Page 9.

 

Second, through complete, repeated, and intensive physical examinations of candi-
dates for such competition and the barring or removal from competition of those
whose physical condition makes it unsafe for them to compete,

This matter of safety appears in at least two particulars. Not only should the
school health service have in mind the fatigue and exhaustion inherent in the
present basketball rules, but also the fact that studies of athletic injuries at
the secondary school age level indicate strongly that the younger the competitors,
the greater the incidence of injuries.

The school physician, therefore, must make his decision as to whether it is
advisable, or even permissible, for the pupil under physical examination to
compete in intramural and interscholastic athletics, having in mind these things:

Is the candidate organically sound? Has the growth of the pupil during the
previous year been greatly accelerated? Vital organs that have recently grown
rapidly tend to lack endurance and resistance to injury by fatigue,

Into what sport or type of physical competition does the pupil plan to enter, and
is it physically safe for him to enter that competition?

The decision is a responsibility inherent in any adequate school health service,
Rarely has that service striven for, or even accepted, its full responsibility.
Basically, it gets back to the responsibility of the superintendent of schools
and of the board of education, (Meeting, as we now are, in New England,
presumably we should say School Committee. )

It would seem unnecessary to emphasize the belief that these examinations and
decisions should be made by the regular school physicians, were it not for the
fact that in at least one city of considerable size a special medical examiner has
been appointed to examine candidates for interscholastic athlétics, this examiner
being responsible, not to the director of the health service activities, but to
the Director of Physical Education. It is apparent that such a set up lacks some
of the elements of protection of pupils that should be a basic objective in any
educational program,

We find then these objections, based on physical stress, poured out by various
types of persons who are closely in contact with interscholastic and inter-
collegiate basketball as played under the present rules, We observe coaches,
athletic directors, sports writers, health officers, and physicians uniting in
opposition to this "speed up', Such an unanimity of opinion from these different
groups is in itself almost unique, Only the rule makers seem insistent on the re-
tention of the present rules, At least I have seen no strenuous activity on

their part favoring modification toward what Jourdet calls a "return to sanity".

This is unfortunate, One gets the feeling that the rule makers are more interested
in increasing the "take’ in the basketball gate than they are in improving the
sport itself or in protecting the welfare of the players,

Ferhaps a new Rules Committee is what we need,

In what way should the school health service enter into this athletic competition
situation?