Could the brain injury risk kill American football at the high school level? (and thus the game)

[running_coach]

@Urbanredneck

No, what I’ve heard is they dont want them to pick up a bad habit from a school coach who may or may not really know what they are doing.

And there’s guarantees the club coach is any better?
The school where I coach has had a former pro player for the last three years.

More likely, it’s the conflict between the school and club schedules. A typical school coach will not allow athletes to play on two different teams in a season.

There’s also the double training load with two teams.

[jasg]

@Octarine

In reality, it’s not even the high school level that matters most - it’s the 6 year olds. When Mom decides whether Junior should play football, a sport which could leave him with lifelong injuries, or soccer, where these sorts of injuries are far less common, it’s not going to be a difficult choice. High school football might stop simply because the supply of kids will dry up.

@Zsofia

I dunno. I have a six month old boy and I wouldn’t let him play Pop Warner. The other moms who it’s come up in conversation with wouldn’t either.

@suranyi

I know anecdotes are not data, however: I have heard so many mothers of small boys over the last few years say to me that they will absolutely forbid their sons to play football because of the danger.

Don’t worry the NFL is all over this issue.

There was an article in the NYT last week about an NFL outreach program called Moms Clinics to help mothers understand football and reassure them that it is safe for their kids.

[Lamar_Mundane]

The things you say are true, but the main reason is injury. I have first hand knowledge of it. I have had it told to me by a club director in re: to my oldest daughter, a player at the highest level.

@Urbanredneck

No, what I’ve heard is they dont want them to pick up a bad habit from a school coach who may or may not really know what they are doing.

True.

I think your forgetting other reasons for club teams. For example a club team separates itself from the politics of school sports. Meaning a kid doesnt get more playing time just because their parents are on the school board.

Club teams have their own politics that are just as bad as high school.

Another is many kids from a school with a weak program in say basketball, will want to play with a club team where they can get better exposure.

True

Finally as a club team school rules dont apply meaning a kid cant get kicked off the football team because of a bad math grade.

True as well, but in club sports you WILL get cut for not being good enough, not just moved to the end of the bench as in HS. I’ve seen a girl get cut because she was losing her speed and the coach said her Mom was fat. (Said that to me, not the kid.)

[bordelond]

@Thudlow_Boink

Is there any reasonable way of changing football (i.e. a rule change, and/or possibly an equipment change) that would reduce the risk of brain injury?

I think it is possible. Here’ something I wrote on another board a few years ago – it’s aimed specifically at professional football, but the concepts could be adapted for lower levels. Apologies in advance for the length:
To start, an excerpt from SI’s 2011 NFL Preview issue:

Good, hard, sharp, and sure tackling is the very essence of a successful defense, and no player should hope to be placed upon a team unless he has become adept in this most important of football fundamentals. No team is going to be severely beaten, even if it has no offense at all, if it is composed of eleven good tacklers …
—GLENN SCOBEY (POP) WARNER, May 1927

On a November Sunday in Cleveland last year, Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez completed a pass to wideout Braylon Edwards in the shallow left flat. Browns cornerback Sheldon Brown jumped forward to perform the essential job that Pop Warner had described 83 years earlier: Tackle the ballcarrier. (Huddle. Repeat.) Football plays can end in various ways: with touchdowns, field goals, incompletions, fair catches, dead-ball penalties and stepping out-of-bounds. But most end with the ballcarrier being taken to the ground by the defense. It is absolute. After a tackle, whistles are blown, the ball is spotted and the offense must draw up another play and start anew.

**But tackling has also become one of the most uncertain elements in the modern NFL, altered not only by evolutions in strategy (sideline-to-sideline passing attacks supplanting between-the-numbers power running) and performance (more elusive athletes with each passing year), but also most recently by rules changes designed to protect ballcarriers from injuries by limiting concussive, helmet-to-helmet hits. The pure, unbridled, bone-jarring tackle is a fading memory.

