One of the highly debated topics surrounding women's lacrosse in the last few years has been about increasing head protection. Today in women's lacrosse players are only required to wear
goggles to protect their eyes against high sticks or ball contact but nothing is required to protect their heads from injury. With more attention being drawn to concussions in sports and the importance of proper head protection the same concern has developed in Women's Lacrosse.
There have already been some strides towards better head protection in women's lacrosse. With some top tier teams like Florida already wearing
protective headgear the controversy has grown from a debate to possibly becoming a new standard in women's lacrosse. US Lacrosse has already suggested a change in safety standards for head protection in women's lacrosse with all signs pointing to
headgear in the foreseeable future.
The
headgear would create better impact protection for the head and brain from most contact associated with women's lacrosse. Since women's lacrosse is obviously not a full contact sport a large majority of head injuries occur from accidents during game play. Those can consist of missed check resulting in stick contact or a missed shot on cage that ends up hitting a player. Now this type of contact while accidental can result in some rather severe head injuries. Which is why the headgear can help drastically reduce players chances of obtaining a head injury.
While parents, coaches and referees are at the front of this push for new mandatory
headgear it is actually in the players best interest to support this new rule. Ask any athlete that has ever been injured and forced to the sideline, it is the absolute worst. The goal of this new initiative is to keep players safer and in the game longer.
