On a long enough timeline, football鈥檚 future is uncertain. Mounting lawsuits over crippling, long-term injury issues threaten the sustainability of the sport, as the science behind them discovers more and more about the damage even routine contact can do to brains.
So what can be done in the short term, right now, to limit that exposure, particularly for amateur athletes, many of them still kids?
That鈥檚 what Terry O鈥橬eil has made his mission over the last six years. But he鈥檚 the first to admit that his initial efforts, while well-intentioned, foundered.
鈥淲e flopped around for the first two or three years trying to figure out what to do,鈥� he told 海角社区app at the recent Derek Sheely Conference at George Washington University, which focused on reducing catastrophic injuries, particularly in football. 鈥淚 really got nothing done. I wasted so many peoples鈥� time.鈥�
He needed a change in approach.
鈥淲hat we really needed to do was change regulations state by state, because football in high school is governed state by state.鈥�
O鈥橬eil and his group, , hit their breakthrough in February. The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association adopted their guidelines for the upcoming season, an action that .
Those guidelines are as follows: Limit contact to 15 minutes per week during practice in the regular season, and to six hours total in preseason. The numbers aren鈥檛 arbitrary. They were the result of conversations with many former players and coaches, including a number of NFL alumni, hence the name of the program.
But it took a breakthrough moment to bring New Jersey on board. O鈥橬eil brought along former NFL coaches Brian Billick and Dick Vermeil for presentations, but at a January meeting with coaches at the Hale Center at Rutgers, some were still pushing for a higher limit for contact during practice. That鈥檚 when Drew Gibbs, head coach at Ramapo High School — who had just navigated a perfect 13-0, state title-winning season — told those assembled that his team hadn鈥檛 had any tackling in-season during that campaign.
鈥淎ll the air sucked out of that room for a second and everybody said, 鈥業 guess 15 is plenty,鈥欌�� said O鈥橬eil.
Getting coaches on board as allies makes things a lot easier when it comes to convincing state governing bodies, which is why coaches have been the focus for O鈥橬eil.
鈥淲henever you go to a governing body and say, 鈥楾he coaches endorse this,鈥� the governing body says, 鈥榃ho are we to stand in the way?鈥欌��
This weekend, Practice Like Pros will announce that Michigan will become the second state to adopt the guidelines, reducing full contact limits from 90 minutes per day to 30, and preseason contact from three hours per day not including scrimmages to six hours per week including scrimmages.
O鈥橬eil says his organization is engaged with a dozen different states around the country right now, but that D.C., Maryland and Virginia are not yet among them. It would help if he had a local advocate to further his message, as he has leaned on in other states he鈥檚 working with: Archie Manning in Mississippi, Cornelius Bennett in Alabama, Leonard Marshall in Louisiana.
For those looking for more definitive progress from such a program, the University of Wisconsin in practices back in 2015. Those contact reduction guidelines limited full contact to 60 minutes per week from the third week of the season on, leading to a more than 50% drop in concussion rate. The quote from the Chair of the National Federation of State High School Associations is meant to be qualifying, but ends up presenting as something of an a-ha statement of clarity for O鈥橬eil.
鈥淐learly, if there鈥檚 less opportunity for injury聽as a result of limiting total contact time, we will聽see less concussions, as well as other injuries,鈥澛爏aid Dr. Michael Koester from the Slocum Center for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine.
At Dartmouth, head coach Buddy Teevans has , leading the way in the Ivy League. The league as a whole changed kickoff rules to help curb brain injuries , but Teevans鈥� system has yet to catch on across the college ranks, despite success on the field (the Big Green were 9-1 last year).
O鈥橬eil hopes that influencing more high school governing bodies to curb contact limits will filter up. With successful coaches like Randy Trivers from Gonzaga College High School — which won the WCAC title in one of the wildest high school football games ever — already following similar guidelines, O鈥橬eil is confident he can navigate the various public/private/charter nuances of our local municipalities to create a safer environment for high school football everywhere.
He鈥檚 also working on getting a study funded for the first year in New Jersey, to mine hard data to use for other states. He’s working with Dr. Anil Nanda, head of neurosurgery at Rutgers, to run the study. While it hasn’t been funded yet, O’Neil is confident, as he is in all his endeavors, that it will be in due time.
鈥淚t won鈥檛 deter us,鈥� said O鈥橬eil of the groundwork needed. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to find coaches that are willing to rally with us.鈥�
