The recipients of the 2021-2022 Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute’s seed grants all seek to tackle scientific and social problems connected to a broad range of sports; each team taking a different approach to fulfill that mission. One set of researchers wants to help bull riders protect their heads with helmets designed specifically for them. Another group of researchers want to protect high school athletes by better understanding the injury risk factors that are specific to their sport.
This is the third year the Institute has awarded seed grants to Clemson researchers from the College of Business, College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences and the College of Agriculture and Forestry and Life Sciences. The Institute has funded researchers’ proposals in each of the colleges over the years. The seed grant program supports collaborations that accelerate Clemson faculty members’ ability to address significant scientific and societal problems associated with, and improve the human condition through sports, broadly defined.
The Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute calls for seed grant proposals in January of each year. The submission deadline is typically in mid-March. Awardees receive their funding in July of each year and have two years to complete the work.
“This is the third year of the seed grant program and we have had faculty teams from all seven colleges funded,” said Director Brett Wright. “The Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute is very pleased to help jump start faculty research projects that have the potential to improve the performance of our student-athletes, or more importantly, enhance the health and well being of our students and members of our communities.”
The Institute awarded four seed grants for the 2021-2022 academic year, totaling $90,811. Learn more about each of the research projects below.
It’s no bull!
Bull riding is a dangerous sport, with 21 fatalities over two decades; More than half of all bull riders experience head trauma. Some riders started using hockey helmets to protect their noggins when that bull leaves the chute. But the evidence is out on how well, if at all, that helmet – designed for another sport – protects the riders’ heads. Some riders use a helmet specifically designed for bull riding, but research is not conclusive on its effectiveness either.
Clemson researchers hope to develop a helmet specific for bull riding that offers riders more protection.
Clemson University professors Greg Batt and John DesJardins want to study the efficacy of the two types of helmets in hopes to help helmet manufacturers improve design; help inform riders’ decisions on which helmet to wear; and further our collective knowledge regarding protection from brain injuries.
“In recent years, bull riding has grown in popularity despite being called the most dangerous sport by one peer reviewed sports journal [1]. Currently, only a couple helmets are available on the market that are made specifically for bull riding, and none of the helmets have published research on their efficacy beyond proof of passing the rodeo headgear testing standard, ASTM F2530,” Batt explained. “This standard uses an impacting method which does not replicate or measure head rotation. We saw an opportunity to improve current bull riding helmet testing by utilizing state-of-the-art head impact equipment and head response metrics capable of capturing head rotation forces.”
Batt is director of Clemson’s Package Dynamics Lab (PDL) and an associate professor for the Department of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science. Dr. DesJardins is the director of the Laboratory of Orthopedic Design and Engineering (LODE) and is the Robert B. and Susan B. Hambright Leadership Professor in the Department of Bioengineering.
With their grant from the Institute, Batt and DesJardins will emulate a bull kicking a helmet with specially designed anvils.
Did you get a Peloton during the pandemic?
You’re not alone. In fact, the fitness company’s subscriptions increased by 94% over the last year. Fitness instructors have a significant impact on members’ motivation. Now that most people are working out virtually, how much more important is the instructor’s role? Two Clemson University Communication professors plan to find out.
Consumer spending experts reported that 59% of Americans don’t plan to return to the gym after the pandemic. Many Americans reported they preferred the online workouts at home. Kristen Okamoto and Brandon Boatwright, assistant professors in the Department of Communication, want to understand the motivation behind these changes to fitness routines and the impact it will have on the multi-billion fitness industry.
Okamoto has a research focus on health and organizational communication. Boatwright focuses on sports communication. Together, they want to crack this health phenomenon.
No, you are not color blind!
The Clemson University orange we all associate with the tiger paw may have appeared red on your TV screen. The purple looked blue. Clemson fans have noticed these color discrepancies on their screens over the years.
This problem isn’t limited to Clemson. This brand color discrepancy is also apparent with other teams, such as the Dallas Cowboys, where their silver pants appeared green during a broadcasted game.
Clemson football jerseys often appear blue on television screens. Clemson Graphics Communication professor Erica Walker, with her research team, continues to develop AI to fix this problem in real time.
For many teams, the brand identity is based on the team colors, which is why correcting this problem is critical to sports franchises. Unfortunately, correcting the brand colors also affects the other colors in the frame. Environmental lighting and post-production color adjustments affect the entire frame of the broadcast feed. So, while the brand color would appear correct, the rest of the frame would alter as well, ruining other colors at the expense of fixing the brand color.
Dr. Erica Walker, Dr. Hudson Smith and a Creative Inquiry class have created an AI program, ColorNet, to address this color confusion. ColorNet ingests live video and adjusts each frame pixel-by-pixel targeting the brand color regions, then outputs color corrected video in real-time. This ensures accurate brand colors without negatively impacting other areas of the frame. The program was tested on PawVision in 2019 and it successfully corrected Clemson’s orange on screen.
Walker, an assistant professor in Graphic Communications, Smith, a research data scientist at the Watt Family Center for Innovation, also received a RHBSSI Seed Grant to further their work.
“With further development of Color Net, we plan to integrate our AI-based color management solution with Clemson Athletics through a hardware and a software solution,” Walker said. “This technology will help athletic content creators ensure that Clemson Orange and Clemson Purple consistently look like fans expect on the screens in the stadium and in Clemson Athletics social media posts.”
Determining injury risk factors in high school sports
An active lifestyle in high school is a good indicator of a healthy lifestyle as an adult. For most adolescents that physical activity comes from organized sports. Two local professors are partnering with a local non-profit organization to better understand the injury risk factors related in specific sports – specifically volleyball, cross-country, and football.
Dr. Joel Williams and Dr. Chris Hopkins will collaborate with PlaySafe, a non-profit organization based in the upstate of South Carolina who provides sports medicine care to athletes at over 70 high schools across South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. PlaySafe’s mission is to keep young athletes safe by educating, promoting, supporting, and fostering healthy lifestyles, wellness, and safe athletic participation in active youth, young adults, and the community at large.
The PlaySafe injury surveillance and outreach model has caught the attention of the NFL through the National Athletic Trainer’s Association. Dr. Williams and Dr. Hopkins research proposal caught the eyes of the RHBSSI grant selection committee.
Williams is an associate professor of public health sciences; Hopkins is a Furman University associate professor of applied health research and evaluation.
The focus of their research project is to better estimate the injury risk in high school sports and identify injury risk factors, which may help develop future injury prevention strategies for young athletes. Previous injury risk research with these populations has generally used rudimentary measures of sport exposure that lack sport-specific detail. Improving the accuracy of injury surveillance and conducting pre-season screening will allow for the investigation of sport-specific injury risk factors.
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