Transcripts For CSPAN2 Athletics Officials Testify On Concus

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are live on capitol hill this morning for a discussion on concussions in youth sports. parents and medical experts will be testifying this morning before the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. talking about research efforts and what's being done to protect young athletes from injury. this is live coverage on c-span2. it should start in just a moment or two. [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations] >> tight schedule on tights. we're here on committees ongoing examination of concussions. this hearing follows initial roundtable we had in march where we had constructive dialogue with leading experts in the field how to challenge concussions. today's hearing focus on youth sports, specifically areas of prevention and research. while there is always particularly sports at young age shown to have many benefits. benefits of youth sports participation, better health, increased activity, improved academic achievement and social developments to name a few. i might add number one health risk of youth is increasing rate, epidemic of childhood obesity. we know that that leads to increased adult risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and host of other problems. so we want children to pay careful attention to nutrition and be active. but suggests that 30 million ages five to 18 participate in organized sports. largest population of athletes this is one of the most underserved population when it comes to awareness, research related to head injuries which brings to us our task today. we want to examine what is being done to reduce head injuries to young act lights what policies and guidelines are in place to limit the risk injury, how are the policies developed, do they go far enough around what education and training exists for athletes and coaches aarp parents? how do large number of leagues, teams and clubses recreational opportunities for young athletes complicate efforts to improve injury prevention? youth sports are not as far along as many professional leagues progress is being made. all 50 states and district of columbia enacted concussion laws. pop warner football, usa soccer, hockey, to name a few implemented amount of head contact in practice and games. others such as usa football provide education and guidance to enhance training awareness for coaches and athletes. a number of groups are represented today. i look forward to hearing how the efforts affect their sports. based on their experience thus far are we doing enough and what does the science tell us? the last question particularly interesting and important. there is a lot we do not know about concussions generally but pediatric populations including youth supports are severely under represented in research. there in lays the challenge. public wants want answers that science is not ready to provide. it affects younger individuals both immediately and later in life. therefore i'm interested how youth sports organizations develop and review and update policies or guidance and educational efforts in light of limited but rapidly see eye involving research on concussions. we don't know how traumatic brain injury affects our youth it makes it that much more challenging to protect them. we lack any form of effective injury surveillance or concussions for athletes younger than high school age. given large number of at lettic opportunities is a daunting task f we don't understand the magnitude of challenge. how different factors, age, sport, social yo economic status influence outwoman, how can we make sure we're making best decision for our kids. this morning on panel we're joined by two mothers, both of whom tragically lost their sons as a result of injuries sustained while playing youth sports. her son jake was promising freshman athlete in grand view high school, a record can colorado, is the namesake of the concussion act. mrs. eagle's son was, played football from the moment he could pick up a ball. we greatly appreciate your willingness to share your stories. it reminds why it so vital to continue to examine issue. later on second panel, dartmouth's head foot billion coach and representatives from usa football, usa hock by and usa lacrosse that will provide guidance to sports leagues. we'll hear from pros for additional options keeping athletes safe. we have prominent researchers in the field. better monitor injuries and minimize risk of injure based upon science. i appreciate all of your panels for joining us this morning. this is important issue and your perspectives are important to advance the public dialogue on these complex injuries. i also want to thank ranking member degette for her support in this initiative and look forward to continuing our efforts together in this endeavor. i recognize the ranking member for five minutes to deliver her own remarks. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman, for having this follow-up hearing on our roundtable that we held on concussions and brain trauma earlier this year. i'm very pleased we're looking first at youth sports through official hearings because studies have shown children and teens are more likely than adultses to get a concussion, and they take longer to recover. athletes at professional college levels, they can make their own decisions about undertaking the risks associated with certain sports but we need to insure that children and their parents have enough data to make informed decisions about participation in youth contact sports. part of that discussion needs to be the recognition of how valuable these sports are, both for physical fitness and team building as you so well stated, mr. chairman. but i think we also need to have an open discussion about how to make them safer. i approach this issue both as policymaker and a parent and as i said in the roundtable, i support evidence-based policy making and i'm very encouraged we having ongoing research to better understand brain trauma but at our roundtable the experts said that they're going to have answers about what the protocols should be in seven to 10 years. and what i said, at that hearing is, as a mom, when i'm deciding if my kid is going to play peewee sports i can't afford to wait seven to 10 years. by then, they will be in high school and so, we need to take whatever evidence that we have right now and we need to figure out for now what we should tell the parents and what we should tell leagues they should be doing as the best practices as far as we know right now. for example, at what age should children start playing tackle football? how many times a week should children be engaging in full-contact practices? when they do begin to play how do we teach them to tackle safely and to protect their heads and the heads of other players? how do we ensure coaches are educated in teaching these skills to young players? i'm sure that we can ask other questions in all youth sports not just football. i agree that most, if not all parents would agree that it is better to err on the side of caution. the worst case scenario would be we discover later that some of these safety measures may have been unnecessary but as a mom, i always want to have more safety rather than less safety, especially when you're talking about our children's brains. as we implement changes in sports now this is not a reason to stop researching our gaps in knowledge. we need to understand the long-term effects of concussive and subconcussive injuries. we need to analyze whether rule changes being implemented have desired effects. we need to study how to they affect brain injury in the first place. i'm interested in hearing the witnesses on the second panel about the difference they're seeing in girls and boys sports and how the rates of concussion differ. i know there have been studies suggesting that women and girls report concussions at higher rates than men and boys at similar sports. i want to know about that disparity and also if there is any disparity about the actual effect on brains. both of our panels contain excellent witnesses and it's so important to have them today. i really am proud to welcome two witnesses from colorado. kelly jentz, as you heard tragically lost her son jake to second impact syndrome in 2004. and kelly, i'm so proud of you because what you did, is, you were instrumental in insuring that concussions are taken seriously in youth sports and that parents and coaches have the information they need. as the chairman mentioned, in 2012, governor hickenlooper signed the jake sna-kenberg youth sports law into colorado. dr. comstock on our second panel. she is from the colorado school of public health. like me a colorado native. she is one of the leading experts in sports injury epidemiology. her database gathers information on injury exposure and incidents among high school athletes. she looks at injury patterns, examining the correlation between neck strength and concussion risk to inform prevention and mitigation strategies. so i want to thank you also, dr. comstock, for making youth sports safer. i want to thank everybody who is here today to help us figure this out. around i also really want to say, we want to see sports succeed. i can't let this hearing go by without congrat hailing the world champion denver broncos for example, which i have season tickets. and i also want to say, as i've said before, one of my great sadnesses i was unable to persuade either of my daughters to play ice hockey and they took up dance instead but the point is, all, every child in this country should be safe. we love sports. we want to see sports succeed but that means that we have to do our utmost to improve player safety and guarranty that participation in sports doesn't mean that you have long-term health consequences. so i know, mr. chairman, you intend to have more hearings. i think this is the perfect place to start. i want to thank you again and yield back. >> thank you, go steelers. we are -- [laughter]. >> that's fine. >> sorry penguins in the playoffs. wish them the best and all athletes. i will recognize -- first of all i want to say opening statement of mr. upton will be included in the record. he could not be with us. we'll recognize mr. hudson for opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, chairman murphy and ranking member degette for your focus on this issue, even painful as it is to hear representative degette talk about broncos, as representing charlotte, north carolina, and the panthers, there is always next year. your experience and expertise help the committee better understand the gravity of concussions in youth sports and what we need to do prevent concussions for from long-lasting effects for future generations. pediatric trauma is number bun killer of kids. pediatric trauma is become particular focus of mind. i'm fortunate to have the childers institute of pediatric trauma partner with me to help our children live long fulfilling lives. it was started by my dear friend richard childers and wife judy to prevent serious injuries in children. childers institute supports pediatric research programs including concussive fund which fun research into prevent concussions in youth sports. it will treat broadly and specific issues like concussions takes on particular importance to me as a father of a 7-month-old baby boy. thankful so much awareness brought to the issue by discussions like today. as one trauma surgeon said to me, it is not a life saved but a lifetime saved. i want to my fellow north carolina representative, g.k. butterfield are host pediatric trauma briefing on sues the 2 this. with that discussion, mr. chairman i yield back. >> anybody else on our side want anything to add at this point? i recommend the ranking member, mr. pallone for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank all of our participate pants for joining us -- participants joining us today. additionally i like to thank the chairman's for his commitment to this examination on concussions and brain trauma. earlier this year we had an initial roundtable on this issue and at the time i requested of chairman upton we hold a series of hearings on concussions an sports related head trauma. i proposed we start with examination of head impact and youth sports. i'm gratified we're here to discuss this very top and look forward to additional hearings on this important issue. parents across the country are concerned about the risk of concussions with good reason. i have my own experience as a parent in dealing with my daughter's concussion and deciphering the med al vice provided. it is challenging as parent to balance news stores remembers and results latest research against the value of our childrens partial in sports and i can certainly relate to parents con concerns and confusion how to make the right decisions for their children and there is compelling research to suggest that the effects of repeated head trauma, even those received during one's youth can accumulate and cause serious consequences. these consequences can stem from injuries once considered minor, subconcussive hits or repetitive hits to the head. purdue university research is led by one of our witnesses dr. tom salavage. saw significant injuries to those with high school football ion those not with a particular concussion. even 12 months later suggested lasting damage. many other studies document ad association between sub concussive hits and decrease in brain chemistry, decreased brain functioning and behavioral changes. group of researchers at bosses ton university found exposure to hits regardless whether concussion occurred is associated with higher likelihood of moody's orders like depression. research is repeatedly found evidence of linkage of head impacts and ct-e, a devastating brain disease. cte found in former act lights as young as 25 years old and adults that never played football beyond the high school level. there are number of risk factors that make individuals more susceptible to these debilitating conditions. we also need to understand what happens in the brain when it's hit and how many hits trigger these neurological effects. while there is still research that needs to be done that should not be an excuse for inaction. what is not in dispute the association between head trauma from contact sports such as foot pool and lasting brain damage and degenerative diseases such as cte. even nfl publicly acknowledged this link at the committees's roundtable back in march. some researchers in the field quote, wait on the science before making changes to the rules of youth sports. i respectfully disagree. we can't ask children and their parents to wait 10, 15, 20 years for the science to catch up before we make measures to make sports safer. we need to ask questions right now an implement the appropriate rule changes of the the science raised enough red flags about the dangers of repetitive head trauma i think it is incumbent upon those who organize and promote youth contact sports to make every effort the make the games as safe as possible. earlier this month the subcommittee ranking member, miss