After a typically exciting and exhilarating year and a half or so of athletics at Notre Dame, it’s interesting and quite telling that the school’s athletic director, Betty Wroubel, says that the most important thing accomplished over the last 12 to 15 months was that there were relatively few serious student-athlete injuries. And this from the coach whose volleyball team just won a state championship.
“Bottom line is that our focus on providing a safe, mission-driven program for our students has been keeping our kids, for the most part, ‘major-injury’ free,” Wroubel says. “A lot of that is due to our strength and conditioning program run by our trainer,” she said. “I doubt that any other school has a more qualified or more caring trainer than long-time veteran Chris Polsinelli.”
The organization that oversees all of Michigan’s high school athletics, the Michigan High School Athletics Association, also agrees with Wroubel on the importance of safety. Jack Roberts, the executive director of MHSAA, says that when parents send their children to “our programs of school sports, most parents have one hope above all others. More than they want a winning team, even more than they want their child to get playing time and score points,” Roberts says, “most moms and dads want (and many of them pray) that their child will be safe in our care.”
Roberts’ organization recently announced a new initiative at the beginning of the 2013-14 school year called “Four Thrusts for Four Years.” The goal, according to MHSAA, is to position Michigan schools in the center of best practices for ensuring the health of students, today and beyond.
The following are the four focal points of the MHSAA four-year plan:
1. Implement heat and humidity management policies at all schools for all sports.
2. Require more initial and ongoing sports safety training for more coaches.
3. Revise practice policies generally, but especially for early in the fall season.
4. Modify game rules to reduce the frequency of the most dangerous play situations, and to reduce head trauma.
Reducing head trauma, specifically concussions, is now a major focus on both the amateur and professional levels. Both the MHSAA and the Catholic High School League have issued numerous directives to member schools on concussion awareness and treatment as they relate to the Michigan Sports Concussion Law, which went into effect in June of last year.
But Wroubel says Notre Dame has been in front of this issue for a number of years. “I think we have set the gold standard in concussion awareness and its treatment,” she says. “A lot of that is due to Chris’s work as well as the constant education the whole department has been getting over the years. Dean (Allen, assistant AD), Maureen (Whidden, assistant AD) and I have spent a lot of time learning all we can on the subject and making sure our coaches are all up to speed as well.”
She also credits the proactive policies the school has had in place on educating the parental and student body. In general, Wroubel says, “I do feel that we have a good track record for the past five or six years with injury reduction. This in part is due to our beautiful fitness center, a full-time athletic trainer, and aggressive education for our coaches.”
Polsinelli agrees with Wroubel that the school has been out front in identifying and trying to reduce the injury rates of Notre Dame athletes. “In addition to the work we’re doing with concussions, I feel we do a really good job with ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury prevention by way of our off-season and pre-season conditioning programs,” he says. “Also, having the personal trainers working with our athletes, in conjunction with what the school does, has really helped not only improve their performance, but decrease the chances of injury.”
BIGGER AND STRONGER
Since Wroubel first came to the Pontiac campus in 1979 (when it was Pontiac Catholic, then Oakland Catholic), she says the nature of high school athletics has changed for sure. But on the general nature of the students themselves, eh, not so much, according to Wroubel.
“I do not see a huge change in kids from the early days,” she says. “Kids are kids. They are inquisitive, they want to have fun and they are very forgiving. However, in physical terms, they are getting better training and becoming bigger and stronger.”
The sheer number of sports and teams available to Notre Dame students also has gotten much bigger since the 1970s and 1980s.
At the end of the 2012-13 school year, NDPMA had a total of 46 interscholastic high school athletic teams, four interscholastic high school athletic clubs (sideline cheer, dance/pom, equestrian, and co-op figure skating), and 24 interscholastic CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) athletic teams.
It is one of the largest independent school athletic programs in the state.
During the last school year, NDPMA student-athletes participated in 1,087 contests (368 home, 719 away); 556 students in grades 9 to 12 participated in at least one sport/club sport, which equals 79% of the student population. About 190 students in grades 5 to 8 participated in at least one sport/club sport. That equals 75% of the student population. And 39 students participated in the athletic-sponsored intramural program.
In addition, Wroubel’s department oversaw 118 paid coaching positions last year and coordinated 50 volunteer coaching positions.
“You have to have a great staff to coordinate and run a program our size,” Wroubel says. “Along with Dean and Maureen, we have some great department mainstays in both Mary Jo Leseman (administrative assistant) and Duane Holmes (assistant to athletics), who work tirelessly to ensure that our activities and events go off without a hitch.”
Wroubel says the school’s parental community, head of schools and coaches also are critical to the department’s success. “Our booster club and especially its officers provide tremendous help and resources and are a model for other organizations,” she says. “Fr. Leon as president of the school oversees the entire department. I have never experienced or witnessed in other schools the level of wisdom and support that he gives to our program.
“Of course our coaches are key to running a quality program,” she adds. They are in contact with the kids on a day-to-day basis and without them and the sharing of their time and talents our program would not be as successful as it is both in and out of the athletic arena.”
And finally, Wroubel, who also coached a Notre Dame Prep volleyball team to a Class B championship in 2007, says that nearly as important as safety is the school’s focus on creating an environment “that enhances opportunities to educate, reinforce, and practice the characteristics included in our mission statement, which states that we must work to ‘form Christian people, upright citizens and academic scholars.’ We take that responsibility very seriously.”
COACHES ASSOCIATION ENDORSES NEW GUIDELINES
The Michigan High School Football Coaches Association (MHSFCA) has endorsed USA Football’s Heads Up Football program to make the game better and safer for youth and high school players in the state. USA Football, based in Indianapolis, is the sport’s national governing body.
The MHSFCA, which is engaged with all 648 high school football programs in Michigan, joins the Indiana and Minnesota Football Coaches Associations as the first three such organizations to endorse Heads Up Football for all youth and high school football programs in their respective states. The National Federation of State Athletic Associations (NFHS) also has endorsed USA Football’s Heads Up Football program.
“The MHSFCA is pleased to support USA Football’s Heads Up Football program,” MHSFCA Executive Director Larry Merx said in a press release. “The health and safety of our student-athletes is our No.-1 priority. Heads Up Football advances that priority in a smart way through coach certification for a better, safer game. We are proud to stand with USA Football in Michigan.”
The MHSFCA formalized a proposal recently at a conference that would limit preseason football practices to one “collision” practice a day, not to exceed two collision practices each week during the season. Also formalized at their conference are guidelines limiting single practice sessions to three hours and total practice time per day to five hours.
USA Football’s Heads Up Tackling technique was developed with contributions of USA Football’s Tackle Advisory Committee, which includes Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, UCLA head coach Jim Mora, former NFL running back Merril Hoge, Miami Christopher Columbus High School head coach Chris Merritt, and sports psychologist Dr. David Yukelson.
Follow Notre Dame at @NDPMA.
About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.