Head injury...
 

I am an offcial in Idaho where there is a bill going infront of our house right now about more education for officials and coaches around head injuries of athletes......
Read more here: BOISE, Idaho: Idaho considers changes to state concussion law | Varsity Extra: High School Sports | Idahostatesman.com

I am wondering what the thoughts of other referee's is about this.

My thought is that the bill in Idaho is redundant. There is already an NFHS rule requiring officials to do exactly that. The NFHS put this rule in for all sports last year. Does anyone in the state legislature bother to check if such is already covered in the HS sports rules before introducing legislation?

Here is the text from the basketball rules book:
The officials shall:...

. .

Suggested Guidelines for Management of Concussion in Appendix D on page 77.)

Hey...I use to teach in Idaho (Melba, ID.)...only for one year right out of college! Went to NNU, Nampa, ID...brother still lives in Boise, ID.

You stated you were doing a 5A game. If I remember right, and it has nothing to do with your OP, isn't 1A the largest school classification in Idaho?

BTW...sounds like you handled your situation well. This year in WA...I have had several incidents where players have had to leave because of possible concussions.

I think codifying this into law is a bad idea. As Nevada pointed out, the rule is already in place, so the law will only do two things.

1. Keep the requirements in place in case the NFHS ever removes the requirement. But they'll never remove this requirement, so that's not necessary.
2. Open officials up to criminal and/or civil liability if they don't recognize concussion symptoms. Even this is redundant, but making it a law would perhaps give such lawsuits and/or prosecutions a little extra force. I don't see this as a good thing. Great intentions gone wrong, again.

Has anyone read the actual proposed language in the bill? Is it for all athletic events, or just those under NF rules? Just because it's under NF rules doesn't mean rec leagues are subject to that rule, so it certainly wouldn't be redundant there.

Massachusetts passed a similar law in 2010. It requires athletes, parents, coaches and officials in all sports (and some other activities) at public high schools to get information, etc. about concussions. Officials must take an online concussion course through the NFHS.

Used to be that A-1 was the largest class and A-4 the smallest. They changed to the current system (A-1D1->5A, A-1D2->4A, A-2->3A, etc.) in 2001, stating a desire to be parallel to neighboring states' systems.

We have a similar law being proposed here as well but it focuses on how long the player stays out of the game or what procedures must be followed to come back. I do not find this redundant as rules will change and the laws may not. Rules of the game are not laws of the land. I am not saying that I would like such a law, but I certainly can understand why something is being constructed to cover this on some level. Often laws like this do not consider the application and only want to make a law to cover something. I think the law should apply to the schools and coaches as they are the ones ultimately responsible for their kids. Officials often have no idea what a player might be experiencing as it relates to a concussion.

Peace

This rule exists in Canadian football.

We discussed it a lot at the beginning of the year. I feel we implemented it with minimal effort.

I had a game earlier this season whereby I directed a player out of the game. The coach said he talked to the player and the player said he was fine. The player came out of the game. The player later re-entered the game. I marked in the scorebook the actions that I took, and when I took them. In FL, the officials do not prevent re-entry--the coach takes on the responsibility if a HCP has deemed the player okay to return.

Amusing as NV is changing next year from the 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A system to D1, D2, D3, D4. This will match how CA does it.

Wisconsin goes from D1 to D5.