Moms to Congress: It's time to protect kids in contact sports

oh brother . . .

I do believe there is some merit and some necessary changes that need to be made. But it's going to be hard for me to get on board with this particular group with one of those moms running the show. Good luck getting her to admit how her son died.. it wasn't on the football field! She only talks about his death and its perceived relationship to youth football. Only a couple of times has she actually posted online how her son died... 

Hockey only allows checking when you reach bantam(13 years old) travel. I believe checking is banned in house leagues now. Never understood youth football for kids under 10 years old.

The local university is looking for youth athlete's for a study on concussions. The Dr. performing the study says the youth brain/ head isn't developed enough to withstand repeated blows.

This came up awhile ago regarding soccer vs. US based sports.  I said then and I say again now...American football has a life span of 20 -30 years left.  Possibly less as this stuff accelerates. 

The death of US football will be tied directly to the end of College and HS football in the US.  That will come as the lawsuits compile.  There is already a $2mm judgement against Pop Warner related to concussions.  School districts are sitting ducks with deep pockets.  Only a matter of time before a class action ends the sport in HS.

Colleges will eventually lose the whole student athlete nonsense in football making the players employees.  They will demand full compensation and the medical care they legitimately should expect.  When the dollars that the College system is stealing from players starts going to them and it is the professional sport it really is - how long will that stay in its current form?  I'd wager not very long and it is possible that a NFL minor league with 2 teams per NFL club comes into existence.  The NFL is creative enough to make the AAA league the Fall Thurs/Friday/Saturday league and the AA a spring/summer outfit for the new young prospects.  8-10 game season from April to June to step on the baseball season opening and basketball and hockey playoffs.  Ends just in time for training camp.  

Bottom line is the NFL will have to build and maintain the funnel of players it needs rather than relying on taxpayers to fund it.  All of this could be very good for baseball if it becomes an alternative for a bunch of kids that otherwise would have been DB's, WR's, RB's, LB's and TE's not to mention quarterbacks.

Of course Soccer could continue its growth and some of those kids could become soccer players.  When that happens and the US wins a World Cup - that sport will be forever changed as well.

As far as the concussion talks go with the nfl....the rules are in place but not enforced. Player don't want it, coaches don't want it, owners don't want it, and the fans dont want the rules enforced. Fans pay big money to see the huge hits. Watch any college or pro game. Players lead with their head 40 times a game, and it is seldom called. 

I lost my child last year in a sports accident, and it is devastating to have to bury your child, but where do you draw the line? From removing contact in sports, playing with rubber gym floors and nerf basketballs? Do we wear body armour and helmets when we get in a car?  

d8 posted:

As far as the concussion talks go with the nfl....the rules are in place but not enforced. Player don't want it, coaches don't want it, owners don't want it, and the fans dont want the rules enforced. Fans pay big money to see the huge hits. Watch any college or pro game. Players lead with their head 40 times a game, and it is seldom called. 

I lost my child last year in a sports accident, and it is devastating to have to bury your child, but where do you draw the line? From removing contact in sports, playing with rubber gym floors and nerf basketballs? Do we wear body armour and helmets when we get in a car?  

D8, I can't and don't want to imagine.  You have a more unique perspective than most of us, and I truly wish no one EVER had to go through that, but I agree....  where is the line?  We can't wrap them up in a bubble and protect them.  I really am remorseful whenever I hear of a child being seriously injured or worse due to sports, but if they take away physical contact they may as well just play it on a video game console.

I had a conversation about HS football with an athletic trainer who currently works in the NFL.  The athletic trainer has also work at top end D1 schools.  I discussed his prospective on on preHS football and he said, "never in a million years would he let his children play tackle football before HS."  It's just hard on the body and has NO impact on a players future ability.  

He basically said if your kid has the athletic ability to play, than he can pick up the pads as a freshman.  It might take a year or two to "catch up" to the preHS players but it wouldn't matter come varisity time and or his ability to play post HS.  Based on my experience I agreed with his prospective.

