Should I allow my son to play Youth American Football? (Frontline: League of Denial)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Posting in IMHO and not The Game Room – although this is about football, it is more about parenting decisions.

You may have seen some of my previous posts regarding my 12-year old son playing in a youth football league. He is currently mid-way thru his 4th season with this Jr. team. The teams they play are all of the same age and the kids are all around the same size. He gets a lot of positives out of being on this team: camaraderie, discipline, he’s in good shape, and has learned to cope with other adults commanding him to do stuff besides his parents. He wears his football jersey (this year, and past years, that still fit him) with pride. The team has done very well, and most of his closest friends are also on this team. He is not the most aggressive, fastest, or hardest hitting kid on the team – as a result, he gets a modest amount of playing time (other kids play nearly every down). He plays offensive line, and sometimes defensive line, since he is relatively tall compared to his team-mates, and fairly strong. The equipment the team uses seems good – newer helmets and pads. There are EMTs posted at every game (but not practices).

The Jr team feeds into the local high school team. After he finishes 8th grade and goes to the high school, the assumption is that he will continue playing football on the Freshman team, then JV, then Varsity. There is a good chance he could go all the way thru high school playing football, since the Jr team runs a lot of the same plays as the high school – he already knows the plays. As long as his friends keep playing football, he will want to. I don’t even want to think about what may be possible for college, but at this point I am assuming there is too much competition there and he will not play college ball (realistically).

All sounds fine and dandy, right? What dad does not want his son to be on the football team, right? What dad does not have dreams of his kid playing college football? Pro?

I have been concerned for the last couple of years about the concussion issue that is more-and-more seeing the light of day WRT the NFL. I have been following this, and a couple of the coaches on my son’s team have candidly stated they see changes coming to youth football – maybe age limits (can’t start until they are 14 or 15), adjusting rules and strategy to limit injuries, etc. However, better technology and equipment are expensive, and it may be years before that trickles down to the youth levels. I (we) have justified allowing him to participate because there is a large upside for him, with a small, although significant risk of injury (head injury, specifically). Since he is not one of the “stars” on the team and his play time is in accord, I have so far judged this risk acceptable. Although, I am re-assessing my position now…

Last night, I watched the Frontline episode called League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis, which seems to evenhandedly present the history of the concussion issue within the NFL. I have to tell you it was frightening. Especially where they discuss youth football. As the kids are getting bigger and stronger, they are hitting harder. And even though he does not get as much playing time as the “stars”, he still goes to practice and gets banged-around like everyone else.

So, sorry for the long-winded OP. I am interested in other views here. If you played youth football, or have a child playing now, are you worried about the risks associated with concussions? Would you let your kid play youth football in the first place?

2

Depends. You thinking about trying to talk him out of it or are you going to put your foot down and refuse to let him play? If its the later I think you should have done that 4 years ago.

3

I watched it today on my tablet. Very sobering stuff.

Two of the quotes that stick with me were the congressional committee where Goodell was compared to a tobacco exec denying tobacco dangers and the NFL rep telling the doctor that he did not understand he impact of his research - which was “If 10% of American mothers decide football is too dangerous - that will be the end of the sport.”

4

Your son is 12 years old, and having a great time in the sport, making friends,and feeling proud.

His coach only gives him “a modest amount of playing time”, while the better kids play every down. So he may be a good athelete, but he’s not great.
He may stick with it through high school.
Or he may get tired of sitting on the bench while others get the glory.
He’s unlikely to get the the level of really hard-hitting play of college football. And fantasies of playing in the NFL might make a dad smile…but it’s the smile of fantasy.

And right now he is enjoying life, making good friends, growing and maturing — stuff that makes a father feel warm fuzzies. The stuff that makes a dad smile with love, not fantasy.

So let the love flow–Go to his games, and cheer him on.

(If you get worried about his safety, talk to him about it when he’s 18 years old and getting hit by guys who are 100 pounds heavier than the hits he’s getting now.)

5

I’ve had my bell run several times (sledding and skateboarding accidents not football) when I was younger. It was debilitating and took a while to shake off. I can see why getting hammered regularly might be a serious issue, but your son seems to be at the far end of the risk spectrum for that happening. In your position the social and physical benefits of him playing considerably outweigh the risk. If he starts getting hammered then pull him. I’d just keep an eye on it for now.

6

Read this article and tell me what you think:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/longform/speedy/?sct=hp_t1t_a2&eref=sihp

7

Four years ago we didn’t know what we know now about the dangers of repeated concussions.

I don’t know what I would do here. But I would, at the very least, introduce a second sport so that there is an alternative.

