COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado has passed a new law designed to protect young athletes.

Senate Bill 40, also called "The Jake Snakenberg Act," was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Snakenberg was a Colorado high school student who died in 2004 after being hit during a football game.

Doctors say Snakenberg's deadly injury was likely compounded by a concussion he suffered previously that went undiagnosed.

Lawmakers said this law is designed to keep something like that from happening again, by forcing coaches and athletes to take a new approach to concussions.

"It used to be thought that a concussion, you had to get knocked out," Shaun Carmody, Head Athletic Trainer at Cheyenne Mountain High School, said. "Just having symptoms is enough to say that we have a concussion now, and those symptoms can lead anywhere from cognitive deficits, having memory recall deficits, even as much as having personality changes, and then ultimately on the far spectrum is death."

The new law requires every coach involved with youth athletics to take a free annual online concussion recognition training course.

"Every coach that's involved with 11-year-old through 19-year-old athletes at any level: club, high school, junior high, whether it be something that's through the YMCA or through a rec league, school, a district, actually is gonna be required to take an online concussion course and be aware of those symptoms that are evident within a concussion," Carmody said.

Other experts agreed.

'I think the more tools you have to recognize concussions, the better off everyone is," Gerry Strabala, Colorado Springs Recreation Supervisor, said.

The law isn't designed to have coaches treat the concussions, just notice them, and then refer their players to a doctor.

"Anytime you can add more safety to athletics, your'e preventing injuries to athletes that could be catastrophic, and safety should be everybody's number one goal in sports," Strabala said.

Coaches hope by making themselves more aware, the players will become more aware too.

"It allows the kids to recognize that it's not something to play with anymore," Carmody said. "Your brain is something that you've got to live with the rest of your life."

Carmody said the new law will not only help keep athletes safer, but also help them to have a much longer athletic career.

"If we recognize the first one, we manage it appropriately, their ability to return will be much faster and much smoother," he said.

The law officially goes into effect Jan. 1, 2012.