Just now, theguru said:

I didn't realize that, is the Ludlow surface harder than the surfaces at other schools?  

Yes, it is.  It feels like tiny gravel almost.  Turf already causes most concussions, this would cause even more.  There is no give to it like the fields with the rubber crumb fill.  It reminds me of how hard astro tuf was, except you can wear cleats on this.

8 hours ago, New Colonel said:

Yes, it is.  It feels like tiny gravel almost.  Turf already causes most concussions, this would cause even more.  There is no give to it like the fields with the rubber crumb fill.  It reminds me of how hard astro tuf was, except you can wear cleats on this.

There was zero concussions caused by the turf between JV and Varsity players the last two seasons.

11 hours ago, New Colonel said:

We appreciate it.  I still hate the surface because of how hard it is, but this is good for Ludlow as the school and community.  

11 hours ago, theguru said:

I didn't realize that, is the Ludlow surface harder than the surfaces at other schools?  

I've heard quite a few comments from parents of NKY football players talking about how the surface at Ludlow is notably harder. That's honestly part of the nature of the beast, honestly speaking. The infill that the Motz Group utilized for their field is granulated walnut husks, which I believe are coated to help prevent them from biodegrading. The infill is heavier and won't float away during flooding like rubber infill will, but the end result is a harder playing surface.

11 hours ago, New Colonel said:

Yes, it is.  It feels like tiny gravel almost.  Turf already causes most concussions, this would cause even more.  There is no give to it like the fields with the rubber crumb fill.  It reminds me of how hard astro tuf was, except you can wear cleats on this.

3 hours ago, icalldownfire said:

There was zero concussions caused by the turf between JV and Varsity players the last two seasons.

So my wife is a pediatric neurologist, and as much as I follow high school football, concussions (particularly the ones that happen to kids, which medicine is showing are much more dangerous due to the fact that they present damage to brain tissue that is still developing) are a pretty regular discussion in our household, and my wife regularly checks up on concussions.

The studies on how turf impacts concussions are still finding varying results, largely to the fact that I don't think they often take the full perspective of the how's and why's into account. Historically when it comes to football and the concussions that occur from football, about 1 in 5 concussions (20%) occur as a result of head-to-ground contact. That's what they know.

It's not like there's a constant volume of studies being released on this, but over the last 12 years or so there has generally a new study that gets published every 18 months or so, and my wife has read all of them. Some studies have found that turf fields increase the rate of head-to-ground concussions, some have found that turf fields don't change the rate of head-to-ground concussions, and other studies show that turf fields decrease the rate of head-to-ground concussions. From what I can tell, about 45% of the studies say that turf fields increase the rate of head-to-ground concussions, about 45% say that turf fields don't make any change to the rate of head-to-ground concussions, and about 10% say that turf fields reduce the rate of head-to-ground concussions.

From talking to my wife about what she gleaned from reading all of the studies, and the BIG points of contention that I think show up with virtually all of those studies:

A) Turf technology, which has been around since the 1960s (AstroTurf was invented in 1965), has changed by leaps and bounds over the last 15-20 years, and it's changed even moreso in the last dozen years as it turf fields have started being adopted so widely. The studies typically only cite "turf playing surfaces" as their point of study, and without them taking all the varying types and "generations" of turf into account, the study simply is not complete enough, if you ask me.

B) There is some talk about infill material in some of those studies, but I've yet to see any information presented in them that indicates there was a discussion with the manufacturers/installers of the turf fields. And if they aren't researching with the field surface/infill manufacturers, how is the study supposed to know whether or not they are dealing with first, second, third, or fourth generation infill materials? For example, I don't ever recall reading through one of the studies and seeing anything mentioned other than "artificial infill material"...so I would seriously doubt whether they even know if they may be including data gathered from a field that had a naturally-based infill material like the walnut-husk infill they used at Ludlow's stadium.

C) Studies are gathered from hospitals and patients who volunteer to participate in them. Nature of the beast, but those hospitals are typically "teaching hospitals," which are almost universally the hospitals in urban areas associated with universities that have med schools. That means information is seldom being gathered from the smaller hospitals and satellite hospitals that you typically find outside of urban centers, largely due to the fact that those hospitals don't have robust research departments, and are staffed with smaller medical workforces aren't able to spend time documenting info for a research they want to participate in. Similarly, you have to ask a patient for permission to use their information in a study, and there are frequently people who decline to give that permission. The takeaway there is that the study IS documenting when concussions happen on turf fields vs. natural grass fields, but they may not have many concussions coming from teams playing on natural grass, and they can only say something like "Out of X1 concussions suffered on turf fields, there were Y1 % of them that occurred as a result of head-to-ground contact. And out of X2 concussions suffered on natural grass fields, there were Y2 % of them that occurred as a result of head-to-ground contact." But then when you look further and see that the study was conducted over 3 years and that it included 888 players who reported concussions, you go on to read the fine print and you see that 627 of those concussions took place on turf fields and 261 of those concussions took place on natural grass fields. So there isn't an equal sample size. The studies also don't tell you (because they aren't allowed to) how many players who reported concussions declined to have their information included in the study, so who knows if there were actually 2500 concussions that came in and only 888 opted to have their information included. And who knows if that information could have completely changed the way the numbers shook out.

5 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

I've heard quite a few comments from parents of NKY football players talking about how the surface at Ludlow is notably harder. That's honestly part of the nature of the beast, honestly speaking. The infill that the Motz Group utilized for their field is granulated walnut husks, which I believe are coated to help prevent them from biodegrading. The infill is heavier and won't float away during flooding like rubber infill will, but the end result is a harder playing surface.

