Overthehill posted:Baseball Dad, we ask our athletes to get in three days of extra weights (beyond our 4th period athletic period) each week. Coaches have the weight room open at 5;30 am and stays open to 5:30 pm each day. Our spring sport guys get their lifting done in the mornings and have time to recoop before afternoon workouts. Every thrower we have is a football player. I'm a firm believer in keeping kids busy and there is nothing you can do in offseason athletics that can compare to competition. We live in a small country town and I often laugh at parent comments on kids not playing football because of injury. But, the same one sport kids have lots of time on their hands to ride around in a $45,000 truck and get in trouble with drugs and alcohol. I've never seen a kid be able to drink beer through a football face mask or a catcher's helmet.
I agree with all the sentiments regarding the benefits of football, many of which applied to our son -- training, weights, camaraderie, keeping him busy/out of trouble, competition, you only live once, etc. All that stuff is important/excellent. And, yes, arguably all of that collectively outweighs the injury issue (it did for us). But, the injury risk is nothing to laugh at.