degette, mr. green and miss schakowsky joined me in sending letters to collegiate and youth football leaders. we asked them to explain what rile and policy changes they're considering to address the risks associated with both concussive and sub concensus sieve hits. i expect we'll have a response by may 25th. i commend pop warner it would ban kickoffs in games starting this fall. i look forward hearing from other youth sports organizations about what they're doing for individual sports and whether additional measures need to be considered. last, mr. chairman i i want to express my deep thanks to kelly chance and care send zegel for join joining us today. i can't imagine the losses you and your family experienced thanks for willing to share your experiences with the committee. we can learn from you as we pave a better path forward for our kids. thanks to all the witnesses to helping us our comprehensive review of concussions and head trauma. i hope we find a way to dress this significant health issue to protect our children. i yield back. >> the gentleman yield back. i ask unanimous consent the members opening statements introduced into the record and without objection the documents are introduced in the record. we'll try to get through with their testimony before votes. first witness on today's panel, mr. kelly je-nz. she is the mother of jake snakeenburg. he surfed from second impact syndrome. she is dedicated to raising awareness of concussion in youth sports. i look forward too her insights on this matter. i want to welcome, karen ren sigg gel. the foundation was created in mem remember of her son who i enjoyed reading about during his football career. he pass away after suffering from cte. thank you for your testimony today. we look forward to your comments. you two are aware this committee is holding investigative hearing, when doing so has the practice of taking testimony under oath. do either of you object to testifying under oath? seeing no objections chair advise you under rules of house and rules of committee you're entitled to be advised by counsel. do either of you advised to be advised by counsel in your testimony? neither one does. rise and raise your right hand awill swear you in. do you swear the testimony is about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. both answers affirmatively. you are now under oath. and subject to the penalties set forth in title 18 section, 001 of united states code. we'll ask each to give five minute summary of your entire statement. there is light in front of you that will turn red if when the time is up. you may begin. bring the mic closer, thank you. >> chairman murphy and ranking member degette and members of the subcommittee. good morning and thank you for the opportunity to he provide testimony on important issue regarding youth and youth related sports concussions. i commend you and your colleagues on the work of this committee to shed light on this critical issue. my son was typical all american boy devoted to sports, his friends and our family. jake was often referred to as our social butterfly in our family. he had a big heart and genuinely cared for those in his life. he had a joy about him others could not resist. his big brother summed it up best when he said, jake drank up life like it was pouring from a fire hose. he gave 110 percent in everything especially sports. on september 18th, 2004, jake got up at 6:is a in the morning in anticipation of his pressure nan football game. he loved football, all it offered, physical challenge, spirit of competition and probably most of all the friendships that were involved. he was particularly excited about playing in this fame because he had been held out of a few practices because the week prior he suffered an injury where his arms and hands went numb and tingly. what he described to us sounded like maybe he had tweaked his neck or strained his neck. he hadn't lost consciousness. he didn't see stars. you wouldn't have associated it with a major type of injury. he didn't report to his dad or me any headaches during the week, though his friends had said that after that injury he had complained of some headaches. regardless of that, he was able to return to practices and meet the required number of practices to play on the gameday. in warm-ups on the 18th, jake took a really hard hit that really appeared to shake him. he noticed me looking on and waved me off to let me know he was okay. when the game began he lined up for a play, right before the snap jake stumbled forwards. whistle was blown and they called a penalty, and flag was thrown and jake got up and started to come to the sidelines and then stumbled and went down again. and he never got back up again. he was unconscious, and 911 was called immediately. life flight was dispatched to the football field. jake was airlifted to swedish medical center where a neurosurgeon advised us that jake suffered an head injury and steps were being taken to decrease swelling in his brain. he told us jake may never play football again and would likely have a long recovery. but he followed that statement with, if jake survives this injury. tragically jake didn't survive. it was determined that jake had suffered second impact syndrome, condition leading to rapid swelling of brain from more than one concussion. it face mom none unique to young brains. it is likely jake suffered a concussion the previous week. subsequent hits during practice and warm-ups, though not associated with a concussion, had a compounding effect and continued to further injure his already-compromised brain. since jake's death i have made it my mission to continue to raise awareness of the consequences of concussion in youth sports. following jake's death, dr. karen mcvow developed the reap project, adopted by rocky mountain hospital for children and made available to the colorado department of education. this program deals with all youth concussions, regardless of the cause, meaning not just sports related concussions any concussion can directly impact a student's learning ability. i have had the opportunity to sport reap's concussion management program which is being adopted by other states through helping distribute the reap manuals, funded by the jake snakeenburg memorial fund. looking on the consequences of youth concussion and rapidly evolving concussion nagement and we would be remiss and actually it would be irresponsible not to take every possible opportunity to develop measures to protect our youth from the devastating disabilities and potential deaths resulting from these types of injuries. to help, excuse me. i think actually in closing, these children are our future. and it is our responsibility as parents and coaches, teachers, medical professionals, policymakers, and the community as a whole to make sure we do all we can to support the necessary culture change to make youth sports as safe as possible and protect our children as well as to provide appropriate treatment and assistance should a concussion occur. i want to thank you again for addressing this critical issue and allowing me to participate in the hearing today. >> thank you. you can go for five minutes, thank you. >> chairman murphy, ranking member degette, and members of the committee, thank you so much for inviting me to speak today. my son patrick was a hometown hero in high school football. i'm going to cry. he grew up in an area that measured the words -- worth of a man by his prowess and heart on the football field. he started south of pitburg with the elizabeth youth leagues when he was 10 years old. he was not gifting with size or speed. he worked hard to become a great player and with that achieved his dream to go to ivy league school. it is that worth ethic and perseverance in collision sport that ultimately killed him. patrick took his own life at the age of 32. but actually, we have come to know cte took his life. patrick never played in the nfl. patrick was like millions of children before and after him, that just played for fun and success in life. but throughout high school, prep school, dartmouth college, our sweet, tough, young running back received enough sub concussive blows to his head to essentially seal his fate. when he died, a newscaster friend of the family suggested he might have cte. i had never heard of cte before. i heard of nfl players having brain injury and concussions but i never dreamed it could affect a player at college level. when patrick's autopsy revealed he had widespread cte, i was in shock and horror. how many other players like patrick are there out there? how many other families are dealing with a loved one graduate allly becoming unwired with no clue what is happening? not every grieving family has a newscaster friend saying the words cte. for the sake of american families, this has to change and we are grateful this committee is conducting this hearing to learn more about the disease and the impact on our family and on our society. personally i worried about patrick becoming paralyzed but i thought the chances were extremely small. i thought he had so much to gain from playing. if i had known repeated tackles my son endured was slowly killing him i would have stopped it. no family wants their child to suffer a disease that causes him to lose his mind slowly and with such anxiety and loneliness. . . >> somehow we seem to have evolved to the point where we are now willing to put children into a rain is to tackle each other for sport. we put them in the equivalent of cheap holliman cautions to emulate their nfl. we asked them to be tough little warriors. that's what our family did. and we were so proud when patrick carried his team to victory. sadly, we lost an amazing young man before he ever had the chance to live his life. a gifted and promising young children like patrick oliver this land are winning battles on the sports field, but sadly losing the chances for a happy healthy productive future. patrick's tragic end was not an isolated incident. parents need to know that one in three players may develop cte. soldiers cominghome and athletes are being diagnosed with ptsd, adhd, anxiety, depression, drug addiction, anger issues, et cetera. when, in fact, they may have cte. when i see a kind tv hitting his wife, shooting his friend were going on a high speed car chase, i wonder if maybe he played one to many football games. people need to know that this invisible disease is more common than we know. that it can develop in youth, high school and college levels of collision sports. family state to know what the causes and symptoms are, and how to address the disease. this has been hidden in plain sight for much too long. it was this realization that prompted us to from the patrick risha cte awareness foundation on the website stopped cte.org. we also created a brochure flag until 14, to parent their to und the key issues of cte. heading the ball has recently eliminated from youth soccer. checking in hockey has been eliminated in youth leagues. yet over 2 million children are still putting their precious brains at risk in tackle football. the urgency of this problem is beyond measure. i wish we would have known the truth 25 years ago. there are those out there who would prefer parents did not know about cte. they will obfuscatethe issue with unreason arguments. revert if you like you can get a concussion riding a bike, are you turning our warriors into pansies, or do you want them to sit and play video games for the rest of their lives? when you've lost your son to cte and you understand how it is cost, and how prevalent it is, these arguments are hurtful, and in my opinion, keep children at risk. we see cte as a human tragedy of immense proportion, and we need to help with a joint initiative and beyond. we all now have the duty to save children and families. ctd is 100% preventable. we need to remove repetitive head, from youth sports. to do anything else to be complicit to the problem, knowing more families will suffer the pain, we personally endure every day. thank you very much. >> i think both you for that moving testimony your i'm going to ask you one question. and that is, you mentioned that patrick began playing football at age 10 and continued on. do you know if coaches, anybody work with the teams had any specialized training to recognize, be aware of concussions and injuries you know if there was any other training? >> at the time i knew most of the coaches personally i don't have to guess know. i mean, going back before people start talking about -- >> even on the collegiate level, ma the college level? >> at the college level, as a parent i was never informed of anything like that. i mean, that would've been nice to know then, but no. >> ms. jantz, can you answer that? >> not back in 2004 when jake experienced this. even company, jake's stepfather myself were both medical professionals, and while we understand, obviously hitting your head is a bad thing. we certainly didn't have the background that we have now where you have the opportunity to step back and look at it. perhaps he would've been pulled and not played the next week. so i think that in those times we did not have that and now we have an opportunity to make sure that coaches and the people involved with our kids have all of that information. >> thank you. ms. degette? >> thank you. just to follow up on that chairman's questioning. ms. jantz, i've been given this brochure, i think probably your foundation was involved in helping put this together, is that right? and it's called reap, remove reduce educate a just accommodate pace. by the center for concussion of the rocky mount hospital for children. and it reallygoes through a lot of information for educators and parents. it's a wonderful piece. i'm wondering, is this distributed? what do folks do with this? >> we've used that come in this distributed and available. we have made it available to school districts, to various groups actually. i like is that anybody who i can get to listen, i will be happy to give that you. and it's a comprehensive and, we of managing concussions and its community-based. it's got a section for parents and it has a section for medical professionals and as a section for the students. and teachers. everybody has a different piece in this. we are not with our kids 24 hours a day. >> ms. zegel, you also have formed a foundation, an advocacy foundation. and unassuming that you also been working to get information like this out to parents, educators, coaches? >> right. our critical is we are working with medical examiners and coroners on one in trying to get into recognize the disease if they are present with a drug overdose or suicide or something like that. then on the other end we are trying to get push for parents to have informed decisions that flag football is fun and it could be a lot of very famous football players never played until high school. >> that's in your brochure -- >> my daughter made that up. >> mr. chairman, thank you so much. i would ask unanimous consent of the both of these brochures into the record. >> without objection. that's a great idea. >> thank you for coming. >> we want to thank the first thing. they just call votes so what we're going to do is we're going to take a break i think we have three votes, to that as quickly as congressionally possible. we will come back. does look at the second have an opportunity to sit and be ready. i would ask members to be back in need of the. our to finish this hearing before a second set of votes. thank you. recess until the votes are continued. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> a break now. what's being done to diagnose and protect the young athletes from head trauma. the second panel will include remarks from a number of medical officials and we expect to get into what after those votes taking place in the house. that's where members are heading out. they are casting votes on legislative even with opioid addiction and treatment. so while this break is underway we'll show you conversation with congressman steve king from this morning's "washington journal" to talk about the 2016 election and executive overreach. >> host: congressman steve king, republican from iowa and he's head of the task force, on the test for for executive overreach, the chair of the task force. is also the former national co-chair for senator ted cruz presidential campaign. we will talk about that and his work with this executive overreach task force. thank you for joining us. >> guest: thanks a lot for having me on. >> host: we been talking about yesterday's visit by donald trump to washington. what's your take about what came out of those meetings and his remarks as well as speaker ryan? >> guest: first when speaker ryan spoke to this issue from a week or more ago when he said he wasn't yet prepared to make an endorsement of donald trump, i think the speaker chose just the right tone. there's a significant wing of the party that still has apprehension about coming together. we do need a unified, and i think the meeting yesterday was very important or not so much about topics or issues they might it discuss what about establishing that relationship between speaker ryan and donald trump. the impression i get was it was a very positive since between the two of them. the statement was made by paul ryan afterwards indicated there's a lot of issues to discuss but in 45 minutes at least established a working relationship where they both expressed a positive tone when they came out. i would say to people that i'm going to a lot of the same things as a national co-chair for ted cruz for president campaign. to our a lot of issues along the way that gets sliced our guys. there's tension that comes along. we started with 17 candidates, now we are down to a perspective and likely nominee. those wounds that are created by the division need to be healed. it starts very well with donald trump in speaker ryan. it will take some time. we've got until the convention in cleveland and i think donald trump is one that is losing control of the pace of that. glad to see the cooperation with the speaker. >> host: what do you personally need to see from donald trump for him to win your endorsement? >> guest: i'd like to see him first speak to the conservativ conservatives. one of the things i think set us back of love is when he made the statement, objectively as honest as it is about its name to the republican party, not the conservative party. that it is in the conservative party. we have for three generations put together a platform that's built on full-spectrum constitutional conservatism. fiscal and socialconservatives that are rooted in the basis of the understanding that our constitution is a guideline that is built this great country and we will be great in the future if we stick to that. i don't have donald trump speak much about those issues. he's an excellent job of putting the votes together to get where he is but my recommendation would be, if i recall, four years ago mitt romney went down to new orleans and gave a speech that was very much a heartfelt speech about his christian faith, moral values, about the constitution at about the destiny of america. i think of donald trump would put together, you would have to be his speech, not mitt romney's, and probably mitt romney is not going to come on board, it doesn't sound like but i think he can speak to a large wing of the republican party especially the social conservatives. social, physical, constitutional conservatives need to be reassured donald trump is going to work with them. i don't think at that level of confidence yet. >> host: we're talking to congressman steveking, republican from iowa, about the presidential campaign and more. our viewers can join in the conversation. use of party unity is important and you mentioned mitt romney. mitt romney does seem ready to unify just yet, releasing a facebook message this week that was critical of donald trump's refusal to release his tax returns. are you concerned about that? are you concerned about people like mitt romney or former president bush both saying they're not going to attend the convention? >> guest: of course i'm concerned because it adds to the weight of that, of an effort out there and i don't know how strong it is, that has been labeled never drove group movement are not encouraging people to join that group or i'm saying instead let's figure out how we bond this party together. let's not sacrifice our values are copyright by values to do that. yes, i'm concerned about that but i am more concerned about this large wing of constitutional christian conservatives and fiscal conservatives that they want to see, here's what i will say that i think you're looking at. a baby born today, one of our staff just a little baby boy, just yesterday morning about 2:30 a.m. and this little guy draws his first for repair, his breath in america buddies got a $60,000 of debt he owes to austin. people know that they know about half of the people are paying taxes on working and the other half are not. that poor little baby will be produced and you will have to pay off $120,000 of national debt. there's not a lot of discussion about that. republicans want to balance the budget and get to the process of paying down and off our national debt. and they want to have a strong constitution foundation. they don't want to see judicial branch of government calling the shots. they don't want to see and executive branch calling the shots. they want we the people for the article went authority of congress to write the laws asser founding fathers editor. they need to be we shared and assured that those divisions will be drawn clearly again and the balance of powers between the three branches of government. >> host: do you think donald trump is or can be a conservative? >> guest: he show some conservative instincts. i think it's an excellent concert instinct on immigration. he has articulated that over and over again, that especially we can't be a nation if we don't secure our borders and actually the most effective way to do that is i would say build a fence, a wall and a fence. that we you've got to no man's lands to do with to open force. i think that's the best way to spend our dollars. it's a lot cheaper than hiring all that help to watch people walk past them a welcome bit and take to the receiving station. that's the shortene short versit i see on the border. that's a piece of conservatism that there. if you can get government out of the way and stimulate this economy and get the kind of growth he is proposing, that would be a conservative movement. i don't believe donald trump is going to grow the government. i think he's got a shot at growing the private sector and that's a conservative perspective us but we have a lot of calls waiting to talk to congressman steve king about the election and more. but first we have mary called in on our democratic line from pennsylvania. you're on with thecongressman. >> caller: drove has said hedge fund managers get away with murder which agree with their patriotic millionaires are trying to pass legislation to happen, they carried interest loophole closed for hedge funds and hedge fund managers. so word about thedebt, why don't you people get on your, you know, get the job done and some messing around with this good thing in billions of dollars for the debt host but let's give the congressman a chance to respond. >> guest: thanks. i'm not look down into the numbers and details on the. i don't i many dollars might be generated by going into take a look at the hedge fund managers, but we have dodd-frank legislation that passed some years ago, and i'm hearing that there's tremendous amount of burden along the way with loads of regulations that are there. it puts the federal government in a position of deciding who's too big to fail and regulating many, many financial transactions. that was an overreach itself. i thought we should have allowed some of those large companies that were out there and melting down and the 2007-2083 to time, rather than building out if we would have let some of those fail, though service would've been picked up and the check and balance within a place rather than seeing what really happened was that they were able, special investment banks and hedge fund managers affiliated with that, what they did was they socialize risk and to privatize profit. i think to the extent we would agree that we should that be guaranteeing profit for large investors. at the same time taking the hit if there's a loss host mac up next joe in a republican line from west plains missouri. you were on with congressman king. >> caller: good morning. the subject this morning as executive overreach. digital obama issued a narrative and a directive about bathrooms? is no right to the issuing directives about which people can go in the bathroom. i want you to stop him on stuff like that. and you better get in line and start backing the nominee. i don't care about romney, paul ryan. i do want them to try to neutralize trump. he's right about the muslims, the mexican welcome all the. that's what he took all you politicians out. he's right. >> host: let's give congressman king a chance to respond. >> guest: thank you, kimberly. first, joe, he didn't take this politician out and i've had a good number of conversations with donald trump. i am committed to the principles that i have stood for for a lifetime. i've made it very clear the things i believe in and some of those things i expressed your display. what you're suggesting, yes, i want is a unified party but i don't think it's going to be a constructive thing if i or any of us there in leadership positions just say i'm going to set all these values are said to the conservative public in america aside, it is simply embrace all that donald trump has to offer. instead i think it's better we move in the direction of unification incrementally. he and i agree on the immigration issue. let's keep moving in that direction. let's get all of that patch to get it issue by issue. he needs to do the outrage though because no matter how much others might decide they want to get behind donald trump, if he does reach out to the conservatives, there were five-8 million who stayed home during the mid-romney's election. if they've gone to the polls according to many of the surveys that are outthere, mid-romney would be president today. there are more than 8 million that would stay home right now. i want to try to bring everybody into this party together. i would like to see donald trump did outreach. i would like to see conservatives make some concessions. let's get to the place where the direction and a platform we can all embrace so we can be together after cleveland and try to get together by the time we get to cleveland. >> host: on the first point about the obama admits fishbowls about transgender bathrooms in schools. what is your reaction to that? >> guest: i oppose that is a policy. i think it is an executive overreach and if the public were likely to bring up any future and before the task force that i chair. imagine our founding fathers sitting down tracking the declaration and ratified the constitution and thinking we're going to give the power to the attorney general of the united states to decide who goes to which bathroom anybody wants to claim, they didn't know what the word gender was back in 1776. that word has been changed 25 years ago the word with sex but it was a physiological description. now gender is the description of what you think you are rather than what you might physiologically might be. i think this is an extreme executive overreach. i don't know how we stop it but we need to address it. the president could've just said well taken a pass on that detail every school in america you will hoosier federal funding if you don't let anybody who wants to go into any bathroom they want to, that is outrageous us that we're talking with steve king, republican from iowa about the presidential race and the executive overreach task force which he chaired up next our democratic line grace from lafayette indiana. you on with congressman king. , hello, congressman king. congressman, donald trump is a bully and eighth grade mentality, and tell me, he always says they hit me first. what if he gets mad at norway or denmark, who's going to clean this mess up? i'm 85 and i am -- i've got news for you. batman scares me to death and i ain't afraid of nothing. tell me which are going to do. >> host: let's get a chance to answer. >> guest: i would like to have him put on a pair of golden gloves myself. i think bush is bernard on some things and i would like to see them adopt a posture of letting some things pass. just been more gentle and all the more forgiving along the way. i would like to see that the also. i am concerned about that. i'm hopeful, encouraging comment i will say working in the direction that donald trump is said that he can adjust his purse on a. so i think it would be needed for him to adjust his purse on a to make a more acceptable to you but i like your attitude about your 85 and you're not afraid of nothing. >> host: as we said you were the former coach of senator ted cruz his presidential race. he seemed be leaving the door open for a return. is there any possibility for that? >> guest: in politics all things are possible. nothing is predictable. it's not a strategy that is being worked and pushed at all. i don't know that ted was as are taking about as a user is not everything else we did the interview a few days ago but the most important things, he made a decision that wasn't a viable path for to the nomination. some of us believe that there was a viable path forward, but the odds were getting longer i would've liked to seen in state in all the way to california and then count the chips when the game is overrun on the way to cleveland. he made that decision. he had a better position to evaluate that and i or anybody else for that matter. but there's not a strategy that is being worked to try to put him back as a candidate here are some things that are important. and that is that a lot of ted cruz delegates out across the country. they ran for the office of the delegates and alternates and that was a commitment, dedication to go to cleveland and carried a set of values. other things happening. we will not a president barron but also with the platform that needs to be -- we will nominate a president there. we need to write a set of rules that will a lease guide if that govern the convention in 2020. it's very important we maintain a representative form of government within the republican party. we are the republican party. that means delegates, a majority of them need to nominate the candidate. the platform need to be pro-life. need to be pro-marriage, pro-constitution, strong national defense, free enterprise, freedom. and so many the delegates in cleveland for that and ted cruz is encouraging the delegates to go to cleveland i am encouraging them to go to clinton. i intend to be in cleveland and help hammer out that platform and that set of rules post a speaking of the platform does a piecemeal this week to talk about ted cruz allies during up for a convention fight. are there specific things in the platform now that you like to see changed? i know you outline some principles that are important but are there specific things you would like to see them address in the party platform? >> guest: at this point somebody's probably going to bring a bathroom plank pick since the topic came up, and i think that's one of the things that i would be happy to see introduced to i do know it's a necessary, but we need to hold together the pro-life and pro-marriage plank and we don't know what might, along to change the platform. we usually see a presidential candidate that will make an effort to try to amend the platform to that more closely in their particular positions. that may be the case. i don't know. we don't know what donald trump might bring. right not to see any indications that he would. set of the rules though it's a different story. he has said the system was rigged your so you can only interpret that means he believes the results of the primaries in the states would dictate the nominee, that the delegates would not have as much to say about who will be our nominee. i think it would be a mistake because it would be sacrificing a representative form of government. and for them or when you a primary in february or even january, february lots of things change by the time the candidates may not even be on the ballot by the time you get to the convention. i also am concerned that will be some rules changes that might continue to allow the cross over vote to debate our nominee. new hampshire, for example, an open primary and there were people that figured, relatively speaking, tossed a coin because they couldn't decide whether they want to vote for bernie or donald trump. i want republicans accuse the nominate and then i want americans to choose the president. >> host: we're talking to congressman steve king he was a member of the judiciary agriculture and small business committees. we're talking about the election and executive overreach. our next call is beverly colligan from indiana. you were on with congressman king. >> caller: yes. i've got a question. i can't understand donald trump. only thing he's got going for him is that wall that he wants to put up, which i agree with that, because we've got these people coming over here and getting jobs and ain't paying taxes, and we'll have to pay taxes. that's still the thing i like about donald trump. but i'd like to see somebody get into the really cares about this country -- suspect you have a specific question? no, yeah. like the last caller, what of it going to do about this bathroom thing? >> guest: you know, for the short version of it as i like to see a resolution brought you on the floor of the house that rejects that kind of directive. and a search of the legislative authority of exist within the congress for the micromanagement of science on bath and is not enumerated power in the constitution. i'd like to see that their award to doctor so my colleagues. this just popped possible to get a better sense of what they think and how we can come together with a unified voice i do think we ought to speak to this from congress. i want to at all so you said we think is good for is the wall. of course, there is more but i don't think people understand how effective a wall would be. it 80-90% of illegal drugs consumed in america come from through or mexico. this would reduce significantly outweighs the supply rights -- supply routes now. tens of billions of dollars, that's a huge business. they said they can't build a wall, it's 2000 miles long. donald trump has said the great wall of china was 13,000 miles long and it did not machines to build we can build a. the cost of the wall would be less than that of building an interstate highway certainly. we are building for laying interstate highways through expensive cornfields of iowa. we get all that done for $4 million a mile. yet we are spending $6.7 million a mile just to watch that southern border. we are only getting maybe, maybe a 25% interdiction rate down on the southern border. we can just take two-thirds of the annual budget that protects the border and build a whole wall with two-thirds of what was then the right now, figuratively speaking. we can afford and it will return welon its investment and it is a good idea but he has other good ideas host but let's talk about your task force for executive overreach. -- >> host: . tell us what it is and it's a temporary, last six months. tell us why? >> guest: i have been for years bringing amendments to the floor of the house of representatives to try to limit the overreach of the executive branch but also of the judicial branch of government. i recall back in 2005 there was a decision made by the supreme court and that decision ruled that local government could to eminent domain confiscate private property and over to other private interest. i thought it was a clear violation of the property rights and within the fifth amendment. the cord pull out that language for public use, and so we brought a resolution disapproval to the for because it was an overreach and i brought an amendment to cut funding to the administration of the supreme court by $1.5 million to a novelty which was the amount of the property had been confiscated a decision. that was one of the first things i did is to try to limit this overreach into the legislative power. that was judicial. but as we watch the president's interactivity and overage about a minute after a minute most of them passed but i built a record over the years of defending our constitutional principles and defended legislative authority in article one for the congress. and so as this got worse and worse and president obama's not the only one that has done so but it's the most aggressive with executive overreach. i think this is another one, the bathroom, but through that when paul wright became speaker, i believe that he said that with chairman goodlatte and made a proposal that we needed a task force to address this overreach, and asked if i would share that, build upon the reputation of the pollsters of amendments that i brought over the years. and so we've addressed a number of different topics. a hearing just yesterday was on the foreign policy overreach. and the funding for example, of the operations in libya that puts me that was not appropriate for libya to ask about of another fund. we have addressed the domestic overreach. in fact, that baffing is a piece of that. there's a court case just yesterday came down on overreach, and i think john boehner for initiating this lawsuit but it was u.s. house of representatives versus berlin and that was when the obama administration decided to find the risk quarters under obamacare or before the correct it is hard for me to say. those are some of things that take place but i think immigration was the peace we have the most overreach of all, the president said 22 times i do have the constitutional authority to pass daca, deferred action for child of rifles, and yet after 22 times of giving us this community as a constitutional law lecture, he changes his mind and decided he could get away with it after all. so we have doctor, more memos, and millions have been told they are not legally independent even though the law says they are not. >> host: at me ask you this, your democratic colleague congressman scott peters said, disagrees with you and said congress needs to look in its own mayor before criticizing the obama administration. let's take a look at what he said. >> the senate passed the bill 68-32 significant bumpers and support. not just one or two people. not just a people. someone referred to the gang of eight. it included a lot of things that would deal with the immigration lockulaw, give congress a chanco do with it. the senate passed we never even got a vote on it. all of us do different views about what the right edge was. we never even took it up in this house. we were not allowed to even talk about and yet we secured and complain that the president has taken on too much power. that would've provided 13 your path to citizenship. if you're in the u.s. before 2012, novell they can have job, paid a $500 like an application fees, all back taxes would've provided legislative pathway to citizenship for dreamers in the u.s. before a 16. high school degree, been in the u.s. for five years. e-verify which is something a lot of folks have been calling on to make sure you're getting enforcement, allowed a greater number of h-1b when visas for highly skilled workers but a lot of us agree. and provide substantial border security, $46 billion in improvements. 30,000 were secret agents on the mexico border and 17,000 increase. 350 miles of new fencing. newtek body cameras, radiation detectors, drones, helicopters and electronic exit checking at air and seaports. all of this before us and the legislature and if you want to know where the problem is. it in the halls of the united states congress. >> host: is their overreach? >> guest: i think that's an overstatement. i listen to that. i for each of those points along the way. remember the arduously into an exhibit on the gang of a bill and i would say marco rubio would be likely to be the nominee for president today if he had opposed that bill president supported that bill. the american people rejected the gang of eight bill. 40 some billion dollars was added to that so they could get the votes to get it moved off of the floor of the senate. again, a little bit of fencing, 200 some miles of fencing. first 2000 the border. we are not enforcing the law today. the president has told his enforcement officers if that's what you're interested in you better get a different job. there's much of that, the arguments he's make a summit this is a consensus. if it were the american people would've called for in the house of representatives passed and the president would've signed it. there's no such thing as legal authority for a president to be a legislator just because he asked congress to pass a law and we refuse. that's a decision. congress made a decision, the house decided we are not taking it a. it's bad policy. his argument is because of the senate thought it was a good idea, the president agrees with us and, then it should be able to of the force and effect of law. that is the definition of executive overreach. i would be happy to have that debate within again. >> host: we are talking to congressman steve king. a lot of calls waiting for you. up next, our democratic line from north carolina. you were on with congressman king. >> caller: i appreciate you allowing me to speak. first off, i've a couple of questions. had we been a strong democrat? i believe in sharing. i believe that republicans -- [inaudible] i think it's a joke personally. have donald trump as the president, this doesn't make sense. reality tv. i want to know how you feel about that? >> guest: just restate that question. uzbek essentially donald trump as a reality tv character and is that a concern for you tha thats now the presumptive nominee? >> guest: i've seen them in the ring at wwdc and watch all of the things he's done such very hard to say he doesn't do reality tv. that's been part and parcel of much of what is done over the past 15 or more years. that point does hit home. and i don't want to compare donald trump with ronald reagan. i think they're two completely different people, but there were things about ronald reagan they said some the movies he was in were not complicated towards presidential demeanor, but establish a presidential demeanor. i'm hopeful donald trump will establish that presidential demeanor, and i do have to concede even though i've been a longtime supporter of ted cruz, that donald trump's showmanship without a would not be a prospective nominee today. that's a skill set of communications that perhaps can be turned into a constructive good and i'm hopeful it is. >> host: up next -- >> we are going to come up with the right would because we'll have another posters would all like to the opportunity to testify. so i'd like to introduce the witnesses of our second bill for today's hearing. we have mr. eugene teevens to lead our second panel, head football coach at dartmouth since 2004. is implement a policy of noncontact practice. i believe coach you also a teammate of famous coach for harvard named tim murphy. my twin. next would like to welcome doctor trenton come here as a member of the medical advisory committee for u.s.a. football. mr. kevin margarucci of u.s.a. hockey. he has 20 years experience as a super athletic trainer announcers as the manager of clear safety at u.s.a. hockey. next we welcome mr. steve stenersen, served as executive director and a president and ceo of u.s. lacrosse since 1998. next we welcome mr. terry o'neil, founder and ceo of practice like pros. next, doctor dawn comstock who is a professor at colorado school of public health and of public health and one of the nation's an expert on high school injury surveillance. and, finally, i would like to introduce doctor thomas talavage pashtun close enough? i'll get it right. purpose of the weldon school of biomedical engineering at purdue university. he is also the founding codirector of mri facility and a part of the perdue narrow, group. thanks to all the witnesses for being a today. i look for driving a productive discussion did you are where the committee is holding an investigative hearing and reduce us a practice of taking tests when under oath. do you any objection to testify under oath? single objection the chair advises you under the rules of the house and the committee you are entitled to be advised by counsel. did you decide to be advised by counsel during her testimony? and seeing no, and the case would you all please rise and i will swear you in. [witnesses were sworn in] >> thank you. all witnesses advantage in different if so now you're all under oath subject of to set forth in title 18 section 1001 united states could. i will ask altogether five minute summary. please pay attention to the lights because we are on tight time today. you are now recognized for five minutes. coach, going. make sure your microphone is turned on and you pull it as close as possible. almost touching it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank kelly and care for the tasman