Published: 11:31 PM, Wed Jan 18, 2012
Wrestling coaches grapple with safety concerns
By Earl Vaughan
Scholastic sports editor
A crippling injury to a North Carolina high school wrestler has increased concern for the safety of wrestlers around the state.
Luke Hampton, a star for Alleghany High School, is paralyzed from the neck down after suffering serious injuries during a tournament in early December. He was recently transferred to a treatment center in Atlanta that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries.
Published reports say Hampton broke his neck in two places after attempting to take an opponent down to the mat and went crashing into a wall instead.
The official rules of high school wrestling as published by the National Federation of State High School Associations allow some flexibility on how much clearance is needed between the edge of a wrestling mat and any fixed object like a wall.
The rulebook says there should be an area of 10 feet between the mat, walls and team benches and the scorer's table, but for both dual meets and tournaments it adds the phrase "where facilities permit."
There is nothing in the rule book that addresses the issue of clearance in practice facilities. Many wrestling teams have their own room at a high school where they conduct practice. In many cases, these rooms provide little or no clearance between the edge of the mat and the wall.
Que Tucker, deputy commissioner of the N.C. High School Athletic Association, said schools have been contacting her office since the accident seeking direction on how to handle the situation.
"What we are trying to do is get them to minimize risk," Tucker said. "If you don't have to have a tournament and put all those mats in there, don't do it. If you can minimize risk and have nine feet to the wall, we understand. That's OK."
Tournaments pose a major problem for schools since multiple mats are used so more than one match can go on at a time.
The emphasis on the rule caused problems at Jack Britt's annual Boneyard Bash tournament last weekend. Britt coach John Deweese had to eliminate one mat.
"It slowed down the tournament," Deweese said. "We had the officials, but we couldn't run a mat. It would have saved time and people would have gotten home a little earlier."
Deweese said in the 12 years he's held the Boneyard tournament, the school has wrestled some 500 matches per year. In all that time, he said the school has never had someone seriously hurt by running into a wall. "I see where they are coming from with the safety issue, but I think 10 feet from the end of the mat is not realistic," he said.
South View athletic director David Culbreth, a former wrestling coach at Seventy-First, is concerned the rule could be expanded to wrestling rooms and force schools to make drastic changes in where they practice.
"I think the National Federation needs to look at some clarification with that rule in regard to wrestling rooms," Culbreth said. "There are no regulations as far as live wrestling in wrestling rooms."
Culbreth said he's known schools that wrestled on a stage with little room, no wall padding and a seven or eight foot drop off the stage to the floor. "We don't need to ban wrestling rooms," he said. "We need to check our facilities and identify any dangerous areas."
Culbreth said schools may need to get creative in order to provide safety. He heard this year that Rosewood High School took a wrestling mat outdoors and held matches on its football field.
In the big WRAL tournament in Raleigh, two mats were put down in a school cafeteria and matches were held there.
"Coaches are going to have to look at what kind of tournaments they are running and what they can do to cut down on the times," Culbreth said.
Scholastic sports editor Earl Vaughan Jr. can be reached at vaughane@fayobserver.com or 486-3519.