I received this email late last night:
Friends….
Assemblyman Cooley’s office just phoned to say that Gov. Brown has signed Ca. AB 2127, making California the first state to legislate reduced contact on high school practice fields. As you know, other states have taken similar action via their governing bodies of high school athletics but, after failed attempts in Texas, Illinois and Connecticut, Ca. is the first state to pass legislation and have it signed into law. Public announcement will be made shortly. Thanks to Warren Moon, Oliver Luck, Patrick Larimore, Leigh Steinberg, Dr. Chris Giza and others who made it happen.
The law limits full-contact practices to two 90-minute sessions per week during the season and preseason, and prohibits full-contact practices during the offseason. Currently, coaches can hold full-contact practices daily. The law also forces schools to bench players for at least a week if they suffer a concussion. Current rules allow players to return within a day.
The last part of the above paragraph has me very excited about this legislation – AT LEAST one week down time!
Good on CA for taking this to the next step, honestly I don’t think we need more legislation, however if you don’t want to listen this may be the route it has to go…
NOW CALIFORNIA GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR AND LICENSE THE ATHLETIC TRAINERS IN YOUR STATE! THEY MUST BE RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT THEY ARE: ALLIED HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS.
The Concussion Blog 
Nice to see CA finally in the forefront on something concussion related. This law actually develops quite a paradox. Yes, we have been trying, unsuccessfully, for years to get our trainers licensed. Now CA AB 2127 states that any jr high or high school player diagnoses with a concussion must complete a 7 day RTP protocol, supervised by a licensed health care provider, before they can return to practice/play (where does learn fit in here?). So who exactly is going to supervise this process since we do not have licensure for our ATC’s?
Our state of PA adopted similar rules this year. Do you realize how hollow rules like this actually are?
Most state rules on “contact” in-season are referring to “live” conditions. There are very few coaches that use “live” tackling during practices. In fact, the school I’ve been at the last 13 years has had maybe 5% live tackling, and 0% in the last half decade.
Do you know how many concussions I’ve had from this “acceptable” level of daily contact? Almost 50. How many game sustained concussions (including both Varsity and JV games each week)? 10.
As long as the drill isn’t “live”, which by definition used by most states requires taking a person to the ground, all speed and level of contact is allowed. The rule is there as a facade of doing something, when in reality it doesn’t.
If the drill/practice allows helmets to hit at anything more than a walk through pace, then it’s not limiting concussion level events.