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Football and What It Costs.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Azrael, Nov 20, 2011.

  1. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Will you let your daughter drive a car? Date boys?
     
  2. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    Probably the best way to guarantee both injury and eating disorders is to turn her over to the girly realm of ballet.
     
  3. Iron_chet

    Iron_chet Well-Known Member

    I have a 6 week old son that will more than likely inherit my size (I'm 6'5" and 265 when in shape). Given that I live in Canada I will probably have to get him involved in hockey, my least favorite team sport.

    I already have the level coach down the street joking about when I am going to get him on skates.

    I really doubt I will push him toward football unless he pesters me about it. I hung out with quite a few Canadian college players and even seeing the cumulative effect that a lifetime of football has had on them has me leery of football.

    FWIW a friend of mine lives in the same neighborhood as a few Dallas Cowboys and they are mostly holding their kids out of football until they are a little older.
     
  4. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Mass times speed equals the force of the collision. The collisions in high school football are far less severe than the collisions in college and nowhere near the collisions in the NFL.

    Is high school football dangerous? Yes. Is riding a bike? Driving a car? Soccer? Skateboarding? Baseball?

    The average life span of an NFL player used to be 54. I do not know what it is now. But I am guessing that the effect of playing high school football is not as life depleting.
     
  5. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    There was a big cheerleading/dance competition in my old town and for a weekend the teams and parents took over the hotels, restaurants, mall. Every team would have at least one kid on crutches or in a wheelchair.

    Of course in that sport there may also be catastrophic injury from the sheer weight of the overdone makeup on their little faces.
     
  6. I have mixed emotions already about her playing hockey - the sport I grew up playing and still do - but I'd probably let her. I didn't mean to infer the other sports weren't also dangerous, either.

    But she can date when I'm dead.
     
  7. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    My 4-year-old loves sports.

    Especially football & baseball -- thankfully, the last few months, he's been begging me to pitch to him every day (and when he gets a football, he tees it up and kicks it).

    That said, if he loves football, I'll let him play. There is an injury risk, but there is in anything. My wife's cousin was a world-class pole vaulter and once told me "you can't play competitive sports without having surgery."
     
  8. Sam Mills 51

    Sam Mills 51 Well-Known Member

    Show your work, please.

    This is a grossly overblown theory that has no legs. At least not yet.

    Good on Kris Jenkins for giving his side of the issue. Word had it that a big reason he was shipped out of Charlotte was because he was willing to tell it like it is. One went to Mike Minter and Mike Rucker for some decent quotes, but it was Jenkins who would really cut through any B.S.
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Soccer can certainly cause serious head injuries, but they're almost all from collisions. A few Village Voice Media papers collaborated on a good head injuries in youth sports feature a few months ago: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/content/printVersion/2476775/
     
  10. Turtle Wexler

    Turtle Wexler Member

    Agreed. If you know where on your forehead to strike the ball, you'll be fine.

    It's the fact that you're going up with one or two more people, all going for the ball, necks careening, elbows flailing. That's what breaks your nose.
     
  11. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I'd take what the pediatrician says with a grain of salt.

    I have a nephew who was ticketed for 6-8 when he was a toddler (his momma, my sister-in-law, is tall). He's 21 years old now and just got out of the Marines, and I'm taller than him. And I'm 6-1. He obviously got his height from his daddy.
     
  12. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    I would so love to see youth roller derby. Anne Carvello's great-grandkids would be competing in it. Imagine that call-in to your paper.
     
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