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I know someone who ended up with epilepsy due to concussions -- they weren't even sports related. So, if I knew that my son had a heightened chance of getting a concussion through a certain sport, no way in heck would I encourage that. Epilepsy is no fun.
Here we go again and y'all are falling for it again.
Create the impression of a crisis and just wait until the public demands "something" be done about it.
More like, "here we go again we discover a problem let's bury our heads in the sand."
Fortunately, the NFL, of all people, isn't taking that attitude.
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Back up and get a grip folks. Football is a dangerous sport. It always has been. Yet, millions have played it for over a century and the world hasn't come to an end.
Football was NEVER considered a "dangerous" sport it was considered a tough sport with sprains, pains and on rare occasions a sport, like many others, resulted in catastrophic injuries and even rarer still death (usually as a result of an undetected pre-existing condition. However recent research has discovered that thousands of former players are having their lives and mental health cut short due to chronic brain injury. You can remain a productive citizen with early onset of arthritis, and other acute skeletal muscle injuries, but living with diminished mental capacity is a whole other set of issues particularly for young children who will never have the opportunity to play at the professional level.
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Those are far, far better options than once again inviting government into an area of our lives where it's got no business being, wouldn't you think?
Anyone other than skillkit read anything in the articles linked to or a post on this thread remember reading anyone call for "government intervention"?
Nauman calculates there are about 1 million high-school football players in any given year in the United States. There are some 67,000 reported concussions, and probably about as many that go unreported because fans, coaches, and parents don't want a star athlete pulled from a game. But among the supposedly injury-free remainder, the Purdue researchers believe tens of thousands of athletes routinely suffer serious brain injuries from high-impact collisions intrinsic to the game.
Football concussions and brain damage, from high school to the NFL. - By Shankar Vedantam - Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2281515/pagenum/all/#p2 - broken link)
I'm really glad you started this thread, because I'm sure we have lots of parents and grandparents here. It's good for anyone with kids in their life to be aware of this...
There are some 67,000 reported concussions, and probably about as many that go unreported because fans, coaches, and parents don't want a star athlete pulled from a game.
I personally know a lot of current and former high school football coaches and I have never seen one that would risk the safety of a player for a win. Even if they did, players with a concussion are mentally able to contribute a positively to a game. For example, our quarterback in high school was tackled hard on a pass play. Nothing unusual. On the next play that was a sweep right, he went left. Odd but we thought nothing of it. On the next play that was to go left, he went right. It's 4th down and we go to the sidelines and start talking to him. He talks like nothing is wrong until you get to the details of the game. He was staring at the scoreboard but couldn't tell us the score. He was immediately benched.
What isn't mentioned are the players that hide an injury because they want to play. I did. I played with a 105 degree fever. I played with a dislocated left shoulder. I played with a broken right elbow. I played with pulled ligaments in my spine. I love the game and would do anything to be on the field. Even though I haven't strapped on the pads in 24 years, I still get that same feeling every fall when practice starts.
I personally know a lot of current and former high school football coaches and I have never seen one that would risk the safety of a player for a win.
To a point I would agree, but I've known quite a few coaches who were thoroughly clueless when it came to understanding the severity or consequences of certain injuries as your story underscores. As a result they will often put a key player back in a game rather than really taking time to access the injury. These new studies may give coaches a new understanding that a kid who took a hard hit may have problems that are not easy to detect, it might also help to change how teams practice by minimizing the types of tackles and blocks that can cause such injuries.
I have 5 teen and tween boys--they all play contact sports, and the head injury thing isn't a joke. I didn't have time to read all of it, but it's a very hot topic right now with youth sports, and many districts are being proactive in addressing it. The problem is that kids are playing contact sports at a younger and younger age, and they're getting hurt earlier. One concussion isn't great, but multiple concussions can cause traumatic brain injury, especially if the brain doesn't have adequate time to heal between injuries. When kids get hurt at a younger age, it can also cause more damage because they're in critical stages of growth and development. Repeated concussions have become a big issue not just because of youth sports, but because of the high rates of early dementia being reported in professional athletes--they've linked it to repeat concussions. We tried to use common sense with our children in youth sports--many kids out here start playing tackle football as early as 3rd grade. Our boys played flag until they hit HS, when their bodies were more developed, and they've done just fine. They've played other sports since early childhood that have a lower risk of injