8-year-old dies during football practice

Lombardi said "Dancing is a contact sport. Football is a hitting sport."

 

and hockey and LAX

 

you don't start hitting in hockey, depending on where you live until between 10 and 12

 

The youth league doesn't require physicals? Smells like litigation to me.
The issue isn't only that 8-year-olds and 12-year-olds are playing football; it's that they're practicing in the first week of August. Is their schedule really as long as the high school season? If so, that's also an issue. If kids of that age are going to play football, there have to be some limitations.

 

You don't see violent collisions in youth football either.

 

Youth football serves no real purpose for the kids. For the adults it's a chance to steal money.

 

How is that?
I don't recall having to takcle anyone to end the play in any of the sports you mentioned.
Eight year-olds tackling one another is unneccessary.

 

There contact, be it intentional or unintentional, in all of the sports I mentioned. At least in football they're wearing pads.

And eight-year-olds have been "tackling" each other since the beginning of time. Kids rough-house, it's part of growing up.

 

We got our asses handed to us during conditioning practice for youth league football. Nothing like this ever happened to any our players in our league, thank god, but that's because the league had strict rules. Water breaks every 30 minutes. Water breaks every 15 minutes if it is 85 degrees or hotter out. No practices could last more than 2 hours if it were a conditioning practice and everyone had to pass a very thorough physical before being on the field.

My brother had a heart murmur, and every year he had to go through a battery of tests before he was allowed to play.

In any event, to those who question working the 8-year-olds really hard, it really taught us a lot about work ethic. I was 9 when I started, it was the toughest thing I had ever done. The only practice that was ever harder was high school cross country.

 

Most youth leagues here don't require physicals.
How is that litigation? Who do you sue? Yourself (parents or guardians) for not getting your kid checked out before playing? To me, it seems like no-brainer to get my kid checked out prior to playing.
Free physicals are offered around here year round, so it's not hard to get one.
I doubt the physical would have detected the kid's ailment. I suspect he had a heart defect. The weather has been pretty cool, and I doubt the coach ran the kids into the ground as someone else here suggested.

At any rate, the situation is sad. I can't imagine what the parents are going through. No one thinks their kid is going to die in an 8-year-old football league.

 

Again, the fundamental part of football is contact, blocking and tackling is an integral part of every play. NOT in any other sport. Not on every play. It ain't even close.
Every day Rough-housing is different from football.