mandates CPR training for prep coaches|[06/27/07]

It’s every coach’s worst nightmare.

On the football practice field, on a hot August day, one of their players collapses from heat exhaustion. Or, at a spring baseball practice, a player is hit in the head with a batted ball and falls to the ground unconscious.

No amount of preparation or training can prevent accidents from happening. The Mississippi High School Activities Association is hoping, though, to give its coaches a valuable tool in dealing with situations like these.

Beginning with the 2007-08 school year, all coaches in MHSAA schools will be required to be certified in the use of CPR. Ennis Proctor, executive director of the MHSAA, estimated that only 20 percent of coaches statewide currently have CPR training.

&#8220We’ve had several deaths in the state the last few years and we want our coaches to be better prepared to have the training to save a life if needed,” Proctor said. &#8220We’re doing everything we can to prepare our schools for emergency situations.”

The new requirement, Proctor added, was part of a move in recent years toward providing a safer all-around environment for everyone involved in high school athletics. Several years ago, the MHSAA required all schools to have handheld lightning detectors at athletic events.

The next requirement could be portable defibrillators as part of a school’s standard equipment. They are already recommended by the MHSAA, but the cost of the machines has kept the state’s public schools athletics and activities governing body from making them mandatory. Some state athletic associations already require their schools to have them.

&#8220That’s required in some states now and we’re looking at that,” Proctor said. &#8220If we end up requiring defibrillators, we’re going to have to give our schools time to get them. But a lot of them can see that coming and have them already.”

The MHSAA is offering CPR classes to some coaches at its annual coaching clinic in July, while other schools will have the classes on their own time.

St. Aloysius will put its coaches through the course in mid-July, while nearly 50 coaches in the Vicksburg Warren School District will attend a CPR class the week before classes begin in early August. The Mississippi Private School Association does not require coaches to be certified in CPR.

All four Warren County high schools have an athletic trainer, provided by River Region Medical Center, at all of their athletic events. The trainers don’t attend every practice, though. That makes any medical training the coaching staff can get a valuable asset.

&#8220It not only helps the kids, it helps the coaches that might be out with their families or something,” Vicksburg Warren athletic director Lum Wright Jr. said. &#8220We’ll have more people that are certified and know what to do in that situation.”

Jackie Williamson, an assistant football coach at Vicksburg High, also praised the new MHSAA requirement. Williamson said he’s never been in a life-or-death situation on the field, but welcomes the knowledge to deal with it if it arises.

&#8220We’re very fortunate in that most of the time we have a trainer that helps out. But definitely, in the case where the trainer isn’t there, it’ll help,” Williamson said. &#8220The hotter it is, the more you have that danger. The quicker we can help that kid out, the better off he’s going to be.”