Playing a sport always comes with risks. One of the major risks in football is the chance of getting a concussion. This year, the football team is attempting to reduce the risk by taking steps to increase player safety.
The primary way they have chosen to do this is by purchasing Guardian Caps for each player. According to the Guardian Cap website, the cap is a soft-shell helmet cover worn on the outside of the player’s helmet. The idea is that the soft shell on the outside of the helmet reduces the amount of force absorbed by the hard shell. This, in turn, decreases the force transmitted to soft padding on the inside of the helmet, with the end goal of significantly decreasing the force the head has to absorb. According to the company, the caps are able to reduce impact by up to 33 percent.
Head athletic trainer Kim Schimmoeller said she believes the helmets have good science behind them and will be able to help decrease the amount of concussions. She said football and soccer are the two sports at Bluffton with the highest number of concussions, and that nothing can be done to completely prevent them from happening.
“Nothing is 100 percent preventable,” Schimmoeller said. “Even if you wear a brace for an ACL tear, nothing is saying that that brace is 100 percent preventing your ACL from tearing again, so no matter what we do prevention wise, nothing is going to be 100 percent. I think this is going to help absorb some of the impact, so it’s going to increase your prevention percentage, but nothing is ever 100 percent.”
Head football coach Aaron Krepps said there have been four concussions on the team this year, and three of those were practice related. This is part of what fed into the decision of getting the Guardian Caps.
“We’re trying to take a proactive course with the team,” Krepps said. “We’ve had a couple of concussions on the team this year, which is common, but looking at the statistics from the season, more have come from practice than from games, so trying to figure out a way to eliminate some of those causes was really the driving force behind it.”
The caps will be worn Sunday through Friday during practices, with game days on Saturday being the only day they are not used.
“They’re getting more reps during practice, so if we can help prevent concussion on those days, to help reduce the amount of impact they’re getting compared to having nothing, that’s the best thing,” Schimmoeller said.
The process was initiated by Krepps. The caps have been out for several years, so he saw them through various media outlets and articles, leading him to believe they would be a good fit for the team. From there, getting the caps was a fairly quick process.
“I spoke with the head athletic trainer and with the athletic director, and weighed the pros and cons,” Krepps said. “Obviously the pros heavily outweigh the cons in this situation, and it was feasible from a budgetary standpoint that we could make this happen, so we made the decision and went ahead with it.”
Krepps said that after two days of practice, the team was already able to notice the difference with the Guardian Caps. He noted that they benefit linemen particularly, because that is where a majority of repeated collisions occur.
Junior right tackle John Jones said that while having the Guardian Caps doesn’t change the way the team practices, he believes they are an important precautionary measure taken by the team.
“Concussions haven’t been a huge problem in the past, but it’s more of a precautionary thing rather than us trying to be reactive to it if something were to happen,” Jones said. “It takes some getting used to, because what football player likes to have anything on the top of their helmet? It’s weird, it’s odd.”
Schimmoeller said that so far, she has mainly seen NCAA Division I programs using Guardian Gaps, with significantly fewer Division III schools using them, making Bluffton stand out.
“I’m really excited that the administration is on board, it shows the support they have for our team and our student athletes,” Krepps said.
