Safety Checklist For Fields and Gymnasiums

When the new sports seasons start it is so exciting that you may forget to take the time to make sure that your gymnasiums and fields are safe. Do a quick gym and field check to make sure that you have covered all the safety pitfalls that can go easily unnoticed. Your athletes and fans will thank you and your sports season can be all about winning and having fun- like it should be.

As President of SportsGraphics Incorporated, a Safety and Image Resource for Schools across America- and a coach myself, I have put together a quick check-off list that you can easily print to check the safety of your own facilities.

1. Familiarize yourself with the training policies of your school district and make sure to plan your practices with rest and water breaks.
2. Check to see that you understand your legal duties as a coach. These duties include offering instruction and offering correct and safe equipment and facilities. To offer proper conditioning, and offer proper emergency care.
3. Check the area in which you will be practicing. Walk around and assess the entire area getting rid of any tripping hazards, holes in fields.
4. Check the wall pads. Make sure they don’t need repair. Are the backboards and football posts padded properly?
5. Check to see that bleachers have enclosures that prevent children from playing underneath.
6. Check to see that the volleyball poles are secure. Make sure that you are observing manufacturer’s guidelines and that you are not making anything fit by jimmy rigging or making homemade adjustments.
7. Check each individual player’s equipment for proper fit. Make sure that you have educated yourself on the latest enhanced safety equipment and educate your staff with latest trends available on decreasing injuries.
8. Check that your players are physically fit enough to participate. Make sure you are participating in warm-up, stretching, and a cool down for your players even during pre-season practice programs.
9. Check that athletes are matched with close equivalent weight, size and skill in terms of competition matching practices.
10. Check to see that the players are always under the supervision of a qualified coach.
11. Check to review emergency plans in case of injury and review it with everyone who will be involved.
12. Check the record keeping for physical exams, attendance, eligibility forms, emergency cards, informed consents; and make sure there is a good clear and consistent form of record keeping done by all including substitute coaches.
13. Check that you have informed the players about their own understanding of their responsibility in injury prevention.

These are a few critical procedures for you or your coaches to practice that will prevent the most common accidents that occur in high schools and middle schools across the country. Please don’t underestimate the importance of explaining the responsibility that the
athletes have in making safety a priority for themselves.

Written from the perspective of a father of five, a football coach and the as a Safety and Image Specialist for the company SportsGraphics.

Patrick Conlon
President

SportsGraphics, Inc.

Coaches Protect Our Athletes

Schools throughout the majority of the nation now require physical education. In fact, forty-two states make physical fitness class mandatory to graduate. What is the result of the emphasis on physical fitness, besides taking a stab at the growing obesity issue among our young? A high occurrence of sports related accidents and even death. What happens to those students who are obese and required to participate in physical activities?

Imagine a three hundred and twenty seven pound student running up and down the court for twenty minutes in a hot gym without being given the opportunity for water breaks. The regular physical education teacher was out and the class was being supervised by an art teacher. Apparently the art teacher was in pretty good physical shape since he played basketball with the students. The three hundred twenty pound student continued playing and after twenty minutes, collapsed. He was rushed to a nearby hospital and was pronounced dead.

Another trend in schools right now is the frequency of substitute teachers. The student that has a health issue gives the regular teacher the doctors note excusing the student from activity, but the substitute teacher who doesn’t physically see the “note” requires the student to participate. This irresponsible supervision results in catastrophe.

How many more cases of students dying or suffering brain damage or spinal accidents do we have to read about? Pad all areas in the gym that a student could possibly make contact with. When a student’s skull slams into a concrete wall, it most certainly will be a devastating impact. Today schools use their gymnasium a lot more than they used to, so schools need to pad more than just a 12 foot backstop. This seems like an obvious responsible answer.

Patrick Conlon, president of SportsGraphics (the original wall pad company) says that his company has been making wall pads for schools for two and half decades. The common question his safety and image consultants hear is, ‘what am I a liable to pad?’ “I tell them that they need to adopt the prudent, reasonable standard of protecting their students. They will be safe with that premise. The amount of padding depends on the amount of usage in the gym. If the gym is used for kick ball, drills and cheerleading then you need to pad most of the gym, or at least the cement walls and any equipment, poles, columns etc. that protrude. “

When athletic directors and administrator question merely what they are liable for, are they forgetting common sense? If it poses a threat; be proactive to prevent accidents. The internet makes it easy to avoid mistakes that other schools have made. There are a plethora of lawsuits against schools for sports injury and failure to provide a safe gymnasium. If school budgets are tight, educate parents on safety issues and concerns. Let them see you going to extra measures to make your facilities as safe as possible. Raise the money for superior safety precautions; it will save lives, accidents and potentially millions in lawsuits.

For more information on how to make your facility and programs safer follow the risk management plan written by Dr. Richard P. Borkowski, EdD, CMAA in his most recent book Coaching for Safety, A Risk Management Handbook for High School Coaches, published byESD112. Also visit www.sportsgraphicsinc.com for wall padding, bleacher enclosures, crowd control barricades, sideliners, padded score tables and other safety products manufactured specifically for high schools and middle schools.

For more information on making your gym and programs safer follow the risk management plan written by Dr. Richard p. Borkowski, EdD, CMAA in his most recent book Coaching for Safety, A risk Management Handbook for High School Coaches, published by ESD112. Also visit SportsGraphics for wall pads, bleacher curtains, crowd control barricades, padded scorers tables and other safety products.