A series of monthly seminars for students athletes kicks off in the auditorium on Friday during advisory, with the first session tackling the topic of vaping.

“The ultimate goal is to always want to inform and provide skills for student athletes to navigate being student athlete and being a teenager, just anything we can do to help them grow in character and grow in them as as a person,” assistant football coach Matt Swinnea said. “We were just looking it as an opportunity to find a spot where we can bring in people and address things that they might be facing.”

Hosted by Dr. Troy Smurawa, a sports medicine physician at the Andrews Institute at Children’s Health in Plano, Friday’s seminar focused specifically on the implications of vaping on health.

“I think that the program should be used at other schools,” Smurawa said via email. “It helps to clarify the facts in regards to health concerns and effects on athletic performance from professionals.”

The discussion comes as the CDC reports that 11.7 percent of teenagers nationwide use e-cigarettes regularly.

“I think that if you talk to people, not just adults, but teenagers as well, they would probably readily admit that vaping and juuling is kind of, epidemic is the word, but that it’s pretty prevalent, so we just thought it’d be good to bring somebody into be another voice,” Swinnea said. “We always want to give people a reason to say no.”

With the seminars scheduled for the first Friday of every month, senior football player Myron Huff looks forward to the opportunity for his fellow athletes to talk about issues students face.

“I think this will let the athletes come together and talk about things that are going on around them that other athletes might not know about,” Huff said. “I hope to find out some interesting things about the other athletes and just overall meet new people.”