8

When he gets to a level of play where the hits are harder, and he’s taking more of them, sit him down and have a talk with him about it. I think you’d do better to educate him, than any other tactic, to be honest. I mean, even if you keep him out of organized football, how you going to stop him from playing with his friends? Without equipment or supervision!

I’d wager you are not the only parent to have these concerns. Chances are the parents of some of his mates may end up where you are, wondering the wisdom of taking this risk. I suspect you’re just a little ahead of the curve. Like you, other parents no doubt have been watching the same tv coverage, have the exact same thoughts, but are not yet expressing them, maintaining a watch and see attitude.

It might not be a bad idea to encourage a second sport, something less physically harmful, like golf or tennis. The benefits he’s enjoying, from football can be had with other sports. Give him another sport to possibly excel at, and possibly, step into comfortably, with some honed skill, should he come to the same conclusions you’re nearing, concerning football.

Please don’t do your son the disservice of assuming he cannot understand, or will be blinded by peer pressure, give him a chance to impress you with his own maturity, should the time come, and he just might!

9

One of the best arguments against playing football will, unfortunately, have no meaning to a 12-year-old. And that is that it’s not a sport you can continue playing for much of your active adult life. A small percentage of high school players go on to play college ball and a smaller percentage yet make it in the professional ranks but for most their careers effectively end midway through their senior years in high school.

I wish I’d known and appreciated this when I was 12 because of the alternative opportunities I missed but I might as well wish for the moon. I would not like to be the parent of a football-loving boy right now, learning what we are learning about the physical effects of the sport yet having a son determined to participate in the American game.

10

I have a daughter, but if I had a son I would not allow him to play football.

Even at your son’s age, football can be a debilitating sport. To quote:

We’re in too intellectually and economically competitive a world to risk a 6.1% chance of dementia (19 times the national average) just because a child wants to play a sport. 81 hits to the head per year per child, year over year, almost 900 hits to the head from age 7 to 18.

So, no way in hell. If my hypothetical son wants to prove his hypothetical manhood athletically, he can weight lift, play basketball, take up the crossbow, run track, play tennis, etc… anything but football. The brain is just too sacred and vital to functioning in today’s world to risk injury to it just so the HS team can cover itself in glory.

11

The way American football is played I’m not really sure it’s the best thing to be involved in, I honestly could see it going the way of boxing in a few generations, a sport that was primarily killed off when “ordinary Americans” quit letting their kids participate because of the horrific injury concerns.

However, I can’t know this, but I do suspect playing on offensive or defensive line may actually be a safer position in terms of concussions. From what I’ve seen from many years of watching football and from years playing it myself up until I graduated High School, the biggest hits are in the open field. Even watching college or NFL football it seems like the guys getting concussed are the ones who are taking the “big” hits.

The quarterback that gets blown up from his blind side, for example, or the receivers that put their bodies on the line and get blasted to make a catch, or the running back who uses his body as a battering ram, or the defensive backs and safeties making those big tackles.

The line, which is where I played myself, isn’t a place where many high impact tackles occur. The line is a grueling, in the trenches style of play, force against force, will against will. I’m not at all trying to make it sound like the line is the “soft” place to play and the defensive backs and offensive backfield guys are the ones playing the tougher game. It’s a different kind of toughness, playing on the line is more akin to a rough wrestling match, it’s exhausting, requires strength and toughness–but it doesn’t involve a lot of big open field tackles or hits. As a lineman you’re getting into it with the guy in front of you every down. As a defensive back, you can go an entire series without any real contact if the offense is hitting areas away from where you are, for example.

So I would probably have less problem with my kid playing on the offensive or defensive line than I would other positions (like offensive backfield, defensive backs/safeties etc.) The big injury concern I’ve seen with linemen is knee and joint injuries.

12

You should watch the video. The first description/discovery of CTE in football players were both offensive linemen (Terry Long and Mike Webster). The whole point is that it’s not only the big spectacular hits that cause long-term damage - repeated hits with no apparent immediate effect also cause it.

13

Thanks for the responses.

Martin Hyde, I concur with your assessment of playing the line. This is the main reason I have been able to accept his playing - it is not as violent as some other positions. However, in League of Denial, Steelers center Mike Webster was profiled, and while he may not have had the spectacular concussion, it was the hundreds (or thousands) of smaller hits to his head during games and practices that added up. So, this is my concern.

Loach, no, I am not thinking of yanking him off the team - I agree that train has already left the station. elbows, while I want to give him some room to grow here and understand the risks for himself and have him make a decision, I, as a parent, have a duty to help guide him when he is too young to really understand everything he is doing. I think I can push and nudge gently, but only so (especially at this age).

astro, I agree all activities carry risks.

