NFL Yet to Use Helmet Sensor Technology That Works for Colleges
Outside the Lines (Sunday, 9 a.m., ET, ESPN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091FCsZi3rU
With escalating concern at all levels of football about concussions, the NFL, during last season’s playoffs, installed sideline TV monitors for medical personnel to watch for injuries. But it’s far from a perfect system. Many wish for a more sophisticated technology to detect and measure the impact of blows to the head in real time so that immediate protective measures could be taken, even while the game is going on. As it turns out, that technology exists, but is not being used by the league. Bob Holtzman reports how a sensor technology called the “HIT System” works on the college level, and why it is not being used by the NFL.
“It’s been tested and validated so many times. Hundreds of peer reviews and journal papers published with it. Tremendous results, tremendous applicability, so in my view it’s ready to go.” — Stefan Duma, biomedical engineer using the “HIT System” technology at Virginia Tech
“For a doctor to read a computer and tell me how hard I’ve been hit and pull me out of the game (shakes head), that won’t sit well with a lot of players.” — Hines Ward, who feels the NFL needs to study head injuries, but has a problem allowing computer data to potentially dictate if a player must come out of a game
“If we’re sitting here a year from now and we’re not any closer to having on-field, real-time, impact biomechanics being measured (in NFL games), then I’ll be real frustrated and perhaps ready to throw the towel in.” — Kevin Guskiewicz, Chairman of the University of North Carolina’s Exercise and Sports Science Dept., and Director of UNC’s Traumatic Brain Injury Center, on having analyzed head impacts on Tar Heel players since 2004
Jim Calhoun and UConn’s Future
ESPN.com
University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun talks with Andy Katz about the Huskies program, his future and possible successor. Katz writes:
“When he was a young coach at Northeastern, Jim Calhoun admired and looked up to North Carolina’s legendary Dean Smith. And that’s exactly who he is modeling his exit strategy after.”
Title IX: Irma Garcia
ESPN Deportes Sports Center (Friday, 10 p.m.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4b5Fms3d4g
June 23 is the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the Education Amendment that prohibited the exclusion of women in any academic program, including sports. ESPN Deportes will recognize the milestone by airing the profile of Irma Garcia, the first Latina Athletic Director of a Division 1 university (St. Francis College in Brooklyn heights, N.Y.).
Ryan Vs. Ryan
ESPN.com
Is it possible to be the best swimmer in the world and still have a life? Ryan Lochte has spent four years fighting for an answer that will come this summer in London. Wayne Drehs writes:
“Lochte has always made it look that easy. While everyone else walks onto a pool deck looking like he is headed for a root canal, Lochte smiles, cracks a joke, climbs atop the block and sets a world record. Then he goes back to looking like he doesn’t care. He’s built his career as an unflappable talent who resists the urge to conform to the mold of what an Olympic swimming champion should say, wear and do. In his sparkling green high-tops and black “weirdo” T-shirt, he’s done things his way. And he’s won.”