As Brown moved up on Edwards, his instincts told him to blast headlong with little regard for the consequences, tactical or physical. There are two basic ways to tackle: either “break down” into a balanced crouch to reduce the possibility of getting juked in the open field, or barrel into the ballcarrier at full speed. Brown had played his first seven NFL seasons for the Eagles under the late defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, who gave his troops only one option.

“Coach Johnson taught us to never break down, just keep running through like knives,” says Brown. “And if I miss on the correct side, one of my teammates will be right behind me, running like a bat out of you know where, and he’ll make the hit and maybe force a turnover. One of the knives will hit.” (Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who worked under Johnson in Philadelphia, says, “Arrow through snow” that’s what Jim used to say: Attack like an arrow through snow.")**

As an Eagle, Brown lived Johnson’s credo. In January 2007 he laid out Saints running back Reggie Bush with a blowup hit by driving hard upfield on a swing pass, a shot so monumental it made the cover of SI six months later. But here, against the Jets, Brown hesitated. The previous month, after the notorious Oct. 17 afternoon so packed with violent, concussive hits that it became known as Black Sunday, the NFL announced it would stringently enforce rules against head shots. That clouded Brown’s mind. “I tried to break down and then come up,” says Brown of the play on Edwards. “He dipped his shoulder, and that got him lower than me, and I took the brunt of the hit. They talk about defenseless receivers. I put myself in a defenseless position, and I hurt my shoulder. I was confused with all the changes, and I made an adjustment.” (Though his forward momentum was stopped, Edwards never did go down—four other Cleveland defenders threw themselves into the play, and the whistle blew with the Jets receiver still standing.)

It seems clear that certain types of tackling techniques that are physically riskier than others. The question I’m raising is this: can safer tackling techniques be legislated within the rules of the game of football? Here are some speculative rule changes that come to mind – haven’t considered all angles or potential game-play consequences, just brainstorming:

[ul]
[li]Illegal for tacklers to leave their feet if their shoulder, chest, or head touches the ball carrier – this means that if DB wants to blow up a WR over the middle, they cannot launch themselves like a missle. They can still run through the WR, but the fact that the ground dissipates some of the force should lessen the impact of these over-the-middle tackles. Note that the way this rule is worded, the intent is to still allow diving at a ball carries feet, or a last-second dive to grab a jersey, or tackle attempts like that. So long as there’s no leaving the feet to launch the upper body into a ball carrier, the tackle is legal.[/li]
[li]Illegal for shoulder, chest, or head of tackler to touch the ball carrier if at least one hand does not touch the ball carrier – I’d call this the “wrap-up” rule, and it also aims to discourage launching-type tackles. I considered proposing that BOTH hands must touch the ball carrier if the tackler’s upper-body conacts the ball carrier, but I was thinking that might be a little too restrictive. Maybe the two-hand version of the rule could be instituted for QBs in the pocket.[/li]
[li]Institute a tackling “strike zone” – The tackler’s upper body (shoulders, helmet, chest) can only contact the ball carrier’s body between the shoulders and knees. This one is actually partially in place, as explicit head shots are forbidden. Diving at a player’s feet to trip them up with the hands or arms would still be legal.[/li]
[li]Relax the pass-intereference rules in favor of the defense – Saw this proposed elsewhere. The idea is that with pass-interference rules so strongly favoring the offense, defenses have adopted the strategy ot taking hard shots at receivers to jar caught balls loose. Letting DBs guard routes more physically would give the defense another option. My corollary is to perhaps change the 5-yard-bump zone into a 10-yard zone, or even 15 yards – bring back true bump-&-run coverage.[/li][/ul]

So … are these kinds of proposals (not necessarily these specific ones) reasonable? How much safer can tackling rules help make the game? Enough to get us to credible, player-approved 18-game seasons? And what kinds of game-safety changes do others envision the NFL adopting in the near future?

[bump]

The thing is, it’s not just concussions that cause the problem. It’s repeated subconcussive hits that cumulatively cause CTE.

Your average lineman bangs heads hard every play. Not hard enough to give him a full-fledged concussion in most cases, but enough to accumulate over time.

