as a part of its application, which said decisions would be made by February and distribution of the funding would occur in May.

With many schools across the U.S. already dealing with crunched budgets, the reported delay from the NFL's Grassroots Program will be yet another headache in a year that's already been full of them.

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Big Ten officials broached the subject of giving student-athletes enough money to cover their living expenses during the conference's spring meetings last week.

Athletic scholarships currently cover tuition, room and board, and books, but not other living costs such as transportation, clothing, and food. The gap between what a scholarship covers and the true cost of living expenses varies from school to school, but studies often estimate the gap to be around $3,000.

"Forty years ago, you had a scholarship plus $15 a month laundry money," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said, according to ESPN. "Today, you have the same scholarship, but not with the $15 laundry money."

With TV revenues for the major conferences booming, and showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, the Big Ten officials proposed using some of that extra cash to fund students' living expenses. (Each Big Ten school reportedly earns $22 million/year from its TV contract, according to the Fort Wayne News Sentinel.) Delany, however, stressed that the conference has only begun to discuss such a proposal, and he plans on reaching out to other conferences to discuss the feasibility of such a plan.

NCAA President Mark Emmert is on the record as being interested in increasing scholarships to cover student-athletes' living expenses, although he remains steadfast in his unwillingness to pay student-athletes to play games. Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association, also supports the idea of including living expenses in student-athletes' scholarships.

"Unless the student-athletes in the revenue-producing sports get more of the pie, the model will eventually break down," Britton Banowsky, Conference USA commissioner said. "It seems it is only a matter of time."

After news broke about the pay-for-living-expenses proposal last week, plenty of college officials raised concerns about some facets of the plan.

"Could it be limited to only revenue-producing sports?" ACC Commissioner John Swofford said. "I'm not sure we would want to do it. And from a legal standpoint, how does it mesh with Title IX? I think we're a ways away from getting there. But it's a student-athlete welfare issue. It's a way to enhance the student-athlete experience and put a dent in some of the financial strains that some athletes have."

Delaney also acknowledged that certain conferences (namely, mid-majors) may not be able to afford such a plan, as it could cost roughly $300,000 for football and male basketball players alone. A spokesman for Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson told ESPN that he did not believe the conference members have yet discussed the potential for paying the living expenses of student athletes.

"The cost-of-living component issue is a legitimate problem, and the NCAA is on-record saying that," said Northern Iowa athletic director Troy Dannen to the Des Moines Register. "I don't think that's any secret. I would much prefer the NCAA look for a way that all institutions across the board can address the problem as one."

Dannen also raised the same question of equality as Swofford did. "When it gets down to scholarships, (to) student-athletes, a scholarship in football is worth the same as a scholarship in soccer," Dannen said. That means the same $3,000 stipend that gets distributed to male football players would also have to be given to members of nonrevenue-generating sports teams.

The Register estimated that the additional stipends, at $3,000 a piece, would have cost Northern Iowa $1.1 million in 2009-10, and the University of Iowa would have spent an extra $1.85 million. UNI spent $13.7 million total on athletics in 2009-10, while the University of Iowa spent $74.2 million on its athletic programs.

Certain members of the Big Ten, such as Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, suggested that conferences should only pay the living expenses of athletes if they can afford it.

"The reality is, if there's cost of attendance and you can't afford it, don't do it," Smith said. "The teams you're trying to beat can't do it either. Don't do it because Ohio State's doing it. That's one of the things schools at that level get trapped into thinking." (This isn't the only time an Ohio State athletic official has made potentially controversial comments about the difference between BCS and mid-major schools this past year, thanks to Ohio State President Gordon Gee.)

That said, if you're a high school student-athlete looking to continue your athletic career in college, which school would you choose? The one that can pay your tuition and living expenses, or the one that will leave you thousands of dollars in the hole each year?

The Big Ten's proposal ultimately amounts to even further separation between the haves and the have-nots in college sports. Major conference teams, which reap millions each year from lucrative TV contracts, may well be able to provide additional funding for their student-athletes. But what happens to the teams that can't?

Is this proposal really just a way to avoid another Michigan-Appalachian State from happening to major conference teams?

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Despite facing a $20 billion-plus deficit, the Texas legislature tentatively agreed on a budget bill this week that maintains roughly $1.5 million worth of spending for student-athlete steroid tests over the next two years.

Under Texas' current steroid-testing system, which originally cost $3 million per year, every one of the state's 700,000-plus student-athletes is eligible for a random test (using a urine sample). Now, state legislators say the testing will likely narrow its focus to a few sports—namely, football, baseball, and track, according to the Associated Press.

"Make it so a senior offensive lineman has a better chance of getting tested than a freshman female volleyball player," Dan Hooton said. (Taylor Hooton, his son, was a former Texas high school football player whose 2003 suicide was linked to steroids.)

Since the program's inception in 2007, more than 50,000 student-athletes have been tested for steroids. Fewer than 30 have returned positive results.

Last month, the University Interscholastic League released results of 2,083 steroid tests for student-athletes at 135 schools last fall, and it turned out that only one student tested positive. (One other student-athlete violated protocol by not reporting for testing.)

Proponents of the steroid tests suggest that despite the low number of positive results, the program acts as a deterrent for student-athletes. Granted, as Rep. Dan Flynn admitted during the legislative session on Monday, funding for the program became tough to defend as the state faces the potential of thousands of job losses for teachers.

Lawmakers still need to cast a final vote on the budget—which they're expected to do tomorrow—before the funding figures for the steroid tests become official. In the legislature's original budget proposals, the House had slashed all funding for the program, while the Senate preserved it.

