8-year-old dies during football practice

And this is where you begin to learn how to tackle and block safely and within the rules.

The fact is, kids can get injured in any of the sports I listed (and I even forgot lacrosse - a sport where you're given a fucking weapon and are allowed to use it on your opponent).

If you're worried about little Johnny getting hurt don't let him play football. But don't take the opportunity away from every other kid just because you hate the sport.

 

Are you drunk or obtuse?
Where do I say anything about hating the sport? I love football. Love it. But's it not for 8-year-old kids.
You and I will have to agree to disagree here.

 

Eight year olds playing football is just weird to a lot of us Canucks because most kids don't start playing until high school. But I don't think there's anything wrong with them playing at a young age.

As a friend of mine once said, coaching eight year old hockey players is like organizing tadpoles.

 

Right. But the story linked above is from 2005, when he was 8.

 

A junior HS student at Ft. Campbell's high school died last week. Collapsed at practice when temperatures were well below 80.

 

Maybe I just live in a weird area, but both my brother and I started playing football at age 5. It was called Flea-Fly football and it was basically just one game on a Saturday afternoon following probably 3-4 practices. It was nothing more than a bunch of 5-6 year olds running around.

My oldest is 5 years old and we're debating whether or not we should sign him up for football this fall. He's really not into football, he'd rather play baseball every single day of his life, so we probably won't put him into football until he says he wants to play.

While this story is very tragic and my heart goes out to his family, I certainly didn't wonder what an 8-year old was doing playing football. Now, I did wonder what an 8-year old was doing playing football this early. Most of our youth leagues don't start until a month after school starts (late September).

 

So what age is it then that they should be allowed to play.- 9? 10? 12?

 

Personally, I intend to discourage my son (to be born in 19 days!) from playing football. If he really wants to, he can, but I'm not a big fan of it. The risks of long-term damage are high, especially if you play it at any sort of level past high school.

And maybe I'm being unfair and biased, but when I think of the nicest, most well-adjusted kids I cover, they are almost always the athletes in individual sports.

 

I see nothing wrong with flag football between 8-11. Twelve seems about right for putting on the pads.

From my perspective though, there's really nothing to be gained by playing junior high football. It's just two years of getting beat up for the illusion of developing a skill set for high school. You're better in something like soccer or basketball at that point. High school football is not that complicated.

 

You know it and I know it. A kid can start playing football when he's 16 or 17 and if he's a truly gifted athlete, he can make it to the NFL (I doubt Walter Payton would have been any better if he played Pop Warner). Kids don't know that. They and their parents think if they don't start playing before high school, they're hopelessly behind the kids who started when they were young.
I think the main purpose of youth football as it relates to high school ball is that it exposes kids to the game earlier so that's what they want to play in high school.

 

Now hold on right there. I have many a fantastic memory of playing t-ball and coach pitch and eventually kid pitch growing up. Then of course there was the championship game when I was about 9 in which I dropped THE fly ball and the fat asshole who played first base never let me forget about it.

I'm going to go cry now.

 

Contact, yes, but Scottsdale, AZ used to run a great flag football program for kids that age.