Analyzing Safety Standards in High School Sports

The nonprofit Korey Stringer Institute (KSI) has been making waves in the realm of sport safety since namesake Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings tragically died in August 2001 from exertional heat stroke. At KSI, we have worked with athletes from the professional level down to the youth level, with the goal of making sports safer and preventing sudden deaths. Since the opening of the institute, our mission has been to provide research, education, advocacy and consultation in an attempt to maximize performance, optimize safety and prevent sudden death for the athlete.

Samantha Scarneo, MS, ATC, is director of sport safety at the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut.

This can be achieved through evidence-based policy implementation, and in the past six years KSI has been tracking sport safety policies at the high school level. Currently, there is no national governing board that mandates or oversees the implementation of such policies. Instead, each state high school association makes its own policies and governs its member schools. At KSI, we tracked policy requirements in each state for the prevention of sports-related deaths in the following five key areas: Read more…