In other Texas school sports news: The Senate passed a bill Monday that bans schools from using football helmets older than 15 years. The bill also requires schools to recondition 10-year-old helmets at least once every two years. The House passed the bill on April 5, so it now heads to Gov. Rick Perry for final approval.

Keep in mind, the U.S. Congress also has helmet-safety legislation under consideration. The proposed bills would give the helmet industry nine months to improve safety standards before the Consumer Product Safety Commission would take over the regulation of helmet safety.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Combining physical activity with traditional classroom lessons led to a 13 percentage-point increase in test scores at a struggling Charleston, S.C., elementary school, according to a recent study.

The study examined 105 students, 1st grade through 6th, who had been participating in 40 minutes of physical education classes per week before the start of the program. Once the study started, the students began 40 minutes of exercise during school hours each day, with age-appropriate academic content accompanying the physical activity.

The 1st and 2nd grade students "learned developmentally appropriate movement skills while basic academic skills were reinforced," according to a press release from the Pediatric Academic Societies. (The students hopped through ladders while naming the colors of each rung, for example.) Students in 3rd through 6th grade had access to exercise equipment with television screens, meaning the students could run on a treadmill while an accompanying screen showed a geography lesson that the students could "run through."

To measure the academic results of this activity-based program, the school compared test scores from the year before the program with test scores from the year of the program's implementation. The researchers set personal test score goals for each student, based on the student's score on the previous year's test and the national average.

Overall, the percentage of students meeting that personal goal increased from 55 percent to 68.5 percent after the implementation of the program.

Of the 105 students who participated in the program, 32 reached their personal goal after not meeting their goal before the onset of the program. However, 18 students who had previous met their goal did not reach their new goal after the program was initiated.

The study was led by Drs. Kathryn L. King and Carly J. Scahill, both pediatric residents at the Medical University of South Carolina Children's Hospital.

"These data indicate that when carefully designed physical education programs are put into place, children's academic achievement does not suffer," Dr. King said in the press release. (To hear the researchers discuss their study, click here.)

At this point, these findings about physical activity boosting students' academic performance shouldn't be considered all that surprising. A recent study out of West Virginia of 5th and 7th graders found that students with better aerobic fitness tended to score higher on standardized tests. And a study from earlier this year charted how physical activity improved cognitive function in students.

The true value of this South Carolina-based study could end up being the conclusion that "physical education and academic instruction need not be mutually exclusive," as the press release states. If teachers can work exercise-based activities into their day-to-day lesson plans while maintaining an academic focus, those lessons could end up improving both students' minds and their bodies.

The National Association of Sport and Physical Education recommends that students receive 150+ minutes of physical education each week in elementary school. NASPE also recommends that children of all ages get at least 60 minutes of physical activity on a daily basis.

Currently, only Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana meet NASPE's 150-minutes-per-week standard for physical education in elementary schools, according to the organization's 2010 Shape of the Nation report.

Perhaps exercise-based academic lessons can be a way for schools to kill two birds with one stone.

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Legislation targeting the makers of football helmets that was introduced in Congress back in March has resulted in a slew of lobbyists coming out of the woodwork from helmet makers, safety organizations, and advocacy groups.

Currently, the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment oversees the safety standards of football helmets and other athletic equipment. The current helmet standard devised by NOCSAE requires helmets to withstand a 60-inch free fall without allowing too much force to reach the skull (essentially, a test to prevent fractured skulls), according to the New York Times. Problem is, the NOCSAE doesn't require these same helmets to be tested against the forces suspected of causing concussions. (NOCSAE's standards for hockey and lacrosse helmets do require testing against suspected concussion-causing forces.)

The proposed bills, known as the Children's Sports Athletic Equipment Safety Act (H.R. 1127 and S. 601), would give the industry nine months to improve the safety standards of football helmets, including new standards for concussion risks and youth football helmets. If they failed to make substantial changes, the Consumer Product Safety Commission would develop safety regulations for football helmets.

The bills note that helmet makers don't currently have a voluntary safety standard specifically for youth football helmets, despite the physiological differences in neck strength and head size between adults and children. The CPSC would also develop a new standard for all football helmets that addresses concussion risk, assuming the commission determines a standard is feasible given the current science behind concussions.

A few other key components of the bills:

• They would require third-party oversight of the safety testing and certification of youth football helmets.

• Helmets would be required to have labels warning of the limits of protection afforded by the helmet. The bill also requires helmet makers to place clearly legible labels with the date of manufacturing on the helmet, with a warning that the helmet's protectiveness may decline over time.

• The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general would have more power to any punish sports equipment manufacturers who make false and/or misleading claims about the safety benefits of their equipment.

"This isn't just an issue about football," Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico told the Times. "We have all sorts of athletic equipment that is out there to fulfill the role of safety or protection. So it seems to me, if you have a headband or a mouth guard, the same set of issues come up—misrepresentation issues. We're trying to be broad." (Udall sponsored the Senate bill.)

Udall has asked the FTC to investigate two helmet manufacturers for false and misleading claims about their helmets preventing concussions. One such manufacturer, Riddell, specifically marketed its "Riddell Revolution" helmet as a product that reduces concussion risk by 31 percent.

In response to the legislation, Riddell hired a lobbying firm that includes former Rep. Kenny Hulshof and two former Capitol Hill staffers, according to the Associated Press. Riddell spent $80,000 in the first quarter of 2011 on lobbying in relation to this bill, after spending next to nothing on lobbying in 2010.

NOCSAE also hired a lobbying firm, Locke Lord Strategies LP, for the first time in its 40-year history, as the organization has "no experience in D.C.," NOCSAE executive director and general counsel Mike Oliver told the AP. Neither Riddell nor NOCSAE has taken an official position on the helmet legislation yet. Meanwhile, the nonprofit research and advocacy group Consumers Union has thrown its weight behind the bill, according to the AP.

