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I didn't catch it this morning, but my wife said that WTOL reported that the cause of death was complications related to sickle cell anemia; lung and heart failure I believe. I don't know much about this disease, but is it something that could be found during a routine physical?

I never played College sports, but for HS and younger the physical process is real straightforward. Actually the Wood County Hospital has a "Physical Night" where they have a number of doctors there and line up all the people who want to have physicals. There is a huge line of seemingly half the kids who want to play sports in Wood County. Obviously in that case they are going as fast as possible to get things out.

Even other than that quick & dirty way your typical sports physical is blood pressure, height, weight, turn your head & cough son. I would think that you would need blood work done in order to detect sickle cell. Typical sports physicals don't find a whole lot.

I agree that the typical high school physical wouldn't have detected this. But I think BGSU athletes have a more detailed physical. It was during the physical that they discovered Latkiewicz (sp?) had a heart condition and could never play football. So maybe the University physical goes a little further but still does not do any blood work.

I agree with everything that has been said, but I wonder, Warthog, if the physicals administered to non-recruited walk-ons differs than that of the scholorship athletes.

One would like to think that doesn't matter, but with costs involved perhaps there is a difference... Just throwing that out there because it is a difference that I noted.

University football players do have more extensive physicals than high school athletes. For those interested, here is the info on testing for sickle cell.

http://my.webmd.com/hw/health_guide_atoz/aa27319.asp

This is from the 2003-2004 NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook. It is a recomendation for cardiovascular testing, which would include blood testing, but it is only a recommendation. The NCAA requires no specific examination protocols, preferring to leave these in the hands of each member institution. The result is a diversity of procedures, protocols, and requirements in colleges and universities.

"The American Heart Association has modified its 1996 recommendation for a cardiovascular screening every two years for collegiate athletes. The revision recommends cardiovascular screening as a part of the physical exam required upon a student-athlete’s entrance into the intercollegiate athletics program. In subsequent years, an interim history and blood pressure measurement should be made."

orangeandbrown wrote:University football players do have more extensive physicals than high school athletes. For those interested, here is the info on testing for sickle cell.

http://my.webmd.com/hw/health_guide_atoz/aa27319.asp

I am no doctor, but if I understand correctly, there is a special test then that is done to detect this disease. It is not something you test for in a normal blood sample.

Warthog wrote:

orangeandbrown wrote:University football players do have more extensive physicals than high school athletes. For those interested, here is the info on testing for sickle cell.

http://my.webmd.com/hw/health_guide_atoz/aa27319.asp

I am no doctor, but if I understand correctly, there is a special test then that is done to detect this disease. It is not something you test for in a normal blood sample.

All you really need to do is look at a blood sample using a simple light microscope. Sickle cell anemia is quite obvious to see because of the abnormally shaped rbcs and doesn't require any special tests.

Here's, my edit: However, when you have people looking under a microscope, everyone has a little different interpretation of what they are seeing. This was quite evident when I taught Bio 204 and had 20 different drawings of the same thing that students said they saw under the microscope. Thus, an HPLC and electrophoresis test would alleviate the subjectiveness of looking through a microscope. The HPLC would show whether the person's hemoglobin was working properly or not.

The players are not given a physical by any university physician. All incoming freshmen must have a physical before arriving to camp in August. A physical for a college athlete is the exact same physical for any of the younger athletes. Physicals are not given every year also, once a player has a physical as a freshmen, that physical is good for their entire college career, unless of other circumstances.

bgfanatic wrote: A physical for a college athlete is the exact same physical for any of the younger athletes.

I have to disagree there, seeing as how I was a Division III athlete and have actual experience in this area. I cannot speak for BGSU but my piddly little school had a much more extensive physical proccess than did my high school, cattle herd type physicals. My college mailed me a packet with 2-3 forms that needed to be filled out by my doctor who administered the physical. This was a more intense, but not invasive, process and physical than I experienced in high school.

DD, That is what I would have suspected. I don't think we find the Latkiewicz heart problem with a "cattle herd" -type physical. I gotta believe that a school making an investment in an athlete (that is a scholarship), is not going to just run him/her through one of those type physicals. But then again, maybe an unrecruited walk-on does not go through as much scrutiny. :shrug:

Did a search on the web and the only newpaper carrying the story is the Sandusky Register, which has a teaser line that sickle cell was the cause of death. I could not get to the full web story without purchase the paper on-line. I have to wait to read more later.

Another quick search got me to a site about sickle cell. It is an inherited blood disease normally gound in african-americans (1 in 500 according to the web site I found). It is normally found during a blood test at birth. There can be complications such as stroke, chest and so on. Sounds like a time bomb waiting to go off. Life expectancy is mid-40's - again according to the website I found

http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/sicklecell/

I would think with the legalities of things those not explicitly asked to play for the Falcons would need to be more carefully looked at.

In any case the cause, if natural, is secondary to the fact he is gone. I'm sure somebody could prove a lot of problems "could" have been found. But it is sometimes unfair to expect such things to be. BGSU isn't lax in its efforts to secure the health of its students and athletes, and there isn't any sign otherwise here. The University might redouble those efforts, but ultimately they did what was required of them.

Sad things happen, and this was one of them.

The physical our guys go through is more in depth than what most of us went through for high school sports. I don't know all the details of every step involved, but a heart monitor is used. They do not do blood tests routinely. This is why they noticed that Latkiewicz had a heart condition but did not detect Richardson's sickle cell anemia if that was actually what he had. If he had the cramping in his legs and chest as reported, then that would make sense. I have been hearing wide spread rumors for the past two days that this was what they thought happened to him.

I wonder if we will be seeing any changes in the requirements of a physical in the future.

Correction--this story has been widely carried, including on WTOL and in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.