Most of your CTE cases are linemen and linebackers. Linemen very rarely end up hitting at a run like say… a defensive back or a running back might. But they bang heads on nearly EVERY play. Pass, run, it doesn’t matter. A defensive back may not bang heads 20% of the time, a receiver even less, and a quarterback less than that. Even linebackers don’t necessarily hit heads on every play- if they’re in pass coverage they may not bang heads. But they do on a lot more plays than the defensive backs behind them.

What they need to do is go to a helmet that discourages using the head as a weapon to stop the other guy- maybe something more similar to the leather helmets of the 1950s without facemasks would work.

[Urbanredneck]

@running_coach

And there’s guarantees the club coach is any better?
The school where I coach has had a former pro player for the last three years.

More likely, it’s the conflict between the school and club schedules. A typical school coach will not allow athletes to play on two different teams in a season.

There’s also the double training load with two teams.

Well in Kansas the rules are a kid cannot be on a club team and their HS team at the same time. Part of the reason club basketball is held outside the normal basketball season. I knew of a baseball player who wanted his HS teams season to be over faster so he could get on to his “real” team, his travel team.
And when you think about it, travel teams are more fun because they go to out of state tournaments.

[astorian]

If high school football were played primarily by affluent, Northern, suburban white boys, there’d be a danger of it disappearing.

But it will continue in the South for a long time to come. And that’s where the best players have always come from anyway.

[Wesley_Clark]

Watching the PBS film league of denial there is a scene where a medical person is talking to an NFL corporate type. The NFL worker says that if 10% of high school moms pull their kids out of football due to health risks, then that will spell the end of the sport.

No idea where he got those numbers, but he is probably right. Then again, boxing isn’t really practiced in high schools anymore, I don’t think, and amateur and professional boxing is still a thing.

[PastTense]

The NFL is already 68% black.
http://www.besttickets.com/blog/nfl-player-census-2014/

So this concern about brain injury risk is just going to shift the percent higher.

[Leaper]

I’ve always thought that some of the recent focus on a developmental league was to address this very issue.

[Doctor_Jackson]

@slash2k

Look at some of those cites, though.

I did, that’s why I used them

@slash2k

“In Hall County and Gainesville schools, the only taxpayer money spent on sports is funneled into teachers’ coaching supplements.” Those supplements are more than a million bucks a year ($1,111,572 in 2008-09 school year). I’d consider that more than “token” right there.

Coaching a HS sport is virtually a full time job. All coaches (at least in GA) receive a stipend to compensate for the extra work. Not just fooball, it’s all sports. Hall County has 8 high schools. If each has 15 varsity sports teams (not researched, used Valdosta’s number) then that is 120 head coaches. Factor in assistant coaches and JV teams and that number goes up 4-5 times. The average coaching stipend in GA is $7,000 to $8,000 per year - about minimum wage when compared to the extra hours. Now, the booster club may significant;y increase that figure, but that’s another story.

@slash2k

The Valdosta article notes that they had $469,000 in revenue and a $49,600 profit. Oh, but their stadium upgrade ($7.5 million) came straight out of sales tax revenue.

But you failed to mention that:

• the stadium is used by many other sports teams including soccer, lacross, track and field, band, and cheerleading - all of which are subsidized by the football program. The stadium track is open to the community when not in use by the HS, as are most in this area, so the community also gets direct benefit.
• the stadium enlargement was driven by football, of course - because the demand for more seats was there. The other teams benefit but couldn’t dream of selling out the stadium, which football does every home game.
• the sales tax also built a new elementary school and a fine arts center at the HS
• the sales tax was voted on ny the community at large, not just football fans (albeit you’d be hard pressed to find an admitted non-football fan in Valdosta)

@slash2k

At Buford, they budget $88,000 from the athletic booster club for sixteen sports teams. The school offers 22 varsity sports (plus nine at the middle school); who pays for the others? It sounds like they are supplementing the taxpayer-funded sports budget, and I’d about bet that the most expensive program (probably football) by itself costs much more than $88K.