This legislation could come just in the nick of time, as it turns out. A study released last week found that nearly 40 percent of NFL players wore a helmet last season that received the second-lowest rating for reducing the risk of concussions. According to Riddell, 38 percent of NFL players wore the VSR-4, which Riddell stopped selling in 2010. The company's new model, the Revolution family of helmets, includes additional padding around the jaw area, and received much higher marks in the recent study.

And a study from Purdue University researchers last year found that some high school football players experience undiagnosed changes in brain function, regardless of whether or not they sustain concussions. The study monitored 21 high school football players through the use of accelerometers (which measure the force of impact), and identified 11 players who either were diagnosed with a concussion or received unusually high numbers of impacts to the head. Of those 11, three players were diagnosed with concussions during the season, four showed no changes in brain activity, and four showed changes in brain function despite never being diagnosed.

According to the bills, 20 percent of all high school football players suffer brain injuries in any given season, and 2006 statistics from the National Center for Injury Prevention found that 47 percent of high school football players sustain a concussion each season.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Texas Senate passed a bill on Monday that could lead to felony convictions and up to 10 years in prison for any sports agents or "runners" who bait college athletes into signing contracts that cause them to lose their eligibility.

Currently, Texas law calls for agents who commit violations to be punished by fines, the revocation of their agent license, and the potential for a misdemeanor conviction.

Under the new bill, prospective agents would have to post a $50,000 bond with the state before signing a student-athlete to a contract. Before a student-athlete's last intercollegiate game, agents would be restricted from directly contacting or providing anything of value from anyone related to the student-athlete, among other limitations.

If the agent knowingly commits a violation of this do-not-contact rule, under the bill, he or she would be slapped with a third-degree felony. The Texas secretary of state would then notify any professional sports association that had licensed the agent about the felony conviction. The bill would also allow any institution of higher education and/or student-athlete harmed by an agent's violation to file a lawsuit against the agent.

Long story short, Texas legislators weren't exaggerating when they called it the toughest agent legislation in the United States.

The legislators pushing the bill, Rep. Harold Dutton and Sen. Royce West, say it also contains provisions that target runners (middlemen who contact athletes and their families on an agent's behalf). The bill makes it a felony for an agent to cause a person to commit an act that causes an athlete to violate any NCAA rules. West said that runners and agents sometimes go after student-athletes as early as middle school, trying to steer them toward signing with a certain agent years down the road.

"The athlete doesn't know if they are talking to another student or a runner for an agent," said University of Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds. "If we can get those kinds of things stopped, it would be a benefit to the student and a benefit to the university."

The bill has been sent back to the House with minor amendments regarding what types of crimes agents must report when registering with the state. Assuming the House passes the amended bill, it will head to Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his signature.

As I reported back in February, Arkansas also appeared en route to stiffening criminal penalties for agents who commit violations, as legislators there had introduced a bill that would raise the maximum fine for agents from $50,000 to $250,000 and make violations punishable by up to six years in jail. Since then, both the state House and Senate have passed the bill, and the governor signed it into law on March 8 of this year.

Neither the Texas nor Arkansas bills directly target agents going after middle- and high-school aged student-athletes; however, it would be naive to think that middle- and high-school sports aren't plagued by the same types of problems. Any legislative action being taken to strengthen penalties against unscrupulous sports agents will likely benefit student-athletes of all ages.

An Associated Press review from last summer found that 24 of the 42 states with sports-agent laws reported taking no disciplinary or criminal action against sports agents—the states hadn't revoked or suspended a single agent's license.

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You may remember the tragic story of Wes Leonard from earlier this year—the 16-year-old basketball player had just hit a buzzer-beating shot to clinch a perfect regular season for his high school team when his enlarged heart gave out and caused him to collapse on the court. After being rushed to a hospital and undergoing CPR, Leonard was pronounced dead as a result of sudden cardiac arrest.

Now, his family and friends have banded together to create The Wes Leonard Heart Team, a foundation that will lobby for student-athlete safety legislation. The foundation's website lays out a few key legislative items that it will pursue, such as:

• Ensuring that all public and private schools have enough automatic electronic defibrillators, or AEDs, on site;

• Having all staff members (including coaches and coaches' assistants) be trained in both CPR and first aid;

• For all schools to have a comprehensive "emergency action plan," and to hold regular drills.

The foundation also hopes to raise money to research a widely accepted cardiology screening, processes to advance the screening capabilities, and general research in the field of cardiology to help prevent deaths caused by sudden cardiac arrest.

In the Holland area of Michigan, there have been four instances of sudden cardiac arrest at high school sporting events in the past three-and-a-half years (including Leonard's death), according to The Holland Sentinel. The other three people who went into cardiac arrest were all revived, and since then, those schools have only added more AEDs.

Fennville, where Leonard attended high school, had only one AED on campus at the time of Leonard's death; it was located about 200 feet away from the gym in the Community Athletic Center. Since Leonard's death, the school has received four more AEDs through donation—three from the Greg Moyer Foundation and one from Peter Metcalfe of Start a Heart—and more are on the way, according to the Sentinel.

"Any time ... a tragedy like that would happen, I would imagine people would have the same response that we've had, and that is a lot of soul-searching, a lot of questions," Fennville Superintendent Dirk Weeldreyer said to the Holland newspaper. "It's a tragedy that strikes you to the core, and so obviously, he wasn't saved. So, in the end, ultimately you just wish more could have been done."

