Aug 28, 2017Players Test New Helmets
On Friday, Creighton Prep used its Riddell SpeedFlex helmets, which announce when players take a hard hit, for the first time in a real game. According to KETV, the team has been using the helmets at practice this season.
Bill Kleber, Creighton’s head athletic trainer, said that once a player takes a hit that exceeds the 99th percentile, or a series of equivalent hits, the helmet will announce the player’s name and helmet number, at which point the school follows its policy for hard hits.
“When our sensor goes off, that kid’s coming out of practice or the game,” Kleber said, “and we’re going to take them through a very quick evaluation on the sidelines, and then determine if he has symptoms of a concussion or not.”
Football players for high schools in the Omaha Public Schools also wore the helmets to their games on Friday, but because they did not have a policy in place for responding to hard hits, the technology that announces hits was not activated.
Kleber said that the helmets made it possible for him to tell whether he’d been teaching the players how to tackle properly.
“I really feel like so far it’s worked well for us and we’re pretty lucky to have them,” Kleber said.