I can’t find a cite online but Buford football, like Valdosta, makes a profit and helps pay for the other sports programs. Some other sports (notably baseball and cheerleading) have their own booster clubs and fundraisers. Most sports teams, clubs, etc have a ‘participation fee’ that helps offset expenses.

As difficult to believe as it seems be to some here, in the state of GA very little school money goes to extracurriculars of any kind, except fot transportation.

[slash2k]

@Doctor_Jackson

Coaching a HS sport is virtually a full time job. All coaches (at least in GA) receive a stipend to compensate for the extra work. Not just fooball, it’s all sports. Hall County has 8 high schools. If each has 15 varsity sports teams (not researched, used Valdosta’s number) then that is 120 head coaches. Factor in assistant coaches and JV teams and that number goes up 4-5 times. The average coaching stipend in GA is $7,000 to $8,000 per year - about minimum wage when compared to the extra hours. Now, the booster club may significant;y increase that figure, but that’s another story.

In Hall County, more than one million dollars comes directly out of the school money for the sole purpose of paying coaches. That’s a non-trivial amount of money. That could pay for two more teachers in each of those high schools; it could pay for one heck of a lot of library books or computers; it could be used for any number of, you know, educational purposes. Instead, it is used for the sports teams. That fact right there undercuts your thesis.

@Doctor_Jackson

But you failed to mention that:

• the stadium is used by many other sports teams including soccer, lacross, track and field, band, and cheerleading - all of which are subsidized by the football program. The stadium track is open to the community when not in use by the HS, as are most in this area, so the community also gets direct benefit.
• the stadium enlargement was driven by football, of course - because the demand for more seats was there. The other teams benefit but couldn’t dream of selling out the stadium, which football does every home game.
• the sales tax also built a new elementary school and a fine arts center at the HS
• the sales tax was voted on ny the community at large, not just football fans (albeit you’d be hard pressed to find an admitted non-football fan in Valdosta)

Do any of these change the fact that the “profit” the football team makes is because they are not actually having to pay for their facility? Lots of money-losing businesses could show a profit if they didn’t have to pay for rent or utilities or other facility expenses. How is this different?

(And I’m not sure why building a new elementary school with other monies raised as part of the sales tax is relevant to the $7.5 million in tax money going to the stadium. Why should I have mentioned it?)

Here’s another article about the Valdosta program. It contains the little nugget that “coaches’ salaries … aren’t part of the high school’s football budget.” So, where are the salary dollars coming from? That $469,000 in revenue and a $49,600 profit doesn’t apparently include the coach’s $87K a year, or the salaries of his multiple assistants. The booster club isn’t paying the base salaries (although they provide bonuses and benefits). Do you have information about the source of the salary dollars, if not the taxpayer?

@Doctor_Jackson

As difficult to believe as it seems be to some here, in the state of GA very little school money goes to extracurriculars of any kind, except fot transportation.

The cites you’ve presented so far are not helping me believe this.

[PastTense]

Perhaps brain injuries will kill the Pop Warner youth league:

The family of a football player who committed suicide and was later found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease, has sued the youth league Pop Warner, claiming that it failed to warn players about, and protect them from, the dangers of head trauma.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Wisconsin, seeks at least $5 million in punitive damages for the death of the player, Joseph Chernach, who killed himself in 2012 at age 25. In a 27-page complaint, Chernach’s estate said Pop Warner “knew or should have known that tackle football was dangerous for children and exposed children to head injuries, including dementia pugilistica,” a variant of C.T.E. Pop Warner, the complaint said, failed to train coaches properly, did not use the safest helmets, did not teach players how to wear their helmets properly and did not limit the amount of hitting in practice.

Family Sues Pop Warner Over Suicide of Player Who Had Brain Disease...

