Fear of injuries and reduced participation

[No Dog in the Fight]

Are there fewer kids playing Pop Warner, Youth, and middle school ball in NC? Interesting article:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/la-sp-freshman-football-sondheimer-20150925-column.html

 

[FB is my Life]

Are there fewer kids playing Pop Warner, Youth, and middle school ball in NC? Interesting article:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/la-sp-freshman-football-sondheimer-20150925-column.html

I coach middle school and have been seeing fewer players for us and the teams we play.

 

[ObserveAndReport]

Interesting stuff. NY Times also has something similar today, but also gets into schools that can't even field teams any more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/s...-Football.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

 

[BD Warrior]

I wouldn't doubt it. One school just outlawed tag for elementary school kids. Pardon my language, but we are seriously becoming a country of pussies if not already there. Kids have always got hurt and killed playing football. It sucks, but it is part of the game. I pray for all the players every year, but you can not be scared of everything with risk in life.

 

[crestcharger02]

With these studies coming out about kids getting concussion at early ages, you will probably see more emphasis on limiting contact until high school. So get ready to see some exciting tag/flag football scores in the Shelby Star between Crest and Shelby Middle.

 

[Lanseril Storm]

I saw a documentary on Netflix a few months ago, and I guess there is a organization out that does autopsies on NFL players after they die and they find brain damage, and some highschool child had committed suicide and he was a football player and his family allowed this organization to examine is brain and they found the same brain damage in the kid that they found in the NFL player. I love football and I don't want to see it go away, but I wont be surprised if it does

 

[Tigertown_a_Rick]

I saw a documentary on Netflix a few months ago, and I guess there is a organization out that does autopsies on NFL players after they die and they find brain damage, and some highschool child had committed suicide and he was a football player and his family allowed this organization to examine is brain and they found the same brain damage in the kid that they found in the NFL player. I love football and I don't want to see it go away, but I wont be surprised if it does

Have to agree that these lastest studies don't paint a favorable picture for the sport of football moving forward, and also agree with others that the sport is becoming less and less of a contact sport, and will eventually be a sport that we will hardly recognize IMO....I'm curious if similar studies have been done about soccer since kids generally use their head without any gear moreso in that sport, and head contact frequency by the ball or an opponent also seems to be moreso than on a football field where kids do at least have head protection?...

Participation is down for youth football, but stadiums are selling out for fans to watch a couple guys/kids compete by playing video games against each other...

Boy, spectator sports are changing right before our eyes....

If all the future holds, is for me to sit and watch two or more kids play video games against each other as some form of sports' entertainment....That'll be the day when sports will become much less important too me...

 

[BD Warrior]

I would like to see the stats from 20 years ago vs today. I still think social media triggers this paranoia.

 

[thekidd12]

I don't think there were many stats from 20 years ago and yes I believe all medias including social have been triggers in the latest coverage on CTE found in the autopsies of former NFL players' brains. This coverage also omits the fact that the brains that were examined were from players who were reporting symptoms related to CTE before their deaths. Sort of like looking for something that you know is already there. An older study on concussions Bradley F. Boeve, M.D by from the Mayo clinic had this to say:

Repetitive injuries have been implicated as contributing to the neurobehavioral symptoms of retired professional athletes who are diagnosed postmortem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition characterized by degeneration of brain tissue and accumulation of tau and other proteins. But Dr. Boeve notes that many former athletes show no symptoms of CTE or any other neurological disorder.

In an article published in the April 2012 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo neurologists compared the medical records of male students in Rochester, Minn., who played high school football between 1945 and 1956 with non-football-playing male students from the same schools and time period. The study found no increased risk of developing dementia, Parkinson's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for the former football players.

So I guess as always you can make statistics say what ever benefits your agenda. But what do I know I am wrong 50 percent of the time.

 

[Lawn12Dog]

For all the parents who will not let their children play football I have a question....Are you going to let that child get a drivers and a vehicle at 16? They are at tremendous more risk driving than playing football. We can "what if" all the time and none of us would ever leave the house.