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Where in the world has Secretary of Education Arne Duncan been lately? Turns out he's been struggling with severe back pain which started from a sports injury, my colleague Michele McNeil reported today over on the Politics K-12 blog.

McNeil spoke to Justin Hamilton, spokesman for the Dept. of Ed., and learned that Duncan's injury was further aggravated by heavy cross-country travel.

This isn't the first time Duncan's suffered a sports injury during his tenure as Secretary of Education, either. Late last year, Duncan broke his nose during a basketball game, according to Politico. And the broken nose wasn't President Barack Obama's fault, Duncan joked during a speech at a State Educational Technology Directors Association event. (Remember, Pres. Obama required 12 stitches in his lip after being elbowed during a basketball game in late November 2010.)

Just goes to show you that even the top leaders in education aren't immune to a few sports-related bumps and bruises.

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Children ages 2 to 5 respond nearly seven times better to anti-obesity programs than students ages 6 to 21, according to a new study.

The study, being presented this week at the Digestive Disease Week meeting, was led by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine. It focused on 462 children, 44 of whom were between the ages of 2 and 5, and found that obese children who participated in a yearlong behavioral intervention program were much more likely to change their eating and exercise habits.

The program issued families pedometers and journals to track the kids' exercise and eating patterns. Carl Sather, a co-author of the study, noted to the Wall Street Journal Health Blog that older kids can track their activity and eating on their own, but "at a younger age, they're dependent on adults to monitor them."

The findings may reflect the importance of close parental involvement in reducing childhood obesity and encouraging healthy habits. Young children depend far more heavily on their parents for their food choices than older children, so parents who keep junk food out of a young child's diet can effectively change that child's eating habits before he/she begins making food choices on his/her own.

"Our biggest encouragement for younger kids is really to increase the time [they spend] playing," Sather told the WSJ. He recommended that children "play hard daily for 60 minutes or more, with no more than two hours of screen time." (Do those suggestions sound familiar? You could be thinking of the 5-2-1-0 Let's Go! program, which also calls for children to have two hours or less of screen time, one hour or more of exercise, zero sugary drinks, and five or more fruits and vegetables each day.)

The authors concluded that the results of their study suggest screening body mass index for preschoolers and kindergartners, given how much more they responded to anti-obesity programs. Full data for the study aren't yet available, according to the WSJ, and it's unclear whether the program tracks the eating and exercise habits of the children after they complete the yearlong program.

This new study isn't the first to conclude that obesity prevention programs work best for younger children. Just last year, the WSJ wrote about a study, presented at an obesity conference in Sweden, that suggested obesity prevention programs work much more effectively with kids under 5. The younger kids were "much more susceptible to change," according to the study.

Why should parents push their children to shed those extra pounds, besides the clear health benefits? (Youth obesity was recently linked to severely higher rates of heart disease, no matter the person's adult weight.)

Well, a recent study of 1,725 5th and 7th graders out of West Virginia found that students with better aerobic fitness tended to score higher on standardized tests. And this blog discussed a study from February that found exercise increases the cognitive function of overweight children.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

How's an NFL agent to spend his time while the NFL remains locked out and engaged in a bitter court battle? One such agent will be spending his free time as a high school football coach.

Joe Linta, who represents Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (along with three dozen other NFL players), was hired as head coach last week for Hamden Hall, a private high school in Connecticut. Linta isn't leaving his roster of clients, however. He'll be working part time as NFL agent, part time as high school football coach. He'll also have the chance to coach his sons, Nick, a wide receiver on the team, and T.J., a quarterback.

"As a family, this will be a lot of fun, and the slowest time of the year in representation business is August through October," Linta told the Associated Press. "A lot of agents like to play golf. This is what I like to do, sort of like a hobby. I'll probably spend the same number of hours a week doing this as they do playing golf."

Linta says that his first commitment will still be to his NFL players, and to the college players he signs once their eligibility is up, but work for the two jobs shouldn't overlap much.

That said ... the first thing that came to my mind after hearing about this story was, "How the heck is that allowed? Conflict of interest, much?"

Bob Izzo, headmaster for Hamden High, said, "He doesn't represent high school or college kids so no, we don't think there is any conflict. We're sure there's not any," according to the Connecticut-based Post-Chronicle.

What Izzo said is technically true, although, it reeks of politician speak. Of course Linta doesn't represent any high school or college players; if he did, they'd be jeopardizing their NCAA eligibility by being represented by an agent. Besides, NFL agents aren't allowed to represent a player until after his true junior or redshirt sophomore season in college.

The potential problem arises if and when one of Izzo's high school players ends up being talented enough to make it to the NFL. Will those student-athletes feel some sense of loyalty to Linta because he was their high school coach? Quite possibly. Whether it leads to those players signing with Linta or not, the fact is, this arrangement opens a small pipeline of players for Linta, which other NFL agents won't have access to.

To be clear: This isn't at all to insinuate that Linta comes into the coaching job with ill intentions. There's no question he has plenty of coaching experience on his resume—he served as assistant coach of the University of New Haven football team from 1983-84, and an assistant coach for Yale's football team from 1985-91. (Not to mention, he played four years of defensive tackle for Yale while in college.) It's not like Hamden High plucked an NFL agent with no football experience off the street. In fact, one of Linta's clients, New England Patriots backup quarterback Brian Hoyer, told the AP that Linta has more in-depth knowledge of football (due to his years of playing and coaching) than most agents.

But Linta's unique position as part-agent, part-coach could open a Pandora's box of complications if this sort of arrangement starts popping up in other high schools. For one, agents aren't allowed to communicate "either directly or indirectly" with football players who aren't eligible for the NFL draft, according to the NFLPA regulations governing agents. (The NFLPA rulebook also prohibits agents from "engaging in any other activity that creates an actual or potential conflict of interest with the effective representation of NFL players," for what it's worth.)

