VoyageDallas - Meet TeamSafe™
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In 1989 I offered to provide medical coverage for a youth track and field meet with 700 kids. I was the only medical provider at the event. Boy, was I in for a shock. I showed up with my black “Marcus Welby” doctor’s bag and was woefully unprepared for the onslaught of injuries and questions from parents and coaches. It quickly taught me to get rid of the black bag and purchase a real trainer’s kit. It also taught me how unprepared the administrators, coaches, and parents were for medical emergencies.
That year I was invited to become an instructor for a course called Care and Prevention of Athletic Injuries in the Montgomery County School System in Maryland. I taught a small portion of the course for about 15 years and then became the co-chairperson of the course for the next 9 years. I learned that coaches realize the importance of being able to care for injuries, but in the end, just want to coach. Again, without this information, they are completely unprepared. Unfortunately, this course was only required when the coach first started and no updates were required.
Fast forward to my family’s move to Texas. I called on youth sports organizations and offered to teach CPR and basic sports first aid. Most said, “no, we do not have the time or the money for this.” I was again shocked and frankly, appalled by this attitude.
We enrolled my son in the local soccer league and I became a coach and board member. Again, I saw how unprepared everyone was for an on the field injury. My team was safe and the team we were playing was safe, but what about the other 15 games going on at the same time? After all the years of sideline coverage and education, not much seemed to have changed in the area of safety. If anything, it got worse because of the multitude of communication tools people used.
This lead to the idea of putting all this information in an app and a course. It really did not make sense to me to require coaches to take a course if they did not have immediate access to information like emergency contacts and each child’s medical information.
Things like the “concussion protocol” are so confusing, most in the medical profession do not know what to do.
