Football and What It Costs.

"Hi, I'm calling in the results for the Bay City High Rollers. We beat the San Francisco High Thunderbirds, 73-72."

"Well, um, we really don't cover roller derby."

"Why not, the kids work hard, and if you give them some coverage, colleges will start some teams and offer scholarships."

"That's not really my responsibility. But anyways, what happened tonight?"

"We won when the referee saw an illegal pass by Ralphie Valederras III at the whistle. Oh, and little Joanie scored 5 points and got into two catfights."

 

Young kids don't know how to head the ball, and half of America has enrolled their little kids in soccer programs.

They don't jump, and they don't strike the ball. It often just lands on the top of their head.

 

I really think they should make some kind of protective head and eye gear mandatory for youth soccer. If I had a kid I would not let them play without it.

As far as youth football I think the greatest health danger to players are the artificial fields they play on, padded with ground up tires.

A known carcinogen that they all are sucking into their lungs.

 

My 5-year-old son loves any sport. Baseball (tee ball) is probably his favorite right now, but he also plays soccer and is doing a basketball academy deal this winter (no organized games or teams). He has asked before if he could play football.

I've told him and my wife if he's serious about football, I'll start looking into kicking/punting camps when he's old enough.

 

From a report by Journal of Trainers - concussions sustained from HS football and combined total of girls and boys HS soccer are almost equal.

40.5 % football / 35.9 % soccer.

Incidence and Rates
In the 9 high school sports studied over the course of the 2005–2006 school year, 4431 injuries were reported, 396 (8.9%) of which were concussions. This included 137 concussions (34.6%) that occurred in practice and 259 (65.4%) that occurred during competition. These injuries were sustained during the course of 1 730 764 athletic exposures (1 246 499 practice and 484 265 competition exposures), resulting in a concussion injury rate of 0.23 concussions per 1000 A-Es (practice rate = 0.11 concussions per 1000 A-Es, competition rate = 0.53 concussions per 1000 A-Es). The weighted national estimate for the number of concussions sustained in all sports was 135 901. Based on the national estimate, the majority of concussions resulted from participation in football (40.5%, n = 55 007), followed by girls' soccer (21.5%, n = 29 167), boys' soccer (15.4%, n = 20 929), and girls' basketball (9.5%, n = 12 923). The rate of concussion was higher in competition than in practice for all sports except high school girls' softball and volleyball (Table 1). Because only 6 concussions were reported in volleyball, this sport will not be discussed in detail below.

 

Versatile, too. In a right-place, right-time situation, he ended up doing the A1 story a couple weeks ago on the exotic animal slaughter in Ohio. I thought he had been switched to news side when I saw it, but not the case.

 

It's funny, my Irish Christian Brother run grade school not only had JV and varsity football teams for grades 4-8, but it also had an after school boxing program.

It was actually only for the younger kids, but I don't have any recollection of it being controversial, and nearly everyone participated.

Each year, we had a big "Fight Night" in a professional ring set up in the gymnasium.

Our instructor was a local boxing guy who owned his own ring.

And, Buck will like this: I never knew it until just googling him, but he also pitched in 4 games for the 1927 Red Sox.

http://bit.ly/u7ChQT

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cremibo01.shtml

 

Maybe this is why so many catholic priests went off the rails. They were all suffering from TBI sustained from boxing in grade school.

 

How do you say no to your kids if they want to play Football or Hockey? Are you going to send your kids to school in a bubble? Kids get hurt, if they want to play, let them. There are thousands and thousand of kids who come out just fine. I can only imagine how I would have reacted had my parents not allowed me to play hockey.

 

How does everyone feel about the spinal injuries resulting from lugging 20 LB backpacks of text books?

 

You grew up in Canada, right?

I think in some parts of the country -- Western PA, Texas, etc. -- it would be hard to keep your kid out of football.

In the Northeast, there aren't nearly as many football programs for kids. Yeah, the high schools all have teams, but it's not as ingrained in the culture.

By the time kids get to high school, they've already been playing other sports.

For me, the time commitment for football wasn't a great selling point. Give up the end of summer vacation. Practice every day after school. And then you only get to play one game a week, and it's either on Friday night, or Saturday.

 

Yes I did and I honestly could not imagine not being allowed to play hockey or any other sport I loved because my parents considered it too dangerous. I also cannot imagine being that over protective of my kids.