As the sun faded from view on a recent evening, the lights at Buena Park High’s football stadium slowly flickered on.
The air was already filled with the piercing sounds of whistles blowing, pads clashing and coaches yelling. The addition of the lights, however, gave the scene the feel of a Friday night in the fall.
Opening kickoff for the 2014 high school football season is less than three weeks away, and high school football finds itself at a major turning point, as the concern over player safety appears greater than ever.
New to the scene this season is a time-cap limiting players’ on-field participation. To decrease the number of injuries, the state hopes that reducing time on the gridiron is at least part of the answer.
There are other significant changes on the way, too, part of a groundswell to make the game safer in the wake of new information about concussions and the damage that can be done by repeated hits to the head.
“Every state is having a discussion on how they look at practices, how practices can be smarter, and how they can work with coaches,” said Nick Inzerello, senior director of football development at USA Football. “It’s important that we create a better and safer environment.”
But at what cost? Has high school football been changed forever, and has trying to make the game safer actually hurt it in other ways?
Orange County’s coaches and administrators are about to find out.
WAVE OF NEW INFORMATION
Over the past decade, few subjects in the medical field have generated as much public interest as sports-related concussions, especially when it comes to the country’s youth.
Last fall, the National Football League funded a 306-page medical report that concluded that the sport not only has the highest rate of concussions at the interscholastic level, but that the average high school player is nearly twice as likely to suffer a brain injury as a college player.
The report showed that college football players suffered concussions at a rate of 6.3 per 10,000 athletic exposures, which are defined as a practice or a game. In high school, that number spiked to 11.2.
In May, the California Interscholastic Federation, the statewide rule-making body for high school sports, approved a proposal that limits high school teams to no more than 18 hours of practice in a week, and no more than four hours in a single day.
Although there has never been a cap on practice time in the past, most local coaches say they don’t expect the new rule to hamper their routines.
“We always stay on top of the injury thing, and we want to put our players in a position to where they aren’t going to get injured,” said Santa Margarita coach Rick Curtis. “We don’t want to lose these guys for an extended period of time.”
Like many local coaches, Curtis, formerly of Northwood High, has moved away in recent years from longer practices and the grueling two-a-days commonly associated with high school football. The new 18-hour rule prohibits two-a-days on consecutive days.
“I’ve been going to single practices for some time now,” Curtis added. “Last year, we might have had two double-days over the course of the entire year. Not too many people hold double-days anymore.”
A month ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a new regulation that goes into effect on Jan. 1: Teams will be limited to two full-contact practices a week during the season, with those practices being limited to 90 minutes. Full-contact practices in the offseason will be eliminated altogether.
THE QUESTION MARKS
Anthony White grew up playing football and was a defensive back at the University of Utah in the early 2000s. Now, as one of the younger head coaches in the county, White, 33, has seen firsthand how the game is changing, and he understands the greater emphasis on player safety.
What he also sees are potential downfalls to the new 18-hour rule.
“I know everyone has good intentions with (limiting) the practice time, and I’m all for keeping kids safe,” explained White, in his fifth year as the head coach at Buena Park.
But, he added, “Every situation is different, every school is different,” which is why he wishes that leagues could make their own rules when it comes to time spent on the field.
“By limiting practice times, you’re taking away what some of these kids love the most,” he added.
When he took over Buena Park’s program in 2010, White’s first team meeting had a little more than a dozen players in attendance. This season, Buena Park will suit up more than 100 players program-wide.
With some of his players coming from low-income families, White has used football as a means of providing for his players academically, athletically and socially.
“Football serves a different purpose for every student-athlete,” White said. “For some of the guys on the team, their best role models are their coaches and their brothers on the team. When you’re limiting that time with positive male role models, I think it’s a negative.
“Some guys, we want on the field because we don’t know what they’d be doing at home.”
Fullerton co-head coach Gus Martinez has to deal with many of the same situations. Players, he said, want to be on campus, working out and practicing.
But this season, because of the time cap, Martinez and his fellow coaches will have to cut short some practices and send the players home.
“This is what keeps them out of trouble,” Martinez said.
“This is their family.”
THE GOAL
Well before the state law that Brown signed last month, Fullerton had already moved toward limiting full-contact hitting in practice.
As mounds of new medical data were released, with study after study showing that repeated small hits to the head can be nearly as dangerous to long-term health as multiple concussions, coaches were staying ahead of the safety game, Martinez said.
“I don’t think they gave the coaches enough credit,” Martinez said of the new rules. “We’ve already toned down the hitting in practice.”
Once this season starts, he said, Fullerton will have full-contact practices just twice a week, Mondays and Tuesdays.
“We want these kids to be able to be out on the field helping us win games,” he added. “We don’t want to get them hurt.”
While the 18-hour rule has forced teams to cut back in some areas, both White and Martinez agreed that form tackling and teaching proper technique is one area coaches won’t disregard. There is a good number of incoming freshmen each year who are new to the game, and teaching them the proper techniques has to remain a priority.
USA Football, the sport’s national governing body for amateurs, has focused on a national campaign called Heads Up Football. Through the Heads Up program, high school and youth coaches can enroll in a course that educates coaches on specific tackling mechanics, the importance of equipment fitting and the significance of properly hydrating.
In its first season of being operational, the Heads Up program has certified 750 high schools across 44 states.
“It’s an encouraging start, but there’s still more work to be done,” Inzerello said. “The football community at large is trying to create a better, safer game. Concussions happen and they happen in football, but this is an issue for all sports. It’s a societal issue.”
Contact the writer: kconnolly@ocregister.com