The NFLPA suspended two agents this past December: one for communicating with players before they were eligible for the NFL draft, the other for giving a college football player a ride in a golf cart. If neither of those activities is permissable under the NFLPA's regulations for agents, it's hard to fathom how Linta's arrangement would be. What happens if/when he tries to follow up with former players during their college years?

Given the NFLPA's strict rules governing player-agent relationships, and the ongoing problems with questionable agent practices, high schools might be more likely to avoid potential conflicts by keeping agents and coaches separate.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The NCAA recently decided to shorten the NBA draft early-entry deadline by more than a month, resulting in a slew of negative backlash from national sportswriters.

Some background first: NCAA players interested in gauging their NBA chances must declare their NBA draft eligibility no less than 60 days before the draft, according to the NBA's current collective bargaining agreement. The NBA allows potential draftees to drop out up to 10 days before the draft. The draft early-entry deadline refers to the NCAA-mandated date when college underclassmen must declare whether they're staying in the draft or returning to school.

Last year, the NCAA reduced the early-entry deadline from mid-June to May 8, as college coaches were reportedly tiring of recruiting players during the spring signing period while having to wait and see which of their current players would ultimately stay in the NBA draft. Previously, NCAA players in the draft process would have roughly two months to gauge their status before making the final in-or-out decision, which allowed each player time for multiple individual team workouts. Due to the shorter deadline this year, a massive group workout occurred May 7 and 8 in front of all 30 NBA teams.

Still, the Atlantic Coast Conference coaches who proposed the original shortened deadline weren't satisfied. As ESPN's Andy Katz reports, the ACC coaches proposed legislation for the new even-shorter deadline that included this passage:

"The current legislation reduced the problem by setting the withdrawal deadline May 8, which is 40 days earlier than the previous withdrawal deadline but still 22 days after the first day of the National Letter of Intent late-signing period for men's basketball in April. ... By moving the withdrawal deadline, coaches will have flexibility to address roster issues at the beginning of the spring signing period while viable prospects are still available. Evaluations by professional scouts and others during preseason practices, regular-season games, and postseason games should provide student-athletes with adequate information to credibly determine NBA draft status."

Long story short, the coaches don't want to be "held hostage" by their potential NBA players. And now, since the NCAA adopted the ACC coaches' proposal, NCAA players must withdraw or stay in the draft for good by the first day of the prep spring signing period. (This change affects solely male college basketball players, as the WNBA draft occurs only a few days after the women's basketball NCAA championship game.)

ESPN's Eamonn Brennan calls the new deadline "ridiculous," pointing out that if the new deadline were in effect this past year, college basketball players would have had eight days between the national championship game and the deadline to enter the draft. This new date effectively ends the concept of NCAA players "testing the water," Brennan says, as it "forces players with millions of dollars on the line to make life-altering decisions in the matter of a few days with minimal information on which to make them."

Brennan wasn't alone. His colleague at ESPN, Jay Bilas, wrote an article in response titled, "NCAA lacks principle on early-entry rule." Gary Parrish from CBSsports.com called the rule an "obviously crummy deal for student-athletes." He didn't stop there, saying, "the ACC coaches who proposed it should never again be allowed to say they're in this to help young people because the rule ... doesn't help young people in any way."

When the whole of the Internet adopts one side of an argument, chances are, it's probably at least on the right track. The lack of defense for the new early-entry withdrawal deadline on behalf of the NCAA is quite frankly stunning.

All that said, let's take a look at three ways this rule may have a trickle-down effect into high school basketball:

1. The one-and-done rule: If the National Basketball Players Association gets its way this summer, high school basketball players would once again be eligible to enter the NBA straight from high school.

The NBA's current collective bargaining agreement expires at midnight on July 1. Much like the NFL, the NBA is shaping up for a long and contentious battle over the new agreement.

One topic apparently in the players' sights: the NBA's one-and-done draft rule. Under the current agreement, high school players aren't allowed to jump straight from high school to the NBA; they must be 19 years old and one year removed from high school graduation before becoming eligible for the draft. (Before 2005, players such as Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, and LeBron James did enter the NBA straight out of high school; however, such superstars are in a very small minority.)

The NBPA's latest proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement, issued in December, includes the end of the one-and-done age restriction. NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter told ESPN writer Henry Abbott in March that the issue hadn't become huge yet, but the union was in favor of eliminating the rule. Hunter said,
"I don't know if there has been much discussion. Our position is that players should be incentivized to stay in school if that's what they want. Let's reduce the duration of the rookie scale. For every year a guy stays in school, a year comes off the rookie scale. So if a kid decides to stay for four years, he'd come in, maybe spend a year in the league, then he'd be an unrestricted free agent."

That said, Yahoo! Sports recently reported that several high-ranking NBA team executives said "they wouldn't be surprised if the age limit in the new CBA is pushed to two years in college and 20 years old by the end of that calendar year. One NBA general manager says about two-thirds of teams are in favor of that change."

2. The NBA D-League: If the players don't get their way, and the one-and-done rule remains in place, ESPN's Brennan believes the NBA D-League could be a potential middle ground for all parties.

A year after Brandon Jennings became the first prep star to bypass a year of college ball in favor of playing professionally overseas, Latavious Williams forged a new route to the NBA through the NBA Developmental League. (Williams was drafted 48th overall in the 2010 NBA draft.) Since its inception in 2001, the D-League has grown to a 16-team minor-league farm system for the NBA, dedicated to the development of NBA-level talent. That said, Williams is the only high school player who's gone the D-League route since the one-and-done rule came into effect five years ago.