[Doctor_Jackson]

@slash2k

In Hall County, more than one million dollars comes directly out of the school money for the sole purpose of paying coaches. That’s a non-trivial amount of money. That could pay for two more teachers in each of those high schools; it could pay for one heck of a lot of library books or computers; it could be used for any number of, you know, educational purposes. Instead, it is used for the sports teams. That fact right there undercuts your thesis.

This thread is about football, if you want to disband all school sports that is a whole different discussion for another thread. Until then it is reasonable to pay employees for what they do.

@slash2k

Do any of these change the fact that the “profit” the football team makes is because they are not actually having to pay for their facility? Lots of money-losing businesses could show a profit if they didn’t have to pay for rent or utilities or other facility expenses. How is this different?

By that logic we should shut down all extracurriculars, period, because they cannot be self supporting. Another thread.

@slash2k

(And I’m not sure why building a new elementary school with other monies raised as part of the sales tax is relevant to the $7.5 million in tax money going to the stadium. Why should I have mentioned it?)

Because part of that money went to build a school, part to build a fine arts center and part to build a stadium used for many school sponsored functions and the community. It wasn’t, as you suggest, a tax largess for the football teeam.

@slash2k

Here’s another article about the Valdosta program. It contains the little nugget that “coaches’ salaries … aren’t part of the high school’s football budget.” So, where are the salary dollars coming from? That $469,000 in revenue and a $49,600 profit doesn’t apparently include the coach’s $87K a year, or the salaries of his multiple assistants. The booster club isn’t paying the base salaries (although they provide bonuses and benefits). Do you have information about the source of the salary dollars, if not the taxpayer?

I do, and I mentioned it before. It is the booster clubs. In GA it is legal for booster clubs to subsidize coaching salaries, either by direct payments or through home allowances, car allowances, etc. Base salary is for teaching and is paid by the schools along with a stipend for coaching. All esle is paid or provided by booster clubs.

@slash2k

The cites you’ve presented so far are not helping me believe this.

I’m sorry this is hard for you to understand, but it is real nontheless.

[slash2k]

@Doctor_Jackson

This thread is about football, if you want to disband all school sports that is a whole different discussion for another thread. Until then it is reasonable to pay employees for what they do.

But we are paying them with tax dollars, a non-trivial amount of tax dollars, and you are using this as evidence that high school football doesn’t cost more than nominal amounts of tax dollars. Your evidence undercuts your conclusion.

@Doctor_Jackson

By that logic we should shut down all extracurriculars, period, because they cannot be self supporting. Another thread.

You are the one who asserted that football in Georgia is self-supporting. Are you now acknowledging that it is not?

(I have no problem with extracurriculars being non-self-supporting, as long as we all acknowledge that they are non-self-supporting. I am specifically addressing and refuting your assertion that this particular program, which doesn’t pay for its facilities, somehow should be classed as self-supporting even though a huge chunk of its prerequisite support is being paid by taxpayers.)

@Doctor_Jackson

Because part of that money went to build a school, part to build a fine arts center and part to build a stadium used for many school sponsored functions and the community. It wasn’t, as you suggest, a tax largess for the football teeam.

The whole $7.5 million went to pay for the stadium. An additional $6 million went to the elementary, and probably there were taxes in that county that paid for roads and parks and whatever else they’ve got, but the $7.5 million itself was a tax largess for the football team.

(They wouldn’t have needed that large a stadium for other sports and functions, as you yourself noted, and a smaller stadium is usually cheaper by a fair little margin.)

@Doctor_Jackson

I do, and I mentioned it before. It is the booster clubs. In GA it is legal for booster clubs to subsidize coaching salaries, either by direct payments or through home allowances, car allowances, etc. Base salary is for teaching and is paid by the schools along with a stipend for coaching. All esle is paid or provided by booster clubs.

The booster club ITSELF says that they are paying for the coach’s truck and his bonuses. The booster club does not claim to be paying his base salary. Do you have a cite that they actually are in this particular case?

Yes, Georgia booster clubs can subsidize coaches’ salaries. In this particular case, are they? (The article notes that the football coach does not teach any classes, so what is this “base salary for teaching”?)