I played tackle from 5th grade through HS.  We moved my my 7th grade year to a location that didn't offer tackle football until HS.  As a freshman, 5' 98lbs, I was the starting middle line backer.  It was fun.  No one had any experience hitting and I was able to take their heads off.  LOL  Of course, it only took a year for the larger athletic kids to figure it out and by my junior year I had no advantage.  That HS's percentage of players that played post HS was no larger or smaller than any other school.  

So related question--what do  people feel about the protective headgear being tested for pitchers. Is it worthwhile? Is it a good idea for a high school age pitcher? My dad mentioned it after Johnny Cueto was hit yesterday and it brought up one my old nightmares. Thoughts?

Zegel's son died of suicide at age 32. He apparently called his mom on phone telling her he was going to hang himself. He suffered from CTE, he had played football from age 10-college. Sad indeed.  

What's crazY IMO is parents who have 6-7yr olds playing tackle football. What's the rush?

I think the awareness of injuries have prompted some changes for the better such as runners going after catchers and football players sitting out for concussions.  My 2017 had a concussion in on game this year and was brought out of the game and attended to by the ambulance crew stationed at the stadium.   The coaches seem to be attuned to this injury.  Even as brutal as MMA there are certain rules to protect the contestants such as no head shots while the opponent has at least one leg on the mat.  

CaCO3Girl posted:

how exactly does a kid learn how to play a sport?

Same way I did.  In practice.  I did not play organized football until my sophomore year of HS.   Back then (37 years ago) organized sports for 10 and under was unheard of except for LL baseball.  Even then I don't think the lower levels of LL (coach pitch, minors, etc) existed - only what is the "Major" division (11-12 year olds).

Iowamom23 posted:

So related question--what do  people feel about the protective headgear being tested for pitchers. Is it worthwhile? Is it a good idea for a high school age pitcher? My dad mentioned it after Johnny Cueto was hit yesterday and it brought up one my old nightmares. Thoughts?

All for it. 

Parent's 3 baseball fears:
-the comebacker (see above)
-side of face protection for hitter (I'm assuming the hitter is wearing a P100)
-and commotio cordis

We don't need the government to help parent kids. If parents don't like the rules work to change them. If they can't change them don't let the kids play. Do you really want a bunch of clowns who may not know first base from a stove mitten to makes rules about sports.?

A kid can start playing football in High School and do just fine. The football coach I most respect in the world didn't let his sons play midget football and said he didn't like midget football at all.  I started playing football in 8th grade and got a full scholarship 5 years later-and surely wasn't a "phenom".    The problem is the parents that let their kids engage in activities for which their bodies aren't ready-kind of like tossing curveballs at age 10 to get a few more strikeouts in Little League.   I'd love to see Pop Warner and midget football dwindle and go away...and it could happen. My youngest son loved football in high school and always said he'd let his kid play...but now that he has a 9 month old boy, he says "golf is just fine".  I do sense the tide is turning on youth football.    

RJM posted:

We don't need the government to help parent kids. If parents don't like the rules work to change them. If they can't change them don't let the kids play. Do you really want a bunch of clowns who may not know first base from a stove mitten to makes rules about sports.?

I agree.  The last thing we need is to let Congress get involved.

Look I'm a huge supporter of football and I hate to hear the talk of doing away with youth football.  The cold hard facts is that if they don't play youth football then the numbers will shrink when it comes time to play in high school.  Now you're having to play with less kids which means the more who play will be involved in more action leading to being exposed to more potential injuries.  I understand and agree we need to do something to restructure how we teach / prepare football players but getting rid of youth league is not the answer.  I strongly feel in all sports we are failing to teach the game through practice and controlled simulated reps in practice in favor of more games.  Yes playing in games helps you get better but if you don't have the foundation early on from not enough practices then games are not going to help you.  This is where football fails from what I've experienced.  As someone said above (or alluded to) youth coaches want to win more than teach.  Tackling fundamentals are atrocious and it's because 1) nobody teaches them anymore and 2) they are terrible on TV in the NFL.