Motz Group does offer walnut shell infill, but that is not what Ludlow has, they have Envirofill which is artificial (probably a very dense plastic).  And it is way harder than the rubber crumb fill.

5 minutes ago, New Colonel said:

Motz Group does offer walnut shell infill, but that is not what Ludlow has, they have Envirofill which is artificial (probably a very dense plastic).  And it is way harder than the rubber crumb fill.

Duh-duh-duh...I knew that. I even posted about it back when they were planning the construction of the new surface, haha. Good catch, man!

5 hours ago, Colonels_Wear_Blue said:

So my wife is a pediatric neurologist, and as much as I follow high school football, concussions (particularly the ones that happen to kids, which medicine is showing are much more dangerous due to the fact that they present damage to brain tissue that is still developing) are a pretty regular discussion in our household, and my wife regularly checks up on concussions.

The studies on how turf impacts concussions are still finding varying results, largely to the fact that I don't think they often take the full perspective of the how's and why's into account. Historically when it comes to football and the concussions that occur from football, about 1 in 5 concussions (20%) occur as a result of head-to-ground contact. That's what they know.

It's not like there's a constant volume of studies being released on this, but over the last 12 years or so there has generally a new study that gets published every 18 months or so, and my wife has read all of them. Some studies have found that turf fields increase the rate of head-to-ground concussions, some have found that turf fields don't change the rate of head-to-ground concussions, and other studies show that turf fields decrease the rate of head-to-ground concussions. From what I can tell, about 45% of the studies say that turf fields increase the rate of head-to-ground concussions, about 45% say that turf fields don't make any change to the rate of head-to-ground concussions, and about 10% say that turf fields reduce the rate of head-to-ground concussions.

From talking to my wife about what she gleaned from reading all of the studies, and the BIG points of contention that I think show up with virtually all of those studies:

A) Turf technology, which has been around since the 1960s (AstroTurf was invented in 1965), has changed by leaps and bounds over the last 15-20 years, and it's changed even moreso in the last dozen years as it turf fields have started being adopted so widely. The studies typically only cite "turf playing surfaces" as their point of study, and without them taking all the varying types and "generations" of turf into account, the study simply is not complete enough, if you ask me.

B) There is some talk about infill material in some of those studies, but I've yet to see any information presented in them that indicates there was a discussion with the manufacturers/installers of the turf fields. And if they aren't researching with the field surface/infill manufacturers, how is the study supposed to know whether or not they are dealing with first, second, third, or fourth generation infill materials? For example, I don't ever recall reading through one of the studies and seeing anything mentioned other than "artificial infill material"...so I would seriously doubt whether they even know if they may be including data gathered from a field that had a naturally-based infill material like the walnut-husk infill they used at Ludlow's stadium.

C) Studies are gathered from hospitals and patients who volunteer to participate in them. Nature of the beast, but those hospitals are typically "teaching hospitals," which are almost universally the hospitals in urban areas associated with universities that have med schools. That means information is seldom being gathered from the smaller hospitals and satellite hospitals that you typically find outside of urban centers, largely due to the fact that those hospitals don't have robust research departments, and are staffed with smaller medical workforces aren't able to spend time documenting info for a research they want to participate in. Similarly, you have to ask a patient for permission to use their information in a study, and there are frequently people who decline to give that permission. The takeaway there is that the study IS documenting when concussions happen on turf fields vs. natural grass fields, but they may not have many concussions coming from teams playing on natural grass, and they can only say something like "Out of X1 concussions suffered on turf fields, there were Y1 % of them that occurred as a result of head-to-ground contact. And out of X2 concussions suffered on natural grass fields, there were Y2 % of them that occurred as a result of head-to-ground contact." But then when you look further and see that the study was conducted over 3 years and that it included 888 players who reported concussions, you go on to read the fine print and you see that 627 of those concussions took place on turf fields and 261 of those concussions took place on natural grass fields. So there isn't an equal sample size. The studies also don't tell you (because they aren't allowed to) how many players who reported concussions declined to have their information included in the study, so who knows if there were actually 2500 concussions that came in and only 888 opted to have their information included. And who knows if that information could have completely changed the way the numbers shook out.

Awesome information, I and others appreciate it.  

Most of my comment is based off of my non-scientific observations coaching football and watching the conversion of just about every field go from grass to turf.  Despite over the past 20 years, crazy innovations in helmet technology, teaching how to make contact without leading with your head, I personally don't see a big difference in concussion rates dropping.  I seem to see more (your wife probably knows much better than I do of course).  And overwhelmingly, the concussions I do see are not caused by a hit, but by a kid's head hitting the turf.  When I talk to other coaches, they say the same thing (again, I know it's not scientific at all).  We also see it in NCAA and NFL when they show the replays of the whiplash movements that occur when the players' heads hit on turf fields.  

Now, for high school and below, one thing I have also noticed over the years is less teams focusing on neck strength, which definitely helps prevent concussions.  Coaches need to be educated on the importance of neck excersises to strengthen players' ability to prevent injury.

There's of course a lot more that goes into this like that we actually recognize concussions moreso today and are more keenly aware of them instead of the old "You just got your bell rung, you'll be fine." 

I used to be 100% team turf, even 5 years ago, now I hate it with a passion.  It causes more injuries, costs way more to maintain than grass, doesn't last as long as the manufacturers claim, and probably causes cancer with everyone breathing in all the gases that come off of it.  We claim safety is our number 1 priority, but if it was, nobody would be using turf at their facilities.  

5 hours ago, New Colonel said:

Awesome information, I and others appreciate it.  

I appreciate it too.  CWB is a fountain of information on almost any topic. ?