Former ESPN writer Dan Shanoff believes that the D-League serves the interest of all parties—players, college basketball, and the NBA. For players, they'll receive a (small) salary and dedicate all their waking hours to the development of their basketball talent. The NBA will be "better off with a pipeline of the most talented prep players taught how to play and compete in the pro game," and college basketball will end its "unhealthy dependency on one-year wonders who don't really care about college basketball." While colleges will likely lament the loss of elite basketball talent, Shanoff believes that college basketball will remain successful, largely due to the win-or-go-home format of the NCAA tournament.

So, if the one-and-done rule remains in the NBA's next bargaining agreement, it's worth keeping an eye on the D-League as a viable alternative to college basketball for future prep stars.

3. Competitiveness in high school basketball: If the NBA players do manage to abolish the one-and-done rule, high school basketball may become even more of a breeding ground for agents.

Think about it: If a high school player were to make the prep-to-pro jump, he would need an agent to represent him during contract negotiations, no? What are the odds that agents (or representatives of agents) won't be contacting the top high school players during the season, especially if those players have given hints that they'll head straight to the NBA after high school (especially given the multimillion-dollar contracts that the top draft picks automatically receive)?

Granted, only the cream of the high school crop will even consider the prep-to-pro leap, so it's not like agents will be texting and calling every Joe Basketball Player in the country. Still, the presence of agents in the prep game is already a problem that most coaches and athletic officials would like to see disappear. Giving high school players the ability to go straight to the pros will likely only lead to more agents working their connections during the prep years.

Photo: Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) drives past Boston Celtics' Rajon Rondo during the second half of Game 1 of a second-round NBA playoff basketball series on May 1 in Miami.
Jeffrey M. Boa/AP

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A growing number of soccer teams in Colorado are adopting protective headbands for their players, as the players and coaches feel that the headbands help protect the athletes from sport-related traumatic head injury.

Courtney Smith, goalie for the Liberty High School soccer team, believes her headband has helped her "countless times." "It doesn't take the whole blow away, but it does soften it," Smith said to The Gazette.

In Manitou Springs, Colo., headbands have become mandatory for both the boys' and girls' soccer teams in both high school and middle school. The Manitou Springs fire department outfitted both the boys' and girls' teams with headbands, which look like thick, padded pieces of cloth that wrap around the players' foreheads.

"If you play soccer here, boys or girls, you're going to wear them," Manitou Springs athletic director John McGee said to the paper. "It's just part of the uniform at this point."

Is there scientific data to back up the empirical evidence of the headbands' helpfulness? Well, not exactly...

[Manitou Springs fire Chief Keith] Buckmiller can't provide data that shows the bands definitely prevent head injuries, but he saw all the proof he needed firsthand at a Manitou Springs game against Trinidad this season.

A collision involving players on both sides had no effect on the Mustangs' player, but the Trinidad player showed many symptoms that Buckmiller's extensive training instantly led him to believe was a concussion.

In no way should these headbands be seen as an automatic concussion-prevention method. If a student-athlete's head gets jostled, his or her brain could still easily slam against the inner-wall of the skull, headband or not. (For more about the science behind concussions, see here.) That said, anything that can lessen the impact of head-to-head blows in sports shouldn't be taken lightly.

In other youth-concussion news, here's a quick-hit roundup of the latest on student-athlete concussion legislation across the U.S.:

In North Carolina: Student-athlete concussion legislation unanimously passed through the state House earlier this week, and is now under consideration by the state Senate, according to the News & Record.

The bill calls for the creation of an athletic concussion-safety training program, to be designed by a number of local medical organizations in conjunction with the education department. All coaches, school nurses, athletic directors, first responders, volunteers, students, and parents of students who participate in school sports will receive a concussion and head-injury information sheet on an annual basis, and all must sign the sheet before they're allowed to participate in any athletic competitions.

Much like the concussion laws in other states, under this bill, students suspected of a concussion would be immediately removed from competition and would not be allowed to return before obtaining medical clearance.

The bill is named the Gfeller‑Waller Concussion Awareness Act in honor of two former high school football players, Matt Gfeller and Jaquan Waller, who each died after sustaining brain injuries while playing football.

In Texas: A similar concussion bill to North Carolina's was passed by the state House on Thursday, and now heads to the state Senate, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Under the Texas bill, students who sustain concussions during athletic competitions would be removed from the contests and would require medical clearance before returning to play. Texas schools would also be required to develop standards for dealing with student-athlete concussions sustained during interscholastic competition under the bill.

Schools would also have to establish a concussion-oversight team, which would create a concussion protocol based on scientific evidence. The concussion-oversight team would be comprised of at least one physician and at least one of the following: athletic trainer, advanced practice nurse, neuropsychologist, or physician assistant.

The bill is named "Natasha's Law" in honor of Natasha Helmick, a freshman at Texas State University who retired from her soccer career after sustaining five concussions in four years.

And in Missouri: Former St. Louis Rams linebacker Mike Jones spoke out in support of a student-athlete concussion bill during a state Senate committee meeting earlier this week, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The bill, much like Texas' and North Carolina's, would require coaches to remove student-athletes suspected of a concussion from competition, and those student-athletes would need medical clearance before returning to competition.

Jones isn't the only former NFL player to support student-athlete concussion legislation; in fact, former Denver Broncos wide receiver Joe Brown spoke out in favor of legislation in Colorado, and Matt Blair, former linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings, threw his support behind legislation in Iowa. Both Colorado and Iowa have since signed their student-athlete concussion legislation into law.

