Sanitizing Sports

“What’s that on your face?”

“It looks like something is eating a hole through your skin!”

“That looks terrible…”

As Junior Hayden Roste walked down the hallway, people stared. His friends jokingly made comments about his skin. Hayden had dealt with acne before, but something wasn’t right.  After a few days of watching his red, infected skin grow worse and worse, Hayden knew it wasn’t acne. He texted his mom about his concern, and together they headed to the dermatologist.

Hayden’s dermatologist informed him that he had Staphylococcus aureus, or more commonly known as Staph infection on his face. It most likely started from bacteria growing in his chin strap on his football helmet.

“I was shocked when I found out I had gotten Staph,” Hayden said.

Tiffany Geiger, a disease investigator with Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, spends her day telling people how to prevent Staph and how to get rid of it in locker rooms and other likely places.

“We see it [Staph] a lot more in boys sports because boys are in the locker rooms a lot more,” Geiger said. “Most of Staph infection comes from the locker room.”

Staph infections are common among high school athletes, especially with team sports, such as baseball, football and wrestling. These athletes spend a good amount of time in locker rooms and share equipment regularly. Geiger believes that the time they spend in locker rooms makes them more susceptible to contract Staph.

Dr. Lisa Clough, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Kansas (KU), deals with Staph infections frequently.

“Athletes are at risk for skin infections because of the skin to skin contact,” Clough said. “These diseases are spread person to person, but they can go away in a few days with the right treatment.”

Staph is not usually serious. Most mild cases involve itchy rashes and boils. However, if left untreated, it can turn much worse according to Clough.

Hayden missed over a week of football practice because he didn’t want anyone else to get infected.

“If any sweat from my face touched anyone else, they could have gotten it,” Roste said. “That’s how contagious this was. A week later, I had to miss a few more days to make sure it was completely gone.”

Hayden’s mom, Leslie Roste, is the National Director of Education for BlueCo Brands.  Her job is to provide education across the country on the use of disinfectants in limiting the transmission of infectious diseases in certain industries.  She speaks to national conventions, helps states write laws about how to use these products and writes textbooks. Because of Leslie’s job as a public speaker regarding infectious diseases, she worked together with the football team on the issue.

“Once I informed the football staff on what happened to Hayden, they addressed the problem immediately,” Leslie said. “We disinfected all of the helmets, chin straps and pads. The janitorial department is disinfecting the locker room as well.”

Head football coach Dustin Delaney, and athletic trainer Megan Burki, declined to comment on the subject.

To treat Hayden’s infection, they started him on an oral antibiotic. In addition, doctors gave him a shot of Rocephin, an antibiotic that works by fighting bacteria in your body. This, however, did not cooperate with Hayden’s immune system, according to Mrs. Roste.

“After three days, the infection had not responded,” Leslie said, “They warned that he may have to be hospitalized next. However, his immune system responded to all the antibiotic help.”

Matt Johnson, the Shawnee Mission School District Director of Athletics and Student Services and Facilities, has worked to keep all SMSD schools clean and free of bacterias.

Staph Infection is preventable, despite being so contagious. Johnson says the school district has done their best throughout the years to keep Staph from spreading. They spray down wrestling mats after every practice and buy air disinfectants for the locker rooms to keep the air almost completely free of germs. They encourage the prevention of disease between individuals and students with good hygiene habits, like regularly washing hands.

Despite his efforts, Johnson understands that not every individual will always wash their hands, or always keep their uniforms clean.

“We can’t always control what people are doing, so we do what we can with our processes to help eliminate or reduce that threat,” Johnson said.

Over the past year, air purifiers in the locker rooms were purchased that clean and disinfect the air in the locker room. Johnson says that this doesn’t get rid of 100 percent of bacteria and airborne viruses, but it does reduce them.

“When there is a concern, custodial teams clean surface immediately with high power disinfectants,” Johnson said. “The other thing we have to make sure that we are doing, as coaches, is cleaning the equipment every day.”

This includes the weight room equipment, the locker room equipment, locker doors and floors, sinks, showers, floors and sports equipment. The helmets, shoulder pads, chin straps and even the footballs themselves are all cleaned to help prevent the spread of any bacteria. Another prevention is to shower immediately after practices and games, using antibacterial soap.

In order to prevent cases of Staph like Roste’s, the precautions cleaning have been enforced much more strongly. Though the disease is spread easily by skin-to-skin contact or surface-skin contact, efforts are being made to disinfect surfaces and equipment and stop the spreading.