Master of Education in Applied Human Development Graduate Projects

Abstract

The shoulder complex of the baseball athlete is exposed to countless stressors that can potentially cause injury. There are numerous predisposing risk factors that could possibly increase the rate at which injury occurs. Athletes at the collegiate level, due to age, are at the highest risk for significant shoulder injury. Those injuries can be extremely costly and athletes at the collegiate level tend to be at the highest risk for financial loss. As of 2005, the NCAA mandated that each student-athlete that participates in any NCAA practice or game must have health insurance that could potentially cover up to $90,000 worth of claims. The institution has two decision to either leave all leftover costs to the responsibility of the student-athlete or purchase a secondary insurance that will help cover remaining costs that the primary insurance does not cover. The choice of an institution to purchase secondary insurance can be a burden due to the extra costs that tax the athletic department’s budget. With each and every shoulder injury that is suffered by a baseball student-athlete the insurance premium of the school will be increased thus putting an unnecessary cost on the school’s budget. In order to decrease this cost, the use of an injury prevention shoulder program that is applied to a Division I baseball program was utilized and the premiums were analyzed in order to see the decrease in costs that were adding to the insurance program. Insurance claims were tallied for the years 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. The amount of shoulder injuries from baseball student-athletes were analyzed. The results showed that there was a decrease in the amount of shoulder injury after the injury maintenance shoulder program was implemented, thus decreasing the medical expenses that are spent on shoulder injuries for the baseball student-athlete. These results show that there is indeed a positive correlation between the use of an injury maintenance shoulder program and decreasing the amount of medical expenditures that come from the Baseball student-athlete.

Advisor

Matthew Kutz

Second Reader

Sungho Cho

Semester

Spring

Year

2016

Degree

M.Ed.

Program

Sport Administration

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