@Doctor_Jackson

I’m sorry this is hard for you to understand, but it is real nontheless.

Well, if it is real, then provide some evidence. So far, what you have provided shows that the taxpayer is paying millions of dollars for facilities, salaries, and other incidentals for non-self-supporting football programs.

[divemaster]

Football is not going away. For all you parents out there who say “I won’t allow my son to play football.” Guess what? Your son will play football. Sure, he might not play with helmet and pads and coaches, but at school recess or with buddies in front yards–full tackling, getting clotheslined, running into trees, oops, there goes a tooth! Boys will find a way to channel aggression and football is an acceptable outlet for most boys I would say.

[Odesio]

@Mijin

The thing is, I can remember reading articles like this 15, maybe 20 years ago. It’s not like awareness of the risks has just sprung up recently.

Maybe things will change going forwards, but what is the difference now?
(I’m seriously asking, as I don’t live in the US)

I used to play football but I graduated in 1994. When I started playing, 1987, we were all aware of the risks of relative minor injuries like broken bones, sprains, or concussions as well of the risk of catastrophic injuries that might result in death or permanent impairment. I cannot recall a single instance where anyone was worried about sub-concussion injuries to the brain.

What’s different today? In the last few years more people have become aware of the potential hazards of the sport. As much as I enjoy football I’m not sure I would want one of my kids playing it. You know, if I had kids.

[Sr_Siete]

I’m not an expert on American sports, so there’s one thing I’m not getting here. As far as I know there’s a, well, a “safe” version of football, Touch Football, without the tackling. Why wouldn’t this be a perfectly good alternative, at least for minors?

[Doctor_Jackson]

@slash2k

But we are paying them with tax dollars, a non-trivial amount of tax dollars, and you are using this as evidence that high school football doesn’t cost more than nominal amounts of tax dollars. Your evidence undercuts your conclusion.

@slash2k

You are the one who asserted that football in Georgia is self-supporting. Are you now acknowledging that it is not?

@slash2k

I am specifically addressing and refuting your assertion that this particular program, which doesn’t pay for its facilities,…

Last try - most HS football programs in GA are self supporting and, indeed, profit making. Do not drag other extracurriculars into the discussion or assign the full cost of a multipurpose stadium to football only.

@slash2k

:(They wouldn’t have needed that large a stadium for other sports and functions, as you yourself noted, and a smaller stadium is usually cheaper by a fair little margin.)

Damn right they wouldn’t need a bigger stadium without football. Full stands mean more revenue. If it weren’t for football filling the stands every game, the other programs would cease to exist.

@slash2k

:The booster club ITSELF says that they are paying for the coach’s truck and his bonuses. The booster club does not claim to be paying his base salary. Do you have a cite that they actually are in this particular case?

Please read this slowly - THe school system pays the base salary. The base salary is for being a teacher, period. The school system pays the faculty sponsors (coaches for sports, leaders for other extracurriculars) a stipend because it requires many extra hours on school supported activities. The booster club can and does pay some coaches more than the base and stipend, through additional direct funds or payment in kind.
TL;D&R - school pays base and coaching stipend, booster club pays all else.

@slash2k

:Yes, Georgia booster clubs can subsidize coaches’ salaries. In this particular case, are they? (The article notes that the football coach does not teach any classes, so what is this “base salary for teaching”?)

Which article says that? If a coach is not a teacher (which would be exceedingly rare if possible at all at the HS level) they would not get a base salary from the schools system, only the stipend.

@slash2k

:Well, if it is real, then provide some evidence.

I provided, you obfusticated, I’m done.

[PatriotGrrrl]

@Sr_Siete

I’m not an expert on American sports, so there’s one thing I’m not getting here. As far as I know there’s a, well, a “safe” version of football, Touch Football, without the tackling. Why wouldn’t this be a perfectly good alternative, at least for minors?

If they were just playing for fun, sure. But a lot of high school players are hoping to be selected for a college team, and they’d be at a serious, if not impossible, disadvantage if they’d only played touch or flag football.