as well. it underscores importance of the committee. closer? as a make out like to thank karen and kelly for their stories as they get underscores the importance of the committee and your task. i've been a college football coach for 35 years. i've coached in the ivy league, the sec, the pac-10, the big ten, conference u.s.a. and the yankee conference. during summer i work with all age groups, pee-wee right of high school age kids. football is a very special game. a life lessons with all the team sports, things people learn, friendships and make inexpensive they have. i love the game of football but i love my players more. looking at concussive entry through the course of time i was provided to make the decision we would eliminate tackling from all participate in season practices, preseason practices. they guarantee guarantee i maks is their son comes to dartmouth, they were never tackle or be tackled another dartmouth football player for therefore used in making that decision, i was a 100% sure i was doing the right thing. i worried about my players, was i putting them at a competitive disadvantage? was i preparing them fully for games like it was not a puppet decisions amongst my staff. it went from complete ridicule to disbelief to condemnation of some parties. i was convinced, i did a lot of research, but the way we teach tackling was not the way we tackle in games. what i loo looked at was a defee of david now we tackle it would try to replicate that tackling practice we saw in games against pads, freedom against other players, going to the lot concept tackling sleds. we develop at the engineering school in mobile tackling device which is been quite beneficial in terms of actually propagating a moving target. with that we tackle and with more than anybody else in the country. each of my players annually, 800, 500-eight in tackles per year but never once against another human being. the only time our guys tackle is 10 games a year. of injury production has been phenomenal. missed tackles which which are progressively dropped 50% the for sure we went to the non-tackling process. people asked me why? quite simply, the skill of tightly we practice more than we did when we were tackling life. it's a shame but in our sport the most injurious act compactly is one that is practiced the least because we for the risk of injury. by putting the guys in position to talk with regularity, and this was unanticipated, we become much more proficient at executing the active tackling. you get an awful lot about rugby. football is a different sport. shoulder tackling is the thing we preach. we don't talk about ahead other than say taken completely out of context points. it's like riding a bike. you don't just throw someone on a bike and let them start to figure it out. it's a process, training wheels and so on. support from parents but i do the same thing with our football players. a lot of folks ask can you do that at different levels? without question. people look at the nfl and i use them as a model. they get less than anybody in the world and their concussive results in practice are probably some of the best. we've gone from a football team that struggled at times to we are championship team. we have won 17 games in the last two years. iv championship this year and we had zero defensive concussive and injuries this season. it's all a process of how you present to your players. abiding has been appreciable. it's been wonderful from a recruiting standpoint. can other people use a? i speak national with this. prep school, youth football, they all said how to teach someone who's never tackle the human being? crawl, walk, run. start with pads and progress forward. i fully believe in any level the approach we take another like to take on a video now if i could. i think i've got time. this will demonstrate more accurately how we actually practice tackling. [inaudible] spent we tackle literally every day of practice, and we put people in position to ask you to do things they would you on game day. a defense of lime of will not execute the same skill set. we are broken down to levels of tackling, repetitions we've had. we play at a very high level and it into a very successful. >> thank you very much. now recognized dr. gregory for five minutes. >> chairman murphy, members of the subcommittee, my name is dr. gregory, a pediatrics sports medicine specialist at vanderbilt your i'm a fellow of the american academy of pediatrics in american college of sports medicine. as well as a number of u.s. football medical advisory committee. i am not the u.s.a. football employed nor do i receive any compensation for being on the committee. i'm also a parent of an 18 year old daughter who is a soccer player. thank you for the invitation to testify on u.s.a. football's behalf. in short, u.s.a. football is a sports national governing body aand a member of the u.s. olympc committee, independent nonprofit organization. we create resources in drug programs establishing standards using the best that they both sides to educate coaches, parents and others to our programs are endorsed i more than 40 or positions spanning medicine and sports including the american college of sports medicine, a national athletic trainersassociation, the american medical society for sports medicine. i want to highlight three on the votes of how u.s.a. football addresses player safety. the first is education. we train more youth and high school football coaches combined any other organization in the u.s. education is the core of our heads-up football program which we will highlight. this is delivered through online courses and in person clinics. that are six educational components of this book in which you can see listed on the sly. concussion recognition response, preparedness and hydration from sudden cardiac arrest, proper equipment fitting, then tackling and blocking techniques. more than 6300 youth leagues and 1100 high schools nation would represent about 1 million young athletes enrolled in heads-up football in 2015. the second element is research. u.s.a. football addresses player safety i conditioning -- commission independent research. according to a monday 14 youth football study incomes in more than 2000 players, those which is the and heads-up football showed 76% reduction of all injuries during practice, 30% reduction during games, 34% fewer concussions during practice, and 29% decline in concussions during games. a subset shows employers who enrolled inevitable had two to three fewer head impacts of p&g's were greater during practice would make a quick and more than 100 your impacts in a season. on the high school level fairfax county public schools has reported 43% decline in football related concussions since 2013, for 3000 players since inflicting heads-up football. at a 24% decline in overall football injuries. finally will highlight innovation. u.s.a. football provides practice guidelines, practice planning tools and defined levels of contact. you can see the levels of contact listed on the slight including air, back, control, which is a noncontact our non-taken down to the ground drill, a control drill where you're not taking into the ground but there is contact and then finally live-action where you are taken down to the ground. more young football than ever learn the fundamentals of appropriate tackling before advancing to full contact. we will conclude with a video showing the difference u.s.a. football heads-up football are making. ♪ >> a pilot program for heads-up football and may be the first player safety coach completely change everything. we are going why are we not all doing this? there is nothing of the fundamental changes the game of football. there's nothing here we are not currently teaching. we are just teaching at 25 giveaways. >> there's a potential we see a return that we are making became safer spent everything evolves and grows. the right thing, the most responsible thing. as the league administered i can't even imagine a program that doesn't do it. >> heads-up football has changed the way we played. it changed the way we practice. we have one consistent batch of what we talk about, how we are teaching our athletes to play the game. from ankle biter through 12th grade we have one curriculum. >> it's the fabric of what we do and how we coach. it's hopeless be a better staff. >> we have seen a sound decrease in concussions, in collision injuries. >> we are able to show with the data there is a difference. several high schools played in back-to-back state championships and have had the fewest injuries over high schools. >> that's a big deal. we are making tackles now the we wouldn't have made a few years ago just because we constantly hammer in the basics. our generation is getting taught that way to tackle complex this is the right way. >> do this. do it yesterday. both from the youth club level and then from high school levels. because this is only making this a better game. better, safer game. >> thank you your that we have the testimony of kevin margarucci, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you chairman murphy, ranking member degette, distinguished merit of the subcommittee. it's a privilege to be a today on behalf of u.s.a. hockey to discuss the issue of player safety. .. making safety policies for our sport. the usa hockey foundation yearly awards grants in the area of injury prevention and research with ice hockey injuries. recently i was hired as manager of player safety, a full-time position at usa hockey, which further shows a commitment to safety in our sport. finally we've had the hockey equipment certification council which was the urged to be formed by usa hockey in 1978. this is an independent body which studies the equipment that manufacturers produce and make sure that meets standards for protection in ice hockey. when we look at prevention we start with our rules enforcement. we have a very strict officiates education program which involves online modules for refs at every level, classroom work and on-ice clinics. at every level once officials are working they are supervised, mentored and given feedback and shown videos of proper rule enforcement to make the game safer. we have implemented stricter penalties with emphasis, boarding, charging, checking from behind and head contact. in 2009 and 2010, our rule book focused on standards of play and emphasis on body checking n 2011 our executive board ruled to make a rule change which increased the legal age of body checking at our sport from 12 and under level to the 14 and unlevel. this decision was based on a lot of scientific research, not only on player skill development but also safety and injury risk between those age groups. in 2009, usa hockey created the american development model. this model is an age appropriate, skill development and training based off of research of long-term athlete development. our coaching education program has been a gold standard in youth sports for years. in 2011-2012, became online required modules for our coaches which include concussion awareness and recognition in all the modules for the age-appropriate levels. within this structure we published a checking the right way for youth hockey which is age appropriate progression of skills to properly body check in the game of hockey. it starts with skating and always focused on attitude, ethics, respect for the sport and your components. goes from skating, positioning, angling, body contact and body checking. heads up, don't duck was a program initiated in 1995. this was followed in 2010 by our heads-up hockey program. the emphasis is playing game with head up, especially coming in contact with the boards and opponents. keeping heads out taking or giving a body check, do not check from behind and a library i of skills and drills to teach these to our players. we educate our members constantly through information available on our website, electronic communications through newsletters to our parents, players, coaches, officials, which often have concussion awareness and education materials in them. usa hockey will start publishing electronic newsletter specifically to safety in the fall of 2016. currently the mayo clinic sports medicine is doing research to identify objective testing to identify those athletes with potential concussion using blood biomarkers, sideline eegs and a test, this if you study sundad by our usa hockey foundation. we have concussion management program available to all of our associations which is the minimum standard for any usa hockey program to follow. the biggest message in this, when in doubt, sit them out. thank you for allowing me to speak here today on the important topic of player safety and concussion. >> thank you. you're recognized for five minutes. >> good morning, mr. chairman murphy, ranking member degette and distinguished members of the house oversight investigation subcommittee of the house energy and commerce committee. our non-profit organization has proactively led and funded many sports specific prevention and research initiatives resulted in number of interventions in the areas of rules, equipment, and education. we also participate actively in the efforts of numerous national collaborations focused on reducing injury risk which i referenced in my written testimony. lacrosse is the oldest sport native to the north american continent. native-american play was first documented by jesuit missionaries in 1600s. modern rules for lacrosse were first adopted in the nate 19th century but two distinctly different versions of sport evolved in the first half the 20th century. lacrosse has experienced unprecedented surge of popularity in recent years, in part due to formation of u.s. lacrosse as the first national governing body in 1998. u.s. lacrosse establish ad sports science and safety committee when the organization was formed. the committee has prominent research professionals representing a variety of specialties and representatives from multisport organizations. wee been described as one of the most proactive sports organizations in the country relative to our commitment to injury prevention. we were recognized for our efforts in that regard last may through the introduction after congressional resolution, hr-267. our sports science and safety committee prioritizes oversees research initiatives, recommends interventions to u.s. lacrosse board of directors and leads the development of educational initiatives intended to reduce injury risk and directed to coaches, officials players and their parents. my written testimony includes reverences to published research and safety interventions that u.s. lacrosse has led. we also have invested significantly in the development and deployment of the sport's first standardized coaching, officiating curriculum. unfortunately public school, public focus is too often directed at eequipment interventions which are less effective preventing injury, that players are properly taught and games are probably officated. among the biggest challenges we face convincing youth leagues and state high school associations requiring our standards for lacrosse specific coach and official education is more