Thoughts on this release.

[Altor]

Originally Posted by Eastshire

The dumb part of the law is making my few second determination of a possible concussion more important than a considered evaluation by a medical professional.

Many time, legislatures are knee-jerk reactors, and don't think about the consequences of their laws. They take a good idea and go way to far with it.

There are a couple of good ideas in this law:
1) Everybody on the field is responsible for the safety of our young athletes.
2) Every adult on the field should be able to recognize concussion symptoms.
3) When in doubt, remove the athlete from competition.

I can't disagree with these. Coaches and officials should be able to identify symptoms and remove the athlete.

The problem comes with the General Assembly's next idea that once there is doubt, NOBODY can legally remove that doubt for the remainder of the day.
Couple this with the NFHS and CDC web courses (required by the same law) that tell us that any symptom like "shaking it off" after laying out for a ground ball at short stop should be taken seriously and is appropriate for removal from the contest and you have a bad law.

No doctor can tell the official and coach that it wasn't a concussion and he should be allowed to play. He had dust in his eyes from reaching for the ground ball. Or he was looking for his mouth-guard and that's why he appeared to be off-balance and didn't respond to your questions. Or he was dizzy because he has a cold and blew his nose too hard. Nope, the initial layman's "diagnosis" from 5 seconds of observation trumps any medically-trained person, including a doctor with years of experience with head trauma and the appropriate amount of time to observe the athlete.

That's what makes it a bad law.