Ear Damage–we need earplugs NOW

Ok–I’m sure you think I’m Chicken Little right now for that title, but….
Prolonged exposure (more than 3-4 hours) to 70dB causes ear damage while instantaneous exposure to 120dB also causes permanent damage. Loud music via headphones–FIVE minutes starts to cause damage while large sporting events or concerts, the damage starts in FIFTEEN.

This is CDC information by the way which can be found within the cdc.gov website.

According to NPR (yeah, not a health site…I get it), the ambient noise level of a crowd at an indoor youth tournament is 90dB but according to Paul Ferrell (of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association), that level of noise begins causing damage in 151.2 minutes….see where this is going?

What about whistles though?

Well, if we take info from places like ‘Ref’s World’ or ‘Awesome Hoops’, what we find is that the decibel-level of the top 8 brands goes: 113, 117, 119, 124, 124, 127, 127, 128. Oof.

WARNING: THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG–I’m trying to show my work so others can check/make sure I’m being sincere/legit here.

Now let’s look at what we are doing to kids, coaches, and parents attending (because almost every referee wears ear protection). I’m going to go through my calculations here and the arbitrary numbers I use first.

I’m using an Illinois HS kid’s schedule.
1. I’m presuming kids sit at their court rather than leave the noisy environment when not playing.
2. HS tournaments are five matches, usually in a single day and within a single gym, mostly with eight participating teams. Total exposure is then either 7 or 8 per court and *fourteen* or *sixteen* total
3. I’m presuming a small tournament is one-day with two courts, so that teams are in a pool, officiating twice then two playoff matches (officiating once), so total matches in the gym is 6 pool plus 3 playoff per court for *nine*–which is *eighteen* in the gym.
4. I’m assuming a mid-size tournament is going to give 6-7 matches of playing time and require 2-3 matches as the work team, so you’re looking at *nine* matches at the court. There are going to be 8-16 courts on average with two days of exposure–time in the gym before/after pools/play are complete means exposure to *72*-*144* matches.
5. Qualifiers have 100 courts with two days of pools (6 matches), being in the gym looking for the court, waiting for delayed courts, etc, for likely 2 matches of time…and then a third day of playoffs–another 2-4 matches (I’ll just go with 3 matches of exposure). This means exposure to 11 matches directly–but with 100 courts, that’s *1,100* matches. We’ll reduce this to *1,000 for simplicity*.
6. Nationals is 3 days of 4-team pools and a Championship day with 3 matches. We’ll call this 64 courts. So that’s 6 pool matches for 3 days (18 matches) plus the 3 Championship matches (21 now)…multiplied by 64 courts for *1,344* matches of exposure…but let’s reduce this to *1,000* for simplicity.

I’m going to presume ‘direct’ vicinity means 3 courts–player’s plus two adjacent. Everything else will get thrown into increasing ambient noise.

So–we’ve got kids in the direct vicinity for
HS usual : 2 matches
HS Tourney: 15 matches/tournament
SMALL: 18 matches/tournament
MID: 27 matches/direct plus 45-117 of indirect
QUALIFIER: 33 matches/direct plus 967+ indirect
NATIONALS 63 matches/direct plus 937+ indirect

So what’s typical playing for a kid?

In Illinois, a HS kid plays 15 single-match dates that are JV/V and then 20 in tournament settings (4 dates, usually).
A kid playing at a small club is going to do 4 small/’regional’ tournaments, a mid-size tournament, and then go to one Qualifier.

Playing for a mid-tier club, you get 3-4 small tournaments, 3 mid-size tournaments, one Qualifier and AAU Nationals (though many won’t do the AAU tournament to end the year)

Playing for an ‘elite’ club, they are doing two small tournaments, four tourneys via a Power League (I’ll call those mid-size), 2-3 Qualifiers, and then either AAU or USAV Nationals.
***

So that gives us for matches exposed:
HS ONLY: 90 matches (30 regular…JV/V, plus 60 via tournaments)
SMALL CLUB KID: 222 matches (90 HS +tourneys), 1000+ indirect
MIDSIZE CLUB KID: 339 matches plus 2000+ indirect
ELITE CLUB KID: 396 matches (I used 3 Qualifiers) plus 4300+ indirect

So how many whistles per set:
Captains Meeting, Team 1 Court, Team 2 Court, Handshakes, Serve, Play Dead, Substitute, Timeout, Ball on Court, Repeating a Whistle (wasn’t heard, coaches are delaying), end of set/match

–I think these are all the categories. Let’s assume close sets…but no matches ever go three. I’m going to work with every set going 25-22. So per set:
1 – Captain Meeting (1)
1 – Tm 1 Court (2)
1 – Tm 2 Court (3)
1 – Handshakes (4)
47 – Serves (51)
47 – Point End (98)
20 – 10 subs/team (118)
3 – Total Timeouts (121)
3 – End of TO (124)
1 – Replay during match (125)
1 – End of set/match (126)
–126 whistles per set…which means 252 per match.

252 whistle blows at a decibel level that we’ve already seen can cause IMMEDIATE ear damage if in close proximity. We’ll use ‘d’ to abbreviate direct exposure and ‘ie’ for more distant whistles. So over the course of a VB year, we’ve got kids exposed to:
HS ONLY: 22,680d whistle blows
SMALL CLUB KID: 55,944d / 252,000ie
MIDSIZE CLUB KID: 85,428d / 504,000ie
ELITE CLUB KID: 99,792d / 1,083,000ie

Rationally though–not every direct proximity whistle blow will cause damage. It’s just ‘possible’. So let’s assume only 1-in-500 (0.2%) causes some sort of damage. What’s that mean for the number of times hearing is damaged in a season:
HS: 45.36
SM CL: 111.88
MID CL: 170.86
ELI CL: 199.58

But–maybe 1/500 is damage but it heals over the course of time. So let’s assume permanent damage only happens once every 5,000 whistles (0.02% of the time). Guess what…that means we’re ‘only’ hurting kids’ ears this number of times per year:
HS: 4.54
SM CL: 11.19
MID CL: 17.09
ELI CL: 19.96

PER YEAR. Now think about how many years they play club. An ‘elite’ kid who plays four years at that level is going to damage her ears EIGHTY TIMES…before she’s got a diploma.

Think about this as a coach. You’re there first, you stay until the end.
Think about this as a club director. You’re there for the morning AND afternoon flights at tournaments. *DOUBLE* these numbers for the effect on your ears.

Now I think of the constant ringing in my ears after 30+ years of never wearing hearing protection at any tournament…and I think of the thousands of kids who don’t know they are junking their hearing.

We have a responsibility to the kids (if not ourselves) to start mandating hearing protection for athletes at club tournaments.