By Taylor Nigrelli
Sports Editor
The St. Bonaventure Club Sports Program is in the midst of instituting baseline concussion testing for some of its club sports.
The implementation process began in the fall of 2013 and, according to director of intramural and club sports, Rob DeFazio, all members of collision club sports teams will be baseline tested by the start of their next season.
“We started in September, so we’re still in the process of putting in the baselines in some of our club sports,” DeFazio said. “We didn’t do it at the start of this year, but it will be part of our procedure going into next year as the students start their sports.”
A baseline test is a measure of an athlete’s cognitive ability, measured by medical personnel. The test score is recorded and kept on record.
If the athlete sustains a head injury, he or she will retake the test and a medical professional will compare scores. A large enough difference between the scores usually results from lingering concussion symptoms. The athlete cannot return to action until he or she is able to test in the range of their original score.
Once testing is in place for all sports, athletes won’t be able to participate until they’ve taken the test.
To administer the tests, DeFazio employed the help of the campus’s Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), specifically the “EMT basics” portion of the staff.
“(DeFazio) asked me to potentially get involved in concussion testing,” MERT member Katelynn Timony said. “I was like ‘Well that’s a great idea, this needs to happen.’ I met with him, he showed me the (baseline question) sheet and I was like ‘ok, let’s do this.’”
“We’ll have a record of who’s taken it and who hasn’t,” DeFazio said. “Like hockey, we had them all in at the same time. We had MERT in separate rooms, we’ve got the list of who did it, and we check it against the roster. From there, we’ll be able to see who did it and who didn’t”
DeFazio decided to put in the baseline systems before this school year and looked to the school’s varsity sports protocol as a model.
“I met with our athletic staff here, talked to all their trainers and got a copy of the book they use for their baseline,” DeFazio said. “I got an exact copy of the protocol they use if a player’s trying to return to action. That’s what we’re using.”
DeFazio announced the protocol changes at the annual club sports interest meeting in September. He also encouraged all club sports members to join the varsity athletes in attending a lecture given by former professional boxer Ray Ciancalgrini last semester.
The Upstate New York native, who now suffers from Dementia Pugilistica stemming from multiple undiagnosed concussions, warned the athletes to take precaution after sustaining a head injury.
This sentiment, along with Ciancalgrini’s visible shaking, provided a human example of what ignoring head injuries could mean for club and varsity athletes. Sean Perhacs, senior club hockey team member, said he took Ciancalgrini’s warning to heart.
“He told us his story and all about the long-terms effects of post-concussion syndrome,” Perhacs said. “I think that raised some awareness and changed how we looked at it.”
Perhacs and the other hockey players were among the first collision-sport athletes to undergo the baseline testing. According to Perhacs, the testing, along with the club sports program’s increased emphasis on taking precautions when concussions occur, caused the team to treat head injuries differently.
“We had one player on our team get a concussion at practice,” Perhacs said. “A lot of times in the past, we would ask him if he’s ok, and if he said he’s ok, we’d usually go on unless we noticed anything. But we learned from the speech that you don’t notice an injury right away. So, even though he said he was ok, we took him aside, and he sat out a few weeks.
“After he came back, he didn’t have any issues for the rest of the season. In the past, players would be more inclined to lie if they had an injury. This year there was definitely more precaution.”
Before each club team’s 2014-15 season, DeFazio hopes to have baseline testing in place for all collision club sports. This means the men’s rugby team, which has lost multiple team members due to concussion issues, will undergo testing prior to their season in the fall.
DeFazio doesn’t plan to test athletes from all 11 club sports, however. His focus remains on the sports whose actions lend to head injuries occurring.
“Probably not all 11 (sports),” DeFazio said. “I’m not sure if we’re going to implement it in running club for example. Ideally, we’ll hit all of our collision sports.”
Not all collision club sports teams have a coach. While this may seem to present an issue in identifying players who need to re-take their baseline test after a big hit, DeFazio doesn’t see it that way. He knows that whether or not a team has a coach, the player in question dictates whether or not they receive help in most cases.
“It doesn’t matter if you have a coach or not, it doesn’t matter if you’re a professional or pee-wee or college. It’s determined by the athlete,” DeFazio said. “If the athlete doesn’t make somebody aware that they aren’t feeling well, they took a shot, that they may possibly have a concussion, it won’t go anywhere.
The baseline testing procedures are now more than six months old. Both DeFazio and Perhacs have noticed positive changes. Men’s rugby Coach Clarence Picard has also mentioned his staff taking concussions more seriously this season. Players seem to be aware of the risks associated with trying to play through a severe head injury.
However, Timony believes the system can continue to improve through a combination of added vigilance and an expansion of what sports are covered by concussion protocol.
“We need to expand the list of sports that are going to be tested for concussions,” she said. “So far, collision sports have been the only ones that have been getting tested. There are other sports that are extremely dangerous. Like ski-racing for example. Those people need to be tested. Basically, everyone should be getting baseline concussion tests no matter what sport they do. Hopefully in the future, that will be done.”
nigreltn11@bonaventure.edu
@nigrelli93
