Sports combine aims to boost city athletes
- What: Athletic combine evaluation for city student-athletes
- When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 8
- Where: East High School
- Cost: The event is free, but registration is required and space is limited. To apply for a spot, contact your coach or athletic director.
Getting bigger, faster and stronger while avoiding injury are the keys to success in most any sport. Over the past three months, doctors at the University of Rochester Medical Center have screened more than 400 mostly suburban high school athletes with the goal of helping them do just that.
On. Aug. 8, student athletes in the Rochester School District get their chance.
UR Medicine Sports Medicine, the district and the Democrat and Chronicle are teaming up to host a free, invite-only combine at East High. The focus is injury prevention. Participants will run drills and do exercises with some of UR Medicine’s top specialists, and also get advice about nutrition.
Students currently enrolled in Rochester city schools, actively involved on one of their school’s sports teams and interested in applying for a spot in the combine should contact their coach or athletic director. Space is limited. The deadline to apply is July 31.
“This is just a really fantastic opportunity, particularly for this demographic, the high school kid,” said Mike Maloney, UR professor of orthopedics and chief of sports medicine.
Maloney has been in the business 18 years. He has watched youth sports blossom, involving more kids — particularly girls — starting at a younger age, specializing in one sport, accelerating to higher levels of competition sooner with a greater, more year-round time commitment. But all that strain on young bodies that are still maturing has resulted in what Maloney calls “an epidemic in youth sports injury.”
In city schools, athletics and other extracurricular activities have gotten increased attention in recent years as a way of keeping students connected and on track to graduate. Injury can derail those goals, particularly if the young athlete doesn’t receive the proper treatment and care.
Along with students, parents, coaches and trainers are being encouraged to attend the Aug. 8 event. A follow-up session where coaches and players will receive team and individual assessments is currently being scheduled.
The combines, which have been conducted at schools from Brighton to Greece to Webster, are part of a UR Medicine research project.
The team uses high-tech timing devices and Kinect cameras like those used by Xbox. Screenings will continue into the fall, including athletes at Rochester Institute of Technology. All this feeds into a central database, with software designed to learn over time and “heat map the data,” researchers said, to identify commonalities and predictors in form or performance for any host of injuries — then spot those risks in future screenings.
Some are obvious. In a short video on his tablet, captured from an earlier combine, two girls do a one-leg forward hop. The girl on the left lands firmly, her leg in line with her body, straight up and down. The other lands with her knee bent slightly inward, seemingly wobbling on her ankle.
“That’s a healthy knee,” said Jay Shiner, senior athletic performance specialist with UR Medicine, pointing first to the girl on the left, then on the right: “That’s a time bomb. It’s a landmine.”
Twice, he said, the research team has flagged a girl as being at risk for an ACL injury only to have her suffer that exact injury a week later.
Girls are particularly at risk for ACL injuries, given the muscular and skeletal maturity of the female body, Shiner said. Female softball players also are at risk for shoulder and elbow injuries as the limits on pitch counts and recovery times imposed on men’s teams are not similarly applied to women. The goal for the Aug. 8 combine is to have an even split of boys and girls.
“I don’t see a change until we increase awareness,” Shiner said.
Shiner’s story also is an example for city students.
He grew up in the Bay and Goodman area of northeast Rochester, played baseball in the Latin League, boxed, trained extensively. He graduated from Edison and, after college, went on to help train Olympic athletes, work with a soccer team in Japan, and became a strength and conditioning coach for the Rochester Red Wings and, ultimately, the Baltimore Orioles. Along the way he volunteered in the city schools and consulted with Bausch+Lomb to establish a corporate wellness program.
He credits athletics for keeping him focused. Said Shiner: “I was blessed.”
BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com
Get involved
What: Athletic combine evaluation for city student-athletes.
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 8.
Where: East High School.
The event is free, but registration is required and space is limited. To apply for a spot, contact your coach or athletic director.