According to the Texas studies, at least 276 football players were infected with MRSA from 2003 through 2005, a rate of 517 per 100,000. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a rate for the general population of 32 per 100,000.
MRSA causes more deaths than any of the 51 infectious diseases tracked by the CDC, including AIDS, according to CDC data.
Football players are vulnerable to turf burns that MRSA can exploit, according to Elliot Pellman, medical liaison for the National Football League. The sport produces more MRSA infections than any other, said Marilyn Felkner, the epidemiologist who led the Texas studies. But her department wasn't able to make a valid statistical link between artificial turf and MRSA infections, she said.
Researchers attribute MRSA's spread to the overuse of antibiotics. MRSA outbreaks can be minimized by frequent hand washing, covering scratches and turf burns, disinfecting locker rooms and not sharing towels or razors.
Whiny letter alert: I've got to believe there were better potential uses of the space than the letter to the editor that The Daily Star in Oneonta ran yesterday.
In it, senior Monica Birdsall of Otego seems to think that 12th-graders have a right to play at the expense of more talented players, reasoning in part that you can't earn a college scholarship if you're sitting on the bench.
To be blunt, a senior who cannot crack the starting lineup or serve as a key reserve (such as one of the first three players off the bench on a basketball team) should have no expectation of getting into games except for a stray minute here and there. And scholarship money would be out of the question, too.
.
Birdsall over-reaches when she says making it to senior year "is a big accomplishment" and then suggesting favoritism is at play when a coach cuts a senior in favor of keeping an underclassmen. She does score points, though, for noting that, "If the coaches know they aren't going to play you, there is no reason for you to be on that team."
I know more than a few coaches who routinely cut large percentages of seniors who aren't going to be a factor in games. Others keep a marginal senior or two on the roster but tell them up front that playing time isn't in their future. Most of those athletes usually stick around because they enjoy the practice environment with their friends and still do get to experience the excitement of championship runs, etc.
And Birdsall swings and misses completely with her last sentence: "It's OK if you don't win every game." That's marginally true at best. The modified and JV programs exist to help develop future varsity players. The varsity is where the wins and losses really do count. Just ask any football coach who loses his job after back-to-back 3-5 seasons or a basketball coach who loses his gig for going 7-13 too many times over a four-year period.