enjoyable and safer playing experience. cross related concussion is particular area of focus for u.s. lacrosse and we committed considerable time resources and to concussion education research and prevention. the benefits of playing youth sports are well documented, while lacrosse is considered relatively safe compared to other sports and activities serious injuries such as concussions occur. there is much we learn about the nature of concution, particularly the importance of recognizing symptoms and removing children from play until cleared by medical professional trained in concussion management. we learned no piece of protective equipment on the market today can prevent a concussion. that the mechanism of injury is different from sport to sport and in the case of lacrosse, different in boys lacrosse than girls lacrosse. we learned that the injury and its recovery can be very different experience for girls and boys which demands further focus and study. and we've learned that increased sports specialization at younger ages is increasing the number of injury exposures from young athletes and contributing to increase in overuse injuries on developing bodies. perhaps most importantly vast majority of children who experience concussion can recover fully if their injury is recognized quickly and they receive proper care. concussion remains a significant health concern in youth sports and will remain a priority for u.s. lacrosse. accordingly we'll continue to invest in research that helps us learn more about the mechanism and frequency of the injury in both boys and girls lacrosse in advance educational and rule intervention most effective in reducing injury risk. thank you for the opportunity to share my touts on this important issue as well as your efforts to increase the health and well being of our nation's young athletes. >> thank you. mr. o'neill, you're recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, thank you. >> put your microphone on please. is it on? is it on? should be light. pull it as close to you as possible. >> thank you. okay. so, mr. chairman, we'd like to begin, if we may, with a sound bite, 30 seconds from dr. ann mckee, which tolls on many comments are heard earlier this morning. dr. mckee is one of our colleagues. these were her comments two months ago during your roundtable. >> it is not about concussions. it is about limiting head injury. head injury that occurs on every single play of the game at every single level of this game. we have to eliminate somehow the cumulative head impacts. to me, what our job is, as american citizens is to maintain the health of these young athletes for the entirety of their life and if there is something we can do to limit this risk, it needs to be done immediately. >> thank you. >> immediately, mr. chairman. word we heard this morning as well. that is our middle name, immediately. let me begin by saying here's where we started with our chase for immediate results. the national football league, 32 teams, 2,000 players as you know. practicing for five months in regular and postseason. there were 271 total concussions in the nfl this last year. 271. question, not in the games but in practice. how many concussions do you think on nfl practice fields last season? answer, eight. because they have learned how to practice is it. those eight concussions in universe of 271 represents 3%. so now the big question. what is that number in high school football do you think? what percentage of high school football head trauma occurs on practice field? >> 60 to 75%. the worst, most shameful statistic in all of football. this is the reason we're in business. this is the reason why a number of hall of famers, at no appearance fee chase around the country with us, among them warren moon, anthony munoz, tony dorsett, might ditka, showing high school coaches on video how to practice with less can't. these men do this generously because they believe this is the future of football. so, let's quantify our recommendations. we're going to show you how they practice in the pros. this is full speed to contact practice which means, they run the play full speed to get the timing, the pacing, choreography of the play. at last moment, moment of imminent contact, rather than tackle they break away from each other. it is football ballet as you see it here. this is dartmouth college. you'll see a pass doesn't middle. a safety in practice here could light up this receiver with a perfectly legal hit. but it is his teammate. so at the last minute he veers away from it. he will save that tackle for saturday, okay? in the nfl, cleveland browns, watch number 22 in white. he will track this play full speed. everybody stays on their feet because only bad things happen when you go to the ground. he tracks ball carrier. at moment when he might tackle he stops, and let ball carrier continue. 48 and brown, lead block, one of most vicious hits in all football. what does he do? 48 in brown, he identifies a player to be blocked. comes to him, syncs his hips and lays his hand on him. this defensive back, will he tackle on wednesday or thursday? no. seattle seahawks, same thing. are they going to tackle a teammate in the middle of the week or save it for sunday? >> they save it for sunday. contrast that with high school football. this is high school scrimmage, a quarterback has four teammates with their hands on him. will they hold him up, rather than hold him up or take him to the ground. this has been a good practice exercise for everybody involved. we learned a little something from it. let's go back to the quarterback. did we take him to the ground or wrap him up and hold him. we took him to the ground and broke his wrist. totally needless. at this same high school in connecticut. a young man named cody gifford played. son of frank and kathie lee gifford. frank was colleague mine at abc sports. cody made the team at usc as walk-on. you can't believe how proud his father was. my son liam played at this same high school. he is now a backup quarterback at tufts. frank gifford and i used to talk about that frequently. we put together composite injuries in high school between our two sons. concussions fractures, knee ligaments. how many of those 10 major injuries occurred in games and how many in practice? two in games. eight in practice. utter madness, mr. chairman. so, what do we recommend to rectify the problem? we are the only organization of the five national organizations who operate in this space that is committed to an immediate abolition of contact football below the age of 14 and ninth grade. we want to convert those leagues to flag. no contact until ninth grade. once in high school, no full contact in spring, summer, off-season. three hours total in preseason. 30 minutes a week during the season. >> going to have to wrap up so we continue on. >> how does this compare to the other major organizations operating in this space? national federation of high schools and usa football which operate in concert allow three times as much contact as we do. pop warner four times as much contact as we recommend. the ncaa, six times as much as we recommend. >> thank you. during questions if there is other conclusions we'll make, we're way over time. dr. comstock, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman murphy. it is an honor to be asked to testify before this committee, particularly representing colorado's school of public health and university of colorado and medical campus as under congresswoman degette's, in her state. i'm here today because i run the national high school sports related injury surveillance study. i've done so for the last 11 years. in effect i dedicated my entire career to try to improve high school athlete's safety, not because i'm a policymaker or clinician but because i collect data needed to drive, informed, evidence-based decisions. i want to share a few examples today and describe why those are so important. this first slide shows some high school real data, just simple concussion rates over time. you can see concussion rates were stable for a few years before dramatically increasing, in fact doubling between 2008 and 2012. they have leveled off in recent years. understanding trends over time like this, is crucially important both so that we can evaluate the magnitude of the problem but also so that we can determine which interventions may be efftive and which may not. only long-term surveillance information can provide this data. this next slide shows that some of the information i heard a little earlier that, we don't want to wait to try to do intervention work because we don't want to wait for years and years it takes to collect data. we don't have to wait. i intentionally put one years worth of high school real data up here. show you with one year of surveillance we can look at patterns and trends across sports, across genders, across type of activity. this is just the tip of the iceberg. i capture up to 300 variables on every concussion reported to my system. i can literally tell you when, why, where, how, to whom each concussion occurred. this data can drive evidence-based intervention efforts. and, i and many other researchers in the united states have the drive, the desire, the resources, technological, methodological, and the experience to be able to do this work at the youth level just as it is currently being done at the collegiate or high school levels. what we don't have is the funding. injury surveillance can also demonstrate positive outcomes as well. very important. this slide shows that we've actually had a big success when it comes to managing high school athletes concussions. in the 2007-8 academic year, 30% of the high school athletes diagnosed with a discussion returned to play in less than seven days which is violation of accepted return to play guidelines and disturbingly, 8% returned same day they were injured. that is unacceptable. look how things improved. last year in 2014-15, less than 10% you will of all athletes returned to play within six days and 2% same day they were injured this is not equipment prevention but education and regulation prevention. effective prevention in public health, we talk about three legs of a stool. equipment is one piece in terms of concussion but, educating individuals and providing good, strong policy, based on evidence are the other two legs. i would love to come away from the efforts of this committee incredibly important efforts, with the ability to do this work at the youth level. currently, no one can give you this type of data for children playing sports who are younger than high school age. that's a travesty. we've got to protect our children who are playing sports because we want them to play sports. i'm not against sports or not against contact sports. despite my appearance i played rugby for 13 years. yes i'm 4-11. yes i participated in rugby for 13 years. sports is important way for children to incorporate physical activity as part after daily lifestyle. we need everyone at the table, and our policy representatives like distinguished members of this panel to work together to drive evidence-based prevention practices now. we don't want to wait for 30 years to learn about long-term consequences of concussion. that's secondary and tertiary prevention. we need primary prevention. i already know that concussions are bad for us. i want to keep kids from being injured in the first place. thank you. >> thank you very much, doctor. doctor, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm professor of electrical engineering and biomechanical engineering purdue university. i'm a member recent years of ncaa task force on condition concussions. i'm on advisories board of ncaa care consortium and a multiinstitutional effort to bring together researchers who have history of publishing and can doing research in the area of concussion and traumatic brain injury to solve many of these problems. i serve in a trauma group and specialist in neuroimaging and lead pi for purdue college engineering preeminent team on healthier brains. as rabid sports fan of the pittsburgh steelers and pittsburgh pirates and father of four, very, very active young children this is issue very near and dear to my heart and has been for a long time. as a part of the neurotrauma group i want to summarize really quickly our goal and our proposal into the future to achieve safer participation in youth sports. our goal here is to make sure more are children can participate in sports more frequently without really risk of injury or reduced risk of injury to something that is acceptable to us such as riding a bicycle or playing baseball or playing basketball. our goal to achieve this aim through the education of athletes, parents, coaches, health care providers regarding the risks of not only concussive but subconcussive injuries through protective equipment and modeling and appropriate preventative methodologies that allow us to monitor exposure to head injuries and the risk of head injuries and finally through techniques such as already been described with improved training of athletes. for the past seven years our pioneering study has been engineering-based as following the model illustrated on the slide where applying structural health monitoring, a technique developed from basic materials and basic structures in our everyday world whether they be planes, bridges automobiles where you essentially do non-destructive evaluation. you document that a material is in good health before you continue forward wits use. as that material starts to exhibit some sort of change you effect either repair or in the case of some materials you allow them to rest, allowing them to recover. this methodology has been applied as i said for seven years in the study of high schoolgirls playing soccer and boys playing football. our study though, applying this methodology began like most of the other studies where our initial effort was understand why some kids got a concussion and some kids didn't. what we discovered very rapidly essentially driven our research since that time in truth many of children who we think are not injured are in fact showing changes in physiology, changes in their brain strungly suggestive of underlying brain injury and what's really critical not only our athletes are supposedly healthy who do not have signs of a concussion or not diagnosed or even examined by the team's athletic trainer or team's physician having concussion will look abnormal in this manner up to five months after the season which means they may be spending eight to nine, 10 months of the year in an abnormal state. so, while we already know ahead of time that it is never a booed idea to hit your head, the question now becomes, how long is it that the athletes are injured and what can we do prevent the injury in the first place? our study has i already mentioned going seven years and if we're able to find funding sometime in the future we'll continue the study ideally late they are year working with methodology with the goal being if we understand how inputs, in this case mechanical inputs of head being hit, whiplash events body snapping to the side or snapping forward