Page 6 July 24, 2014 TORRANCE TRIBUNE Up and Adam Protection Should Be Key For High Schools JOIN THE FUN WHILE NETWORKING YOUR BUSINESS! THIS LEAGUE WILL START AUG. 20 AT 6:30 AND THEN MEET EVERY 3RD WEDNESDAY OF THE MONTH Bring in a team of 4 co-workers or friends. At the end of the 10 months there will be a party with pizza and awards. DON’T MISS THIS NEW WAY TO NETWORK AND HAVE A GREAT TIME. Call to sign your team up since space is limited. (310) 326-5120 By Adam Serrao The football season comes at the perfect time every year. Right when all other sports have ceased, when baseball is winding down and certain teams have fallen out of the race, football comes knocking on our doors. It helps rescue us from the boredom that the lack of sporting activities creates. Right when the air gets crisp and temperatures start to drop a bit, there it is, waiting for our undivided attention. That very same attention should of course, remain on our high schools and the race between North High, South High, West High and Torrance High for their own division crowns. This year, however, attention should also be directed toward player safety. With concussions becoming more and more prevalent in the game of football, awareness should start at the high school level and even below. Keeping the players safe while playing the game they love is the real key to having a successful sport and protecting the kids playing should take the spotlight. There’s nothing greater than spending your Friday night under the bright lights of your local high school’s football field, watching the players passionately play the game they love and battle for a victory. When that victory comes with a cost, however, all of the fun can be taken out of the game. Concussions have been under the spotlight lately from the professional football ranks all the way down to the Pop Warner ranks and for good reason. One concussion not only has the ability to end a player’s season, but can also do damage to a player’s everyday way of life. With new studies arising every year, it has now come to the experts’ attention that high school players are at the most risk for concussion and head injuries of the sort. In a 306-page NFL-funded report, Tom Farrey of ESPN.com has reported that it has been found that “the sport [football] not only by far has the highest rates of concussions at the interscholastic level, but also that the average high school player is nearly twice as likely to suffer a brain injury as a college player.” The National Academy of Sciences has been doing in-depth work on the topic at hand lately, and they have discovered that college football players suffer concussions at a rate of 6.3 concussions per 10,000 “athletic exposures.” An athletic exposure can be classified as anything involved in a game or in a practice. For high school players, however, that rate of concussions nearly doubles from 6.3 to 11.2. The reasoning why concussions are more prevalent in high school students than in any other age range of player remains unclear. There are a few notions as to why the spike is seen at such an alarming rate: certain doctors believe that developing brains are more vulnerable to concussions and harm and may even take longer to recover from a concussion. Others think that it is because high school players still live at home with their parents, or with someone who can give them constant attention. After a concussion, players are sometimes hesitant to report their episode to anyone. Living at home, however, increases the chances of someone noticing any differences in behavior and thus reporting the effects to a doctor or emergency room. See Up and Adam, page 9 Trade Kemp Now By Adam Serrao It has been easy to not pay attention to the Los Angeles Dodgers this year, simply because it has been difficult to find them playing on television anywhere around the city of Los Angeles. At a time of the year when there are no other sports going on but golf, the Dodgers are usually the center of attention for the city. For those who haven’t been able to keep up, this year isn’t much different than last, at least record-wise, for the Dodgers. At right around 10 games above .500 with near 60 games left to play, everyone expects the team to get hot, blow past the San Francisco Giants and rally toward a record similar to the one they finished with last year at 92-70. The Giants may not be the only thing in the way of another first place finish and NL West pennant, though. With a crowded outfield and the strong possibility of an unhappy player, the Dodgers must trade Matt Kemp now if they want to get better as a team. News recently surfaced late last week that Matt Kemp would be open to a trade if he can’t get time in the Dodgers outfield as an everyday center fielder. Rewind three years ago to 2011 and Kemp at center field would have been an obvious decision. With a .324 batting average, 126 RBIs, 39 home runs and 40 stolen bases in 161 games played, Kemp should have won the MVP and almost finished with a 40-40 season (40 home runs, 40 stolen bases) and a triple crown, which is almost unheard of for a center fielder to accomplish. His 2011 season was a monster season and Kemp was only 26 years old. On the heels of that season, the Dodgers signed Kemp to an 8-year, $160 million contract because frankly, with numbers like those, who wouldn’t? Now fast-forward to even one year later. In the 2012 season Kemp’s numbers dropped drastically. In only 106 games played, .303 with only 69 RBIs, 23 home runs and nine stolen bases. Still not horrible for a major league center fielder, but nowhere near the numbers from 2011 that got him his exorbitant contract. This year, Kemp isn’t looking nearly as good. The season is only just past halfway over, but Kemp is batting .266 with 35 RBIs, eight home runs and his stolen base potential is all but gone at five. Once a five-tool player, it is becoming increasingly obvious that while Kemp can still swing a bat every now See Trade Kemp, page 9 “With concussions becoming more and more prevalent in the game of football, awareness should start at the high school level and even below.”
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