By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
Ninety minutes a week is the new limit for contact during high school football practice starting this fall.
The rule stems from a national task force and was just adopted by the state’s interscholastic athletic association, which oversees all school sports. They’re looking to minimize the rising number of concussions and concerns over safety.
“We look at all injury factors relative to different sports. Concussions has been a constant in all of the sports that required us to look at what we can do to help prevent it,” said New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Executive Director Steve Timko.
“The recommendation from the national federation is to have no greater than 90 minutes in a week but no more than 30 minutes per day, two to three days a week. This does not apply to the preseason,” said NJSIAA Assistant Director Jack DuBois.
And it’s that stipulation that has sports medicine doctors raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t think it’s going far enough. I think it’s a good first step but I think it should extend down in some form to the preseason,” said Dr. Arlene Goodman.
As the head of the concussion program at Saint Peter’s Sports Medicine Institute, Dr. Goodman says collision during preseason practice yields a fair amount of head injuries.
“You can get a concussion from contact to the head but you can also get it from basically contact to the body that results in an impulsive force to the head, like whiplash,” she said.
“During the preseason, they realize there has to be more skills taught. More time has to be spent on tackling and contact drills,” DuBois said.
Which is why DuBois, who oversees interscholastic football for New Jersey, says it’s important to keep those fundamentals during that time — a time he says kids are cutting their teeth and getting in shape. So far, everyone seems to be on board.
“I’m in total support of it. I think it’s a good rule,” said Saint Peter’s Prep Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Rich Hansen. “We go at Saint Peter’s at full contact about 10 minutes a week so we’ll never broach the 90-minute rule.”
Up until now there was no limit on the amount of contact during practice each week. It was left up to the discretion of each coach.
“You could stay within the 90 minutes and run a horrible practice and put kids in harm’s way. So this is one step. I think there’s a lot of components that go into making a practice and an environment safe for football playing,” Hansen said.
“It’s not saying that we’re looking at the health and safety of our student athletes. That we’re really doing what we need to do to look out for the health and safety of our kids,” said Timko.
The new rule goes into effect after the first football game of the 2015 season.