I'm not smart enough to know the solution but I know eliminating or phasing out youth league is not the answer.  The one concrete answer IS we need to protect these kids but I agree with RJM - government will NEVER be the solution to that.

Tom Brady didn't play football until high school. He played soccer. Jimmy Clausen had all kinds of football instructors and trainers when he was a kid. But he didn't play until high school. There are a few others with the same story who became big time college players and played in the NFL.

Radical thought on Football - although I suspect it could never happen:  Take the helmets off the players or go back to something without a hard shell.  Go back to something like a soft padded thing like a boxing headgear with no faceguards. 

That might stop the headhunting (and leading with the head) altogether and have the game played fully below the shoulders.  The helmet being used as a weapon is the biggest problem they have.

Injuries will still occur - but many more players will be able to think clearly when they are 50.

I would like to see youth football transition to flag football.  Around here the youth teams have very physical practices.  There is a lot of tackling every day.  If you go to a high school or college practice the first thing that stands out is how little they hit.  They teach technique on tackling dummies or on each other but rarely tackle to the ground.  Most of the youth football coaches are not very good and most do not know what they are doing.  My son played one year of youth football.  A lot of the good players on his 9th grade team never played football before 7th grade.  The kids who played youth football don't seem to have any advantage over the kids who didn't play.  I think youth football probably runs off more kids than anything.  Our youth league had around 45 kids in 6th grade and the next year over 100 kids came out for 7th grade football.  

I was one of those kids.  My Dad was a football nut.  I thought it never made any sense to pack the box when the field was so huge.  I wanted to be a Wideout catching 10 passes a game, but coach saw a big strong kid at 12 and made me a tackle.  I was 30 years ahead of my time on spreading the field. 

So I played a couple of seasons for a Lombardi wannabe - and retired from football at 12.  My little brother who never played youth football came along at 5'7" and 150 lbs and was a stick your nose in there hard edge linebacker.  My father loved those games, me playing basketball - not so much.

Best football highlight - in a conference championship game my brother beat a block and popped an RB at the corner in the backfield on a sweep, caused a fumble and picked it up.  He ran 30/40 yards to the end zone where my father who was under the goal post decapitated him in the middle of the end zone and was in the middle of a dog pile.  My brothers head rang for two days off of that hit.

d-mac posted:

I would like to see youth football transition to flag football.  Around here the youth teams have very physical practices.  There is a lot of tackling every day.  If you go to a high school or college practice the first thing that stands out is how little they hit.  They teach technique on tackling dummies or on each other but rarely tackle to the ground.  Most of the youth football coaches are not very good and most do not know what they are doing.  My son played one year of youth football.  A lot of the good players on his 9th grade team never played football before 7th grade.  The kids who played youth football don't seem to have any advantage over the kids who didn't play.  I think youth football probably runs off more kids than anything.  Our youth league had around 45 kids in 6th grade and the next year over 100 kids came out for 7th grade football.  

My father never played organized football before school ball. He played big time college football. He wouldn't let me play until 9th grade. It didn't affect my success. I didn't let my son play until 7th grade. I listened to other parents tell me he would fall too far behind. As the fastest. Most athletic kid I was afraid some insane coach would have his players go for my son's knees. He started in 7th grade. He was a cocaptain in 8th.

The only detriment to not playing at a younger age was he didn't have the passion he had for basketball and baseball. He started soccer at a very young age and dominated. It was his best sport in high school. But he never loved it. He decided football and fall baseball didn't mix. His best friends played soccer.

I'm in agreement youth football should be flag. The reasons schools have limits hitting are the rules. There are few rules governing kiddie football. It's not uncommon for a program to not be part of an organized national program.