| OCR Text |
Show Football experts agree to end peering' tactics as safeguard Physicians, coaches, and I ,ts officials have joined the V SP .riran Medical Association falling for a" end to foot" fn "spearing." j is the tactic in I h a blocker or tackier uses , S'head as a battering ram, a .e which risks serious in-m in-m or death from damage to !!?hpad and neck. Vten polled by the AMA's !' rnmroittee on the Medical As- "Z 0f Sports, the football 'Ithorit'es unanimously called J V. a coaching emphasis on 1 -ad head-up blocking and TrkW and for strict enforce-r, enforce-r, merit by officials of the rules A aainst spearing. ') serious injuries The AMA committee asked for comments when recent stupes stu-pes showed that head and neck injuries continue to constitute a very high percentage of ser-! ser-! I jus injuries in football. : Representative of the re- sponge were the foliowing corn-Richard corn-Richard C. Schneider, MD an Ann Arbor, Mich., neurosu geon and member of the AMA Committee on the Medical Aspects As-pects of Sports: "Many neurosurgeons neuro-surgeons are appalled coaches permitting or even de l.berately teaching the Tevat H,TgK, hniqUies of spearing, stick-blockmg, and headbuf "g. P'- Schneider pointed out that death may be only 30 to 60 seconds away if the blood vessels draining the brain are damaged by a heavy blow or if hemorrhaging begins within the brain. A r a Parseghian, Notre Dame's football coach: "I can't begin to tell of the number of clinics where I have lectured on the (spearing) problem. We don't teach this at Notre Dame and over the years, I have done everything within my power to influence others to coach against it." Clifford B. Fagan, executive secretary of the National Fed-i eration of State High School' Athletic Assns.: "There ia absolutely ab-solutely no place ... for spearing spear-ing . . The high rate of serious ser-ious injury . . makes it self-evident self-evident that the teaching of it must not be tolerated . . ." The AMA Committee has waged a continuing campaign for prevention of injuries to the head and neck since it sponsored a "National Conference Confer-ence on Head Protection for Athletes" in Chicago in 1962. The conference recommended that spearing be outlawed, but the practice persisted. "Perhaps the only answer is the creation of public awareness aware-ness of this problem to the point that a player who uses spearing will be branded as guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct," con-duct," said a spokesman for the committee. |
