Eight Days and no wrestling...Herpes

[sportsfever145]

Point of emphasis every year for officials and coaches.
Referee's duty is to check the wrestlers the day of a match, but
Referees are the last line of defense in keeping wrestlers with communicable skin diseases off the mat. The safety of all who step on any competition's mat(s) is at stake. Coaches must realize that referees would not be placed in a posi- tion to make difficult participation decisions as often if coaches would check all of their wrestlers each day. (source PIAA site)

Coaches are responsible to clean the mats daily,
maintain proper ventilation in wrestling room
CLEAN TOWELS,HEADGEAR,SHOES,KNEEPADS<<<Parents need to enforce this!
wrestlers need to shower after each practice, not wait to go home
Main point check yourself daily
Shower again at home before bed.

Its preventable and obviously can ruin part of a season.

[LionDad]

What I think bothers most folks is did the Westmont coaches know prior to the tournament and if not how could they not. Apparently according to some there were multiple kids who had various body parts taped up, were they questioned about why?

Is it the schools option as to how to react to the threat of this? United shut everything down just in case for eight days. North Star and Conemaugh Township didn't they both wrestled matches within days of this happening, so if any kid from one of those teams would have something and infect another kid from Berlin or Bedford and it just keeps going.

I did hear the elementary tournament flipped the mats over on Sunday, but what if anything was in the locker room. I'd take a wild guess that no janitors really scrubbed the locker rooms very well on a weekend.

[Chiefwapum]

I read the article in the Tribune Democrat concerning the mat herpes and I would have to say someone dropped the ball on not checking the wrestlers.
I also am reading between the lines and wondering why some of the wrestlers were taped up and never checked. Sounds to me like they really turned the
other check on this particular weigh in. CT has always keep the mats clean and does flip them followed by scrubbing them prior to the elementary tournament.
I sure hope this is an isolated incident and no one else contracts this. I also was told the athletic director/vp never attends wrestling events and I am wondering
doesn't he also have responsibility here? I used to find it humorous every time CT would be in the press for a particular incident and
always chalked it up to an administration full of Drama queens but, with the multiple issues arising at that school time and time again It appears they need a change
in the administration higher ups. Hopefully the new superintendent sees this and makes adjustments.

[bedfordalumni]

i can tell you with 100% certainty that there was full skin checks done before the bedford/northstar match.

[TheRealBleacherCoach]

at the varsity level officials should be present at weigh ins. and as for skin checks that is suppose to be done when wrestler steps on the scale. if officials knew about the skin condition and let he kids wrestle im not sure they should be officiating anymore.

[LionDad]

Doing a skin check at Bedford/North Star doesn't matter, this stuff has roughly an eight day incubation period so there could be kids at NS who are infected and not showing signs yet. There could be a chance that no one from the other seven schools that were at the tourney get it, but why even take a chance of spreading it even more?

[Chiefwapum]

What really peeves me about this situation is the fact that it could have been avoided if a couple coaches of the kids whom had the virus just
didn't let them wrestle not to mention having a ref there like your supposed to do for skin checks. I don't quite understand how a coach who is
in the room with their wrestlers on a daily basis could overlook it and try to push his kid through weigh ins. The more I hear about this the more
it ticks me off. Once again, a few inconsiderate people give wrestling another black eye, as if that is what they need. We can only hope that no
more cases of this actually shows up.