or rotating abruptly will allow us to understand how each event affects the brain and we can go back and correctly develop protective technologies, helmets that will in fact prevent concussion rather than merely skull fracture. we can develop appropriate methodologies for identifying when an athlete should skip a practice because clearly we want kids to miss practice not games. obviously what the kids want. we will also then evaluate whether or not recovery has been truly complete. can we actually document that an athlete who has been pulled and is getting ready to return to play looks healthy enough that it makes sense for them to go back into play? so, with that, we really feel as the premier trauma group and myself as researcher in engineering most of these changes can be made with no cost to the enjoyment of the game but they are very likely to improve the freedom or the comfort to engage in these activities without any substantial consequences beyond those associated with other non-collision sports such as basebal, bicycling. we really feel that the science is far enough along that these changes should be made now, rather than to wait anymore time such that 30 million kids every year are exposed to potential injury. there is no reason not to act. >> thank you, doctor. i do want to recognize, i'm going to start off with questions here and let members know we're going to try to continue. one vote at some point. we'll try to continue roll through that vote. so we'll just start out. want to recognize in the audience. nick lowery. the nick the kick, played for new england patriots, jets and chiefs. good to have you here. thank you for your interest in concussions. sean springs from the ohio state. redskins, patriots, say hawks. number one pick for seahawks, played in the pro bowl. thank you for your interest in concussions. former colleague, fill, the dock, gingery is here as well. we appreciate him coming back. he didn't make the georgia tech team, but you drove the mass court car for the rambling wreck seeing your skillsets were used for a good thing. recognize myself for five minutes. this goes to doctor gregory, and mr. sanderson. from perspective of youth sport organization, what are the greatest needs in terms of research related to concussions and player safety. can you comment on those? >> for clarification the greatest needs? >> yes. >> so, my first response would be to agree with dawn comstock, that we have these databases in college and high school and we don't have them in youth sports. so establishing a data base for youth sports injury i think is imperative. >> garagruci do you have a comment? >> i would echo dr. gregory we need a database of injuries occurring in the youth sports to make these decisions. it is hard, we don't want to wait for the future but we need to start, i think gathering some of this information right now. >> mr. sternonsen. >> i agree. we're doing bet best to fund research but we neat grader resources into the youth play area. >> similar along those lines with research, do you encourage coaches, is there a way to help coaches and teams as keep track of their own database? coaches keep track of their own data to see what happens if their own coaching styles comparison? anyone would like to comment on that. >> i would say, dr. comstock probably has a word here, but the challenge with that is the quality of date that that's collected. unless it is collected well and consistently which coaches generally speaking are not wont to do, we're concerned about having flawed data. >> dr. comstock, do you have a comment on that? >> i agree. we are concerned about the quality of the data and that is directly correlated to who is reporting the data. at the high school and collegiate level we relied on athletic trainers, certified athletic trainers to report that data to us. i and others are investigating way to modify the surveillance systems enable a parent or coach who was trained appropriately and appropriately motivated to be able to report, perhaps not 300 variables per injury but at least enough variables we could drive forward a lot of these discussions. >> coach, you did record, you did look for specific data? >> in conference in general overseas and each medical team within the institutions report back. >> that is helpful to get the feedback along those lines? >> it is. you see where you stack up with some of your teams in the league. >> let me ask panel, how significant of issue is athletes not reporting concussions? if they themselves have symptoms but not giving information, can you comment on that? dr. gregory? >> i can tell you at all levels that is an issue. the problems knowing what symptoms of concussion are, if you report to somebody, that person knowing what symptoms of concussion are. . . >> there were concussions occur and that just went undiagnosed on recognize. the increase in the rates i think truly reflect the great deal of education that's been done by individuals on this bill as well as groups like the national high school associations to make sure we concussions occurs it is recognized. >> the main event prior to the increased concussions were not occurring. they would just get reported. >> exactly. and the parents families. the parents of the young athletes come is important educate them as well. >> do you see this as an ongoing problem that this is working or just love a ways to go? >> i think the fact that curve has become leveled off i think it is an indication coupled with less than the last slide which is how much they were doing at managing concussions. both of those be tied to the success we have had to date in educating parents, coaches, athletes, policymakers. we still further to go particularly in the younger groups. >> thank you. i yield back to ms. degette for five minutes. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. i want to take a look at some of the sciences out there. and by the way, come is really an excellent panel with everybody giving a great perspective. your work examines high school football players as well as high school soccer players. can you tell us from your research about ahead impact some context board and have impact head injuries? >> yes. what we've observed to our 70s instead is that when the athletes take large amounts of blows per week, whether they be 10 g. or above, kenji as a reference come if you stand up and dropped it into your chair you will generate roughly 10 times the force of gravity acceleration on your head. when players are taking numbers of 60-70 blows per week in football for example, then those athletes tend to start showing alterations to the brain physiology that are suggestive of a either damage to neurons or it is some sort of impairment in the way information passes are way information passes our voucher brain and result in you being able to respond to a question or answer the task or to achieve a target on a game or a particular activity. for our female soccer players that have been in our study, they do not take quite a number of blows that one of the things we've observed if they get hit pretty much every day. in indiana high school football is able to practice two days per week plus have again. soccer there is a restriction. they practice i do six days per week. we define not only are there changed an actual raw number of blows, how frequently they're getting hit by their peers to be a consequence i am much time off on the given which would suggest that our natural repair mechanisms we can exploit and i believe we have these reduce contact cases are, in fact, benefiting our athletes. >> we had a forum in this committee in march. you heard us talking about it. at the forum there were some researchers who suggested we don't have enough science to act on this issue. they said we should wait until there's more research. what's your response to this line of questioning very briefly? >> i don't believe that. >> and that's because you actually have scientific research the? >> we have now about 16 papers in publication and working out with several other institutions run the country including penn state university, ohio state university, michigan state university, university of nebraska to publish work this is the our changes in the brain. >> if you would mind getting that to this committee. that would be very helpful in our investigation. thank you. i just want ask you a couple of questions about gender differences and concussions and head trauma. the surveillance data you collected shows girls soccer is one of the highest rates of reported concussions among high school sports. what do we know about gender differences in concussion rates? our girls more likely than boys to get concussions? >> that's a million dollars question if you will. we first reported in 2007 that in gender comparable sports, sports to both boys and girls play by the same rules using this in equipment on the same fields, sports like soccer and basketball, girls have higher concussion rates than boys. that's been replicated by other researchers. what we don't know at this point, people are working on the question, is is up by a physiological problem? our girls is somehow different? on the sustainable injuries or is it just a social, cultural issue. we don't have a diagnostic test for concussions. we are relying on self-reports and young female athletes may be more likely to report when they are experiencing -- >> but do we need to get more data? >> we have the data that has shown this gender difference. >> what do we need to prove it? >> this is one case where surveillance data is in a. we need more detailed research to try to determine other by a physiological differences or is this a social cultural issue? >> this is exactly what the intent of our type of study is, if we can understand of the brains are changing. we can determine whether not it takes less to do with. >> euthyphro simply? >> yes. >> dr. comstock, i'm almost out of time to i just want to ask one more question. you say that there's no data, no surveillance for under high school ages. do you think this is something that should be instituted so that people like you can get that data is exactly what is going on? >> yes, i would love to do it and i would give you the name of 10 other researchers. >> who should set it up? >> my work hasn't been federally funded i've had nine different funding sources in 11 years of civilian. the end of late funds their own per i think it should be a federal effort but i don't care if it's a joint effort of everyone of these organizations of youth sport. >> thank you very much. thank you for coming. >> just remind members votes or call and will continue to roll through. dr. burgess, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panel for being here this morning. coach teevens, your testimony when a brett thomas.com this is a revelation. it seems obvious once you understand that these are repetitive so you repeating the injury during practice so the only contact is on game day. that must've been kind of a hard decision to make. because when i was a kid growing up it was always replication repetition repetition. practice, practice, practice. remember the old commercial? >> what i announced, the this is what's the punchline? if i was getting. i thought was the appropriate approach to reduce injuries to my players. >> you feel now, if you what, five years into this you feel you have -- >> it's made a decided difference in where we practiced safety. peripheral entries has dropped as well your my frontline guys practices course of the season defensively i.t. players miss games issue. one had a high ankle sprain and we kept them out. and it has a lacerate kidney. the leg whip of a freak incident he missed five games. that was it. the regularity. i tell them, rules of the game get the guy on the ground. not injure a get out of again. get in on the ground. you can teach that skill set. we practiced it extensively at i think we do a very good job understanding history it's, there's a risk playing the game and we can minimize the risk. >> let me ask you this. i'm sorry i wasn't there for your testimony but when you go back and look at your record prior to instituting this program and in the years since, is there a market difference because we were zero and 10, two and eight. and now this is a weaver nine and one. >> so you become a remarkably better coach? >> yes. >> fascinating story but it seems obvious when you look at it. repetitive injury to reduce the risk by reducing the repetition. certainly want to thank you. >> the more you the more you revert spent on what you thank you for bringing that to the committee today. again i do know i was what of that. i don't know how i would've been aware of it. mr. o'neill, a mark as to because when it first i first are religiously, practice like the pros, that would be dangerous. those are the guys, dreadful story she read by people who try to hurt each other in the game but you had the observation was watching a practice the two almost like a ballet. , i understand that? >> yes, sir, it is because it went out with the video, the players ask you every aspect of the play in rehearsal for sunday, tell the moment of in a contact which point they break away from each other and pat each other on the back. in the high school level the proof of the efficacy of this is in the state of wisconsin. the only state that is adhering to our standards at this point put the standards in two years ago for the 2014 season. the university of wisconsin medical school did a study that you go the results published last october. wisconsin high school football cut its concussions by more than half simply i adhering to our standards. that is a breathtaking number in our business to cut your concussions by more than half in one year your quality of wisconsin football has never been better. the players are fresh and ready to play. it is the high school model of what is described at dartmouth. >> is there widespread acceptance of the of the high school level? >> i'm glad you asked. tonight and i went to the wisconsin high school clinic about seven weeks ago in madison -- coach teevens and i. because of the coaches did you know how to practice with less contact, we have enormous attendance. more than 125 coaches, and the greatest follow-up that we've experienced in our 30 clinics around the country, more than half of those coaches asked for copies of our videos so that they could take him to shove into staff can show them to the players in teach their players into 30 minutes, just 30 minutes of conduct for we can practice how to practice like gross like a dartmouth victory. >> i can't help but observe that evan smith on dancing of the stars, probably based on the same concept. were some pro players using essentially dance moves and ballet moves to improve their performance? >> they were, and congressman, this approach of less contact in the pros dates way back to bill walsh and the 49ers in the 1980s. and has been refined and developed by his disciples along the way to a point where so many college players look forward to entering the pros in order to avoid the carnage of 90 minutes twice a week for contact in college practice entrance to practice the way the dallas cowboys have for many years. