Minnesota Concussion Law

The Minnesota Legislature's "Concussion Law" Requires Online Training for All Coaches and Officials and Concussion Education for all Parents and Athletes (began in the fall of 2011).

The Minnesota Legislature passed a "Concussion Law" which requires any municipality, business, school district or nonprofit organization that organizes a youth athletic activity and charges a fee to follow the statute's requirements, including implementing concussion training and education to improve player safety and establish safe return-to-play policies for athletes who sustain a concussion.

The law mandates that:

• All coaches (head and assistants) and officials receive concussion training and education by September 1, 2011, and then at three-year intervals thereafter.
• Coaches must remove an athlete from activity if they exhibit signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion and/or are suspected of sustaining a concussion.
• The law also requires an appropriate health care professional's signature to return to play if an athlete is removed due to a concussion or is showing signs or symptoms of a concussion.

The Concussion Education we recommend for coaches and officials is the online video training session developed by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Federation of State High Schools. This course requires registration but is free. Over 200,000 coaches and officials have already successfully completed this course. The training process involves watching a video and then successfully completing a quiz. The entire training module can be completed in a little over a half an hour and then participants can print out a certificate on their desktop or print and scan the certificate to create a digital file.

Click here to order and view the free course.

Certificates of Completion must be emailed, faxed or mailed to ScoutStop prior to your first game.

joe@minnesotabaseballacademy.com / Joe Loftus

Parents and athletes do not have to complete the training but should access and review the concussion awareness and educational information available at CDC's website: http://www.cdc.gov/concussion/HeadsUp/youth.html