"We'd like everybody in the area to have this (Insite)," Pitts said. "This is not team-specific. We want everybody to have this technology and not just in football. Cheerleaders are the largest group on the rise. Every sport needs kids baseline tested."
The helmets were produced in concert with Hydro Graphics Inc. and Riddell, and the leather look is courtesy of a hydro film leather-like texture featuring wing and cross graphics. The design was created using high-resolution photos of the actual helmet the 1939 team wore. They even have "AMC" on the back, which stands for "Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas," which was what Texas A&M was known as in 1939.
"Dr. Melvin sent me an email about an article he had read and asked us to contact our Riddell representative to see if we could get some information about these helmets," Lawson said. "I then went and clicked on the YouTube link and watched the video."
Naklick also said that's not going to change, so something else has to. The school is now using technology to take that chance out of the equation called the Riddell Insite Concussion Management system. It doesn't prevent or diagnose concussions, but sensors inside the helmet send an alert to a handheld device. It's specific about what athlete. The student is then taken off the field to be tested and if he's not hurt, he can play again.
“Inside the helmet there are sensors in all different areas,” head coach Lenny Abt recently explained to Sports360AZ.com. “It’s monitored by a device that the trainer has on the sidelines which records an impact when it reaches a certain level she’ll get a warning level from the handset.
“Absolutely. I’m passionate about this. Riddell has come out with the technology that goes inside a helmet to a handheld device that will alert the trainers to an impact — and depending on the level of the impact, they can bring them out and assess exactly what happens — whether they can go back in, whether they need to stay out. It’s just an extra set of eyes to watch these kids because the coach and the trainer and the coaches cannot see everything,” Leslie Matthews said.