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. i will yield back. >> recognize ms. schakowsky for five minutes. >> first of all want to thank the moms that were here. i want to thank kelly and karen. mr. o'neil, you showed that 80 of doctor mctigue answering my question at the roundtable, and i want to focus on ctv because i think very little focus has been on these subconcussive brain injuries. and as she said, it's about limiting a head injury that occurs on every single point of the game at every single level of the game. and ifalpa that question to jeff the of the nfl, the chief person for health and safety. and said what do you think? is cte link to football? and he said yes, certainly. and little did i know that this was a kind of explosion that happened outside, outside that room. and even have started some conversation about what is the future for football? is there a future for the kind of football that we play? so there's been a lot of talk about concussion, but i wanted to ask now more about, about cte. so dr. talavage can what does your research indicates about the effect that routine hits sustained by high school football players and younger have on brain function, even though they don't rise to the level of concussion? what about cte? >> at this point the linkage is a little bit nebulous coming from our into obviously were you able to look and see that if it is an expert larger numbers of hits over their career and over the lifespan tens of our deficit spending to be more likely to evidence ctb as per brain thanks, i think it's at least good circumstantial evidence for there to be a clear linkage between the total exposure and the total amount of brain stress that is accumulated from getting it repeatedly day after day after day year after year. within her own athletes about what we can at least identify is that our athletes and probably five to eight months in what appears to be a state of almost chronic inflammation. when you have a chronic inflammation we know and the rest of the body that's a bad thing. themselves are not able to eliminate waste, cannot bringing nutrients to keep those cells healthy. and so is what we are saying is, in fact, proven to be true and our continued study that we give a level of chronic information essentially for five, eight months of the year then we're putting our athletes at risk of precisely the types of biochemical processes that are going to lead to cte. >> is there any test for cte before autopsy, after that? >> the are several imaging methodologies to propose to identify the presence of biomarkers within the body but there's nothing that is yet been confirmed. >> my understanding is the kind of subconcussive event has to do with the brain inside the skull, and has virtually nothing to do with helmets? >> at home again in fact absorb energy that would be easy and fast to improve home at the sight of the companies, the goal is to meet the standards. a standard as set forth to prevent fracturing, death on the field which is clearly a go with their very effective but they do nothing to prevent concussion at this point any meaningful sense. energy absorption would reduce the amount of energy that reaches the brain to if you reduce the amount of energy that reaches the brain you will reduce stress, compression on a cellular tissue that add that you will, in fact, start to see a reduction in the consequences of subconcussive it's. you should see a reduction in the long-term see reduction in situations such as cte. >> dr. comstock, you don't think that kids under one page to be playing tackle football? >> outside to a government in a recommendation spent as i said something about -- >> i am aware of the researchers dedicate an exact cut points. >> is somewhat on the panel say that? >> i did, your honor, ms. schakowsky. our organization is the one in five national organizations operating in th this space thate strongly that gradeschool boys and girls should play flag football exclusively, at a contact football should start in ninth grade with the transitional phase in seventh and eighth grade were in shorts and t-shirts intend to play in ninth begin to learn how to tackle another block. using the state of the art in tackling technique called seahawks tackling pioneered by the coaches pete carroll and rocky of the seattle seahawks >> there's been a good deal of pushback after jeff miller made his comment, jerry jones, the owner of the dallas cowboys, you know, has absolutely disregarded that. there's actually been some mocking the of that, and this idea between madness and football i think is really concerning. i wanted to just ask, let's say, i have a couple of other questions. dr. gregory, i am, you know, if once all, let me ask you before my time runs out. u.s.a. football guidelines limit full contact practices to four times a week, but i know this represents more contact practices that occur at higher levels of football, such as at the college level. and even in the nfl. so given all this evidence about repeated hits to the head, why hasn't u.s.a. football taken steps to further limit full contact practice for young children? >> the question is a good one, and we recognize that tackling causes injuries. if you look at data that we do in youth football -- >> so why haven't you? >> so what we have instituted is wasted trying to decrease the number of hits that are. the concern is -- >> want about four times a week speak with if you take away completely you still have to learn disco. at the youth level we don't have the resources to teach the skill. that's what we're trying to do is teach the skill come to learn how to tackle properly gradually over time. that is the goal to do it welcome to protect your head. >> thank you spent at this time on recognize myself for five minutes to ask questions. mr. o'neil, thank you for the work you do. appreciate the information you gave us a today. you advocate children under 14 should not be tackling a limited to ask athletes. has to relearn -- when they do enter again situation that they're not going to resort to a form more dangerous tackle, had been whatever the case may be? if they don't get that practice when the contact is not as hard as it will be later, is there a concern of them internalizing those techniques? >> a staff could possibly allow me to queue up to 17-second video clip. >> sure. >> number 24. on our agenda. the coach knows, is th is that f tackling the pnp to have devised this system in the seattle that has become the standard in just two years, introduced two years ago in the spring they put out three videos and as i say he tours with us. >> it's not that. it's as i say, 23? coach seto tackling interest. this is what we recommend in seventh and eighth grade. rather than hitting each other, these boys need to learn in shorts and t-shirts. they need an introduction to weight training. they need some strengthening of their necks which i think all this i guess you would agree is important in preventing concussion. they need to learn how to where the pads, and be ready with his gradual run it tonight great to be prepared without the many, many collisions involving youth contact football. as we heard from doctor mickey so eloquently two months ago, it's the cuba to the of head trauma that comes with brain injury. you don't want to start that at age five which is permissible according to some the organizations represented today, boys five is all plain contact football is in our minds quite surprising. in the lock? -- any luck? >> we will look at the video after. are the examples of cases where young kids have not had contact, and other vitae school age with you been successful? >> thank you for asking. tom brady. eli manning, peyton manning. >> i've heard of those folks. >> arching ending has waxed eloquently in the "washington post" just a few years ago i think his phrase was, god, what a great game flag football is. my son, a quarterback would not be playing college football if he had not played flag instead of content. it taught him everything he needed about reading defenses, making decisions, making the throws, all the teamwork of all the character building. believe me, those who suggest those qualities can only be developed and contact football have not heard my younger son and his teammates in the back seat of the car as i drive them around recounting their victories in flag football four and five years ago. the highlight of the athletic careers. they are already made football fans for a lifetime. they were the nfl jersey in plain flag you're making out of it healthy with an experience that is made in the young men that they are. >> thank you for that. coach teevens, give any thoughts on this if you wait until you're older to startling tackle techniques, is it going to be a problem? >> they will still catch up real quickly. want to thank them six points, we all played football in high school and all had very successful cruise. there's a litany of people of god on. i don't think is absolute. they will play at a young age to educate improperly, start slowly and make sure you deprived them as much contact as possible. >> dr. gregory, anything to add? >> i think you're going to take the contact way, that the education piece on how to tackle is imperative and that is the challenge for us in youth sports without the resources. u.s.a. football of ministers the largest flag football league in the country. and so we are proposed the flag football. it is ausa tackle football. it is u.s.a. football which is all inclusive. i think it's important that we promote flag football as well. >> thank you. let's go back, mr. o'neil, your organization has tried to change the culture by advocating limited contact more akin to what's been just as a professional level. is a george has been going against me highlight effect on the one state has adopted your standard so far. in light of the successful outcomes in the state have others expressed interest? >> that's a good question, mr. hudson. what we need is more participation from the state governing bodies around the country. the word is traveling. we find when the state governing body gets behind it, as happened in california two years ago, a piece of legislation passed for the first time in any state live in a contact on the practice field. they invited us out for a tour. coach seto of the cx, coach teevens, warren moon, we hit for cities in today's days and we have enormous participation because the cf which governs athletics in california made it mandatory for every state, for every coach in the state. so we saw 1200 coaches in today's. we're going to alabama in july and the same thing has occurred there. a very enlightened state, and executive director understand has made our clinic after seeing as last year mandatory for every coach in the state. so we will greet a ballroom full of more than 1000 coaches in alabama on july 20. >> fifteen seconds. any opposition have received? >> absolutely. i have dragged coach teevens to places with her 450 coaches at a convention, and that our session, 20 showed up and the other 430 were standing out in the hallway saying they didn't want to hear quite a. it's not like we're having waging success begets very mixed around the country. and will be until as i say into the state governing bodies at least give us a hearing and mandate that all the stakeholders can not just the coaches, coming to the group and hear what we have to say and see it on video. when they do we almost never failed to convert. >> great, thank you. at this time i will recognize mr. pallone for five minutes for any questions you may have. >> thank you. earlier this year at the ivy league received significant press attention for the move to eliminate tackling during regular-season practices. the league that has no contact practices during the regular season as well as strict rules about the amount of contact in practice during the spring and preseason. i want to ask mr. teevens, you implement these changes at dartmouth several years before the adopted by the ivy league. what motivates you to reduce the that of contact in your practices and what was the initial reaction when you proposed those changes? >> the injury rate was the stimulus an that we just had too many guys going down. mike webster store, concussion, and it struck me as we can do this in a better way, watching what we did during research on patent and we started to do. it was not well received. it's still not well received by an awful lot of people. i did make a recommendation and is a five minute discussion. all of the coach at the plate against dartmouth, and how we play, and now effectively tackle and the vote was unanimous. it was a progressive and mindsets to say this is the direction we should travel. >> how have the rates of head injuries changed since you limited these no contact policies? have you seen any of the benefits of? >> five years ago i was like most programs in the country, maybe 15-22 and a course of the year. this past season we had to am acutely existing conditions. both young men who can no longer participate, our defense which was actually ranked had zero concussions this year. spring practice the last two years my numbers come we have to zero in spring practice and that's somewhat concussion season in college football. >> in your opinion are full contact practices message to ensure success on game day and for athletes o future bruce? >> i don't believe so. to the point of you may contact you and everything you need to. you can replicate tackling styles on bags and pads and was listed i believe that a try to convince high school coaches of this as well. you can do it at any level. after a three year-old grandson i have tackle pads off of the couch. he gets it. i think that again crawl, walk, run mindset to introduce skills that would be helpful down the road but don't have to be practices live that frequently. >> given the research, do you think engaging in full contact practices five times a week there's significant risk for young athletes? >> without question. the more you get, the greater the risk of injury. by just eliminating we've seen that quite frankly on all aspects of her game, shoulders, backs, arms have diminished appreciably at it is mad make ua better football program. >> i wanted to ask mr. o'neil. we see many different rule changes being implemented across sports, across leagues, prostate. there have been some criticism that these rule changes upset the integrity of again. what do you think about the recent announcement that pop one is eliminating kickoffs nccic returns? without prevent brain injuries in your opinion? >> good question, mr. pallone. my reaction is, this is pop warner's way of saying that gradeschool boys are not capable physically of playing the game the way it is designed. they are making our argument. they are making the argument that these boys should be converted to flag football until they reached a physical maturity of 14 or 15, to play the game infrastructure. we advocate the basic changes in the game. ..

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