I favor the idea of getting him into another sport. He used to play basketball, and soccer. However, when all his team mates from those sports went to football, so did he, and when I have tried to get him to do something else during the off-season, he is not interested. He only plays flag football other times during the year, with the same gang of buddies. They are so one-dimensional. The draw of being with his friends is very strong - if they all decided to go out for swimming, I am sure he would as well. He does like road cycling, though, and I have entertained the idea of bribing him out of football with a new bike.

14

I think this is a dangerous thing to believe. It does a disservice to your son and twelve year old boys in general. Try to open your mind to him taking your views into consideration, though outwardly it may appears otherwise. Have some confidence that, he could come to see/share your view, and he just might, I think.

15

Whatever the decision, I would say it would be a really good thing to do as a parent to intervene and be active in the league to get them to adopt standards to require coaches to be trained on how to mitigate concussion risks. There’s a lot more guidance coming out on how coaches should teach kids the “heads up” tackling method, as well as just making them aware of concussion risks.

If your son’s league is already doing that, great. If not, being a pain in the ass to get the league to adopt those standards could be really helpful to a lot of kids, not just your own.

16

I played youth football through high school myself. Even aware of the risks now, I’d do it again because I feel the benefits I personally gained from football well outweighed the risk. Yes, many of those benefits could have been gained from another sport, but football is far and away my favorite sport. I did participate in another sport, track & field doing throwing events, but even that was, to a large extent, intended as a way to train for football in the offseason.

That said, I can appreciate concern over playing the sport. I do hope that there will be some rule and equipment changes in youth football in the coming years, and that’s something that’s worth pushing for, but probably not something that’s really within the scope here. Instead, I would suggest talking to your son about the risks and getting him involved in the decision. If he’s only moderately interested in football, maybe he’ll be up to participating in another sport. Or he may love the game, not have much interest in another sport, and feel like the risk is worth it, like I do.

17

I wouldn’t let my kid play football. It’s not just the big, nasty, hits that are the problem. The damage is also caused by all the small, constant, little hits that every player experiences every day in practice.

Here’s a list of articles about the discoveries of CTE in NFL players from the last few years. They make for scary reading.

Here’s an article from 2010 about Bennet Omalu and his discovery about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (and NFL’s efforts to bury it).
http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/200909/nfl-players-brain-dementia-study-memory-concussions

Here’s an article about the study in brain that examined the incidence of CTE in a variety of people with repetitive head injuries -

And here’s the study itself -

There are just so many other sports and activities where a young a man can find health and friendship that don’t involve repeatedly hitting people with his head. There’s swim teams, cycling, tennis, golf, rock climbing, soccer, baseball, basketball, track - those are just the obvious ones.

Why bother with football when there’s a hundred other things that he could be doing?

18

Hits to the head, though. Unless there is actually some study showing concussion/head injury statistics by position, we are just talking anecdote here. Soccer players have been found with concussion problems and that is a low impact sport, there are even suggestions that doing repeated headers with the ball can cause accretive brain damage similar to concussions.

We have to consider risk vs. reward, and if for example linemen are much less likely to get concussions then playing o-line or d-line could be comparative to say, soccer or basketball–both sports where concussions are absolutely possible and happen all the time, but that are at least presently thought to be much safer than football.

19

How many kids play football at the Jr. to HS level in the US?

What percentage of these kids are actually experiencing debilitating injuries?

20

As someone that played line, I didn’t really get hit in the head very often at all. I played rugby in college (was nowhere near good enough to play football) and I’d compare d-line to rugby in terms of the type and frequency of hits. But rugby does not seem to get the attention football does in terms of concussion damage. And if it’s just repeated hits to the head, I’d unfortunate think soccer has to be out as well, soccer players frequently hit the ball with their head. Soccer is one of the more frequent concussion sports, second most for females in youth leagues. For boys football and bicycling are associated with the most concussions.

I said in my first post I think football isn’t great for the health and will probably go the way of boxing. But to a degree the big spectacular hits in football and its popularity in the United States, and its high profile, most likely explain why so many studies are being done on football specifically.

What that means is, other activities that have a high rate of both minor and major head injuries (and this includes cycling and soccer) probably have similar problems as football but just aren’t getting as much attention right now. So if our concern is preventing any sort of accretive head trauma we probably should steer people away from most sports other than low-impact cardio activities done in controlled areas where there is reduced risk of fall (so basically machine cardio in a gym.)