Forget the NFL - that is the moon to a 12 year old’s version of football.
My brother taught HS in rural WI from 1972-retirement.
Once when I was back there, we were driving someplace and passed a group playing whatever the game is called - it uses long poles with baskets on the end to throw and catch a ball. He asked if i knew what it was. Turns out his little county’s insurance was getting out of hand because of the football program. I suggested soccer (which was an odd-ball, sissy sport furriners played at the time).
So, even then, the risks of football at the HS level was getting attention.
Start chatting up soccer to the other parents - it will take 10 years before they’ll be ready to make as big a production (Homecoming, pep rallies (still around?), etc) - but get the kids out of harm’s way.
Maybe, just maybe, that NFL twit will prove correct and parents will stop producing raw meat for the NFL and it will die.
Then the US can join the rest of the world and play proper “football”.
p.s. - remember when that first kicker used the side of his foot to kick in the NFL?
“Soccer style”? “Nah, it looks weird - it’ll never catch on” seemed to be the broadcaster’s consensus.
It took the death of Dale Earnhardt to get NASCAR to take head injuries seriously. And NASCAR didn’t glorify head injuries.
The day when somebody comes up with a head brace and helmut adequate to the task of protecting people who WANT to hurt each other is the day some inventor gets laughed off the stage.
Football will die or it will continue to kill and maim.
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Around here, more kids play soccer and lacrosse than football (and lacrosse is rough), but that doesn’t mean they are popular sports to watch. And soccer has been more popular to play for years. Soccer happens mostly on a league basis for the kids that are good at it.
The sports kids go to watch are still boys hockey, boys basketball and football. You don’t get students for track meets, gymnastics meets, swim meets, soccer games, or even baseball games.
I wonder how important a sport’s popularity is to a kid when he’s choosing his teenaged-years sport(s)? That was 45 years ago for me so it’s pretty hazy but I don’t recall the number of fannies in the seats as being the primary motivator. But that may have been because I was a really oblivious kid in general, game attendance at my school was modest for all sports and that mileages may vary. If you are an athletically talented 15-year-old in a small southern town where 10,000 people show up for every home game, that might be a big factor in choosing your game.
Actually, it’s sub-concussive impacts that are the overlooked thing. Most players do NOT get small concussions while playing. They do bang helmets every play though, and it’s thought that it builds up over a long period of time to cause CTE- witness Mike Webster (a center) who had an advanced case. He probably had very few actual diagnosable concussions in his playing career, but probably had tens of thousands of the sub-concussive hits.
I personally wonder if the hits get harder at each level of the game as well. In other words, it’s clear that Pop Warner players don’t hit as hard as middle schoolers, who don’t hit as hard as high schoolers, and so on.
I’d think if there was a clear connection between dementia in old age and playing high school football, we’d be seeing more of it now with the plastic helmet generation hitting their 60s and 70s, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems to be limited to former pro players, who seem to get it long before they’re elderly.
That’s not to say that I think playing is a good idea, but I’m not convinced that playing high school football is necessarily going to result in any sort of injury.
There is a genetic test for a gene called APOE that you can use to find out if your son is prone to concussions and brain trauma. People that have the gene are around 10 times as likely to have a history of concussions. The test is a simple swab and only takes a week to get results.
I think the important thing to remember is that if he shouldn’t be playing, he shouldn’t be playing. Yes, you let him play four years ago. That doesn’t mean you have to let him continue because he’s “into it”. What if you let him smoke four years ago? Would you be bound by that decision now? Of course not.
That is not to say that you shouldn’t let him play, just that it’s silly to deal with a prior mistake by repeating it. He’s a big boy. If you stop him from playing, he’ll get over it - letting him do things which are hazardous to his health because he likes them puts him at much greater risk than any sport. It’s not as though he can hide playing football from you by stuffing it in a baggie under his bed.
I do think the point about line play is valid. Yes, he’s still at risk of long-term consequences from multiple minor impacts, but players in the open field risk those and catastrophic injury from single impacts. I’ll assume, for the sake of argument, that he is not expected to run downfield on screens and stuff multiple times per game.
There are safer, saner alternatives available, which do have a much lower profile in the US. Is that a bad thing, though?
Rugby League/Rugby Union/Rugby Sevens are all quite rough, as mentioned above, but the playing style is quite different. In fact, some have suggested that a way to make gridiron football safer is to remove the masks and/or helmets, and make the players stand up. As a result, they will play like rugby players, without leading with their heads and so much else.
Australian Rules Football and Gaelic Football also are played around the US, and around the world. All of these games look like much more fun than gridiron football, and I will not be surprised if a massive transition towards them occurs in the near future.
I would discourage a child from playing American/Canadian football. Instead try rugby (although rougher, there is little of the head knocking nonsense of football), or if that is too rough, then soccer. Note that with both rugby and soccer, in addition to not risking head injury to the same degree, the players get to be a lot more physically active rather than stand about on the field so much or sit on the bench so much.
(I played rugby for 17 years in both the backs and the forwards, played fullback and defensive end in high school football, and played soccer throughout public school.)
I have to admit, and I don’t mean to dump on you, that as a parent I don’t understand your position.
You discovered something dangerous about an activity your child is engaging in and you’re taking an “oh, well, there’s nothing I can do” approach. So worrisome to you that you’d actively discourage others from letting their kids play, but not stop your own son.
So either say:
I know it’s bad but I’ve decided the positives out weigh the negatives.
OR
I know it’s bad and I’m going to stop him from playing
I don’t think you get to say:
I know it’s bad, but how can I stop him now?
How will you answer him later in life, especially if he does have any issues that could be linked to football, if he asks you “why did you let me play when you thought it was dangerous to me?”
It sucks when the parent has to step in, but better to make the hard, necessary decisions than just doing what you know is wrong just to keep him happy.
So, if you think it’s not that bad a risk, that’s a legitimate use of parental judgement. If you thinks it’s really bad and you let him do it because… inertia… I have trouble with that.