PULLMAN – The threat of concussions is enough for some parents to pull their child out of high school sports, especially football. Now, parents of football players at Pullman High School feel more confident than ever in their child’s safety thanks to a new program in conjunction with Pullman Regional Hospital.
This season, the Pullman High School football team and girl’s soccer team are using technology called Athlete Intelligence, which tracks hard hits to the head during a match or practice. Using this data, head coaches and trainers at Pullman High can treat their athletes for injuries more effectively, and prevent these incidents from happening again in the future.
“We can’t see every hit, so that’s why this technology really works well,” Jasmine Kalili, the Pullman High School Athletic Trainer said. “Because if someone were to start displaying concussion symptoms, or complaining of headaches or any of those symptoms, we’re able to actually go back and see all the hits that normal people can’t see.”
Kalili attends every football game and keeps an eye out for hits that look harder than usual. Then, using information she can download to her tablet, she can see where on the head the hit happened, how strong it was, and how many potentially dangerous hits each player has had during the course of a game.
“So every week, we get a list of people who have the most amount of top of the head impacts,” Kalili said. “We can go back to our head coaches and say, ‘hey, this player is showing that he or she is leading with the top of their head consistently.’ And that coach will go back to that player and help them to really change their mechanics so they’re not putting themselves at risk of getting an injury that’s going to harm their future.”
The Pullman High School teams are only set to use this technology throughout the course of the season, but Kalili said she hopes the school can afford to get them again next year for more research and more injury prevention.
More Murrow News Stories PULLMAN, Wash. (Murrow News 8) – Madelyn Dykes’ family was even given a chance. “It just came out of the blue,”… Continue Reading Landlord forces Daily Grind out of South Grand location
More Murrow News Stories PULLMAN, Wash. (Murrow News 8) – Before flying south back home to Texas, Andrew Poulton drives 80 miles north to Spokane… Continue Reading Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport renovates to keep customers
Note: Murrow News is produced by students of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Northwest Public Broadcasting proudly supports the work produced by these young journalists.
If you have any issues/concerns please feel free to reach out to Instructor, Kanale Rhoden or Department Chair, Ben Shors.
©2019 Washington State University Board of Regents – Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.