The Missouri concussion bill unanimously passed the House last month. The Post-Dispatch reports that one provision in the bill—which said that volunteer medical professionals could not be sued for allowing students to return to play—has been singled out to be changed.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Don't mess with Texas when it comes to the size of its high school football stadiums.

A story about Allen High School has been making its way around the web these past few weeks, as officials there are aiming to complete construction of a new $60 million football stadium in August 2012.

Sixty-three percent of the voters in the school district, in a suburb of Dallas, approved a $119.4 million bond package back in May 2009 that included $59.6 million for the stadium, according to The Dallas Morning News.

OK, it's not fair to just call it a stadium ... a better description would be "full-blown multipurpose athletic facility." The stadium will include a weight room, wrestling practice room, indoor practice area for golf, and a two-tier press box. Oh, yeah, it's also going to have 18,000 seats—an upgrade from the school's current 14,000-seat stadium. School officials said the stadium will definitely be used for soccer, will likely house high school football playoff games and band competitions, and the school's graduation ceremonies may take place there, according to the Morning News.

A few more quick facts about the stadium and school: Allen High is one of Texas' largest schools, with 3,897 students enrolled this school year, according to the Morning News. The marching band and accompanying color guard and drill team consists of 600-plus members. And the school did manage to sell out the 14,000-seat stadium during at least one varsity football game this past season.

Not surprisingly, however, the stadium's price tag is raising some eyebrows nationally, especially given the nation's current economic climate.

The Seattle Times wrote a quick piece about the stadium in mid-April, while the New York Daily News just ran a story about it this past weekend. Yahoo! Sports even made it the subject of a Yahoo! Sports Minute earlier this week.

"It's hard when people are losing their jobs and you're building a $60 million dollar stadium and an auditorium and things like that," Allen High athletic director Steve Williams told CNN. "But ... those are two separate things. You can't take that money for buildings and hire teachers with it."

To Williams' credit, he's absolutely right. The bond referendum specified what the $119 million would be spent on: $59.6 million for the stadium; $23.3 million for a new 1,500-seat auditorium (the school currently doesn't have one), and the remaining $36.5 million for a transportation, maintenance, and student-nutrition center, according to the Allen American.

And, believe it or not, Texas has at least four stadiums larger than Allen's new stadium, including the 20,000-seat Mesquite Memorial stadium for the Mesquite Independent School District. That said, those stadiums are regularly used by more than just one high school, according to the Morning News.

"I think that's what people who aren't from this area or aren't from Texas don't understand the magnitude of the event and how many people come to watch and support their kids," Williams said to CNN.

My colleague Sean Cavanagh reported on the State EdWatch blog that a budget proposal being considered in Texas would slash schools' budgets by at least $8 billion over the next two years. Texas is currently projecting a two-year budget shortfall of as much as $27 billion. Another proposal, recently approved by a state Senate committee, would only cut $4 billion from schools over the next two years, according to the Morning News.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Washington state's office of superintendent of public instruction for possible violations of Title IX rules.

The office for civil rights has received more than 125 complaints since November regarding a potential inequity in athletic opportunities for boys and girls across the state, according to The Bellingham Herald. OCR will investigate whether the Washington OSPI is "perpetuating discrimination" by not forcing school districts to comply with Title IX, Jim Bradshaw of the U.S. Dept. of Ed. press office told the paper.

This Title IX investigation shouldn't be all that surprising for the OSPI, as 26 Washington school districts were named in a Title IX complaint submitted to OCR back in March, according to the Herald. The districts had until April 15 to respond to the formal complaint.

Back in February, Washington state's Federal Way school district actually entered an agreement about Title IX enforcement with OCR after an allegation was filed that the district wasn't in compliance with the law, according to the Federal Way Mirror. While the agreement between Federal Way and OCR isn't an admission of wrongdoing, the district must provide the Dept. of Ed. with participation data through the rest of the calendar year. According to the paper, "If the OCR is not satisfied with the results, it could ask the district to offer more female teams in sports currently offered at the schools, create new girls-only sports, or establish intramural or club sports for females."

The Federal Way Mirror also reported that in the 2010-11 school year, the Federal Way district's enrollment was 51.4 percent boys and 48.6 percent girls, yet the percentage of high school athletes skewed distinctly toward the male side (59.4 percent male vs. 40.6 percent female).

As I reported last week, schools can demonstrate their Title IX compliance in one of three ways: 1) show that female athletic participation is in proportion to total female enrollment on campus; 2) demonstrate a history of expanding athletic opportunities for females; or 3) prove that they are meeting the athletic interests and abilities of female students.

Because of the ongoing statewide investigation into Title IX violations, the individual district investigations have now been closed by OCR. There is no timeline for completion of the OCR investigation, according to The Bellingham Herald.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Susan Graham, a blogger for Education Week Teacher, published a touching entry last night about one of her former students, Torrey Smith, who was just drafted by the Baltimore Ravens as a wide receiver this past weekend during the NFL draft.

Smith came from a difficult background—his mother had him when she was only 16, and he had to help out with his younger siblings during his middle school years—but Graham says that he remained polite, hardworking, and modest throughout.

There is another consistent pattern in Torrey's life. All along the way, coaches and school communities supported and mentored him. Every coach who has worked with him mentions his work ethic, positive attitude, and personal humility.

Check out Graham's full piece here. She raises some especially poignant questions at the end of her entry regarding extracurricular activities and what makes people succeed.

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We're a month away from beach season, the sun is shining, and news about physical fitness and physical education for youths has been flying recently. Here's your roundup of the best fitness news items from the past few weeks.

In New York: Supporters of kickball and Red Rover can rest easy, as New York won't be regulating the summer camp favorites after all.

The New York health department issued a list of "nonpassive recreational activities with significant risk of injury" back in April, including freeze tag, Wiffle Ball, and Capture the Flag, saying that these summer-camp favorites needed to be regulated more closely, according to the New York Daily News. The proposed regulations were in response to a 2009 law aimed at closing a loophole that allowed indoor day camps to operate without sufficient oversight.

After a wave of backlash, the health department pulled back on the regulations. Department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton said, "The practical effect is that we are not going to get that detailed and into micromanagement," according to nbcnewyork.com. Hutton said the department will continue to gather feedback through May 16, and will then create new broader safety regulations.

In Portland, Maine: A youth anti-obesity program called Let's Go!, which revolves around the principle of 5-2-1-0, led to a 1.5 percentage point decrease in the youth overweight-and-obesity rate in southern Maine over the past six years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What does 5-2-1-0 mean? Youths following the program would eat five or more fruits or vegetables per day, have two hours or less of screen time per day, one hour or more of physical activity per day, and zero sugary drinks (such as soda or sports drinks). A group of local businesses have spent around $3.7 million to promote the 5-2-1-0 message to children in the Portland area. Dr. Victoria Rogers, a founder of Let's Go!, told the WSJ that the idea behind the program is to change the environments of home and school to not allow easy access to fatty, sugary foods.

Hawaii also launched the Hawaii 5-2-1-0 Let's Go! last month.

In Jurupa, California: Thanks to instructor Giselle Kendall, phys. ed. lessons at Patriot High School have officially entered the 21st century. Kendall, the Jurupa Unified School District's high school teacher of the year, has been working cellphone apps into her phys. ed. units, according to the Press Enterprise. Over the past year, Kendall told the paper that she's worked apps into lessons about muscle mass, caloric intake, and body mass index.

And speaking of physical-fitness apps: Apple recently applied for a patent for a Fitness Center App, according to Mashable, that "might be able to bring a variety of fitness-tracking capabilities under one icon."

Users of the fitness app would be able to find potential workout partners (using data they input, plus information from social-media accounts), could face off in fitness competitions with other users, and would connect with "smart" exercise equipment. As Mashable reports, a lot of these services are already available through apps and websites, but Apple's Fitness Center App would house all these functions in one central location.

An anti-obesity campaign in Georgia is drawing plenty of attention—both positive and negative—for using images of overweight children on billboards alongside messages such as "chubby kids may not outlive their parents."

The Georgia Children's Health Alliance, which created the campaign, said that the jarring images were necessary to bring parents of obese children out of denial. Opponents of the ad campaign suggest that the ads will only result in more negative stigma for overweight children, ultimately doing more harm than good.

And finally, the Power Rangers have jumped aboard the youth anti-obesity campaign with their new emPOWER Movement. (This one hits close to home, as this writer spent a solid chunk of his childhood watching the Power Rangers, back when they were the "Mighty Morphin" variety.)

The emPOWER Movement is intended to inspire students to stick to the Power Rangers' values: teamwork, confidence, health and physical activity, and friendship and caring. Available on the emPOWER Movement website is an fitness activities guide for schools to use, specifically for K-3 students. Activities in the guide include the Power Rangers' spin on jumping jacks, Cobra crawls, and stretching exercises. These fitness guides were delivered to over 4,500 elementary schools (reaching more than 1.5 million students) in January and February 2011, according to the emPOWER Movement's website.

Schools that finish the emPOWER Movement program by May 31 are also eligible to enter a sweepstakes for a chance to win $10,000 for their school and a visit from the Samurai Power Rangers.

See one of the Power Rangers' workout videos below:

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

If you haven't seen it yet, my colleague Mark Walsh has some excellent coverage of the Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal of a Texas high school cheerleader who was dismissed from her squad after refusing to cheer for a player accused of sexually assaulting her.

A federal district court ultimately decided that the school isn't required to promote particular student speech under the First Amendment, and thus, did nothing wrong by making her cheer. The court calls the cheerleader "a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech—namely, support for its athletic teams."

Read more about the decision in Mark's The School Law Blog. (And be sure to check out the comments section too.)

UPDATE, 5/4: Not only did the Supreme Court refuse to hear this cheerleader's case, but she's now being ordered to compensate the school district to the tune of $45,000 for "filing a frivolous lawsuit," according to The Independent. (H/T to Ian Quillen, my colleague of Digital Education blog fame, for the link.)

Posted by Bryan Toporek at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The town of Tushka, Oklahoma—about 140 miles away from Oklahoma City—was devastated by a tornado back in mid-April, two weeks before a swath of tornados tore through the South.

With the town's school destroyed as well, and many residents left to sort through the remains of their houses, only one thing has returned to normalcy: Tushka is once again rallying around high school baseball and softball, according to the Tulsa World.

In the aftermath of catastrophe, [Superintendent Bill] Pingleton huddled with school officials and made an important declaration: Play ball.

Pingleton said athletics is "kind of like the tail that wags the dog" in a small town like Tushka. For everyone's sake, the dog needed wagging.

"They were adamant that we get playing," [baseball coach Dewayne] Dale said. "That's our gift back to this community, that we are not dead and we are going to move on. We are going to get through this. It's the same with our softball program. They were back practicing the next day."

Since the tornado, Dale said more than 100 schools around the area have offered their assistance to the Tushka players. Some neighboring schools have offered the use of their baseball fields (Tushka's fields are currently too structurally damaged to use); others have provided food, clothing, and money to Tushka players.

And oh, how the players have responded. The Tushka baseball team won a district title (on a borrowed field from a local school), and the softball team clinched its first berth in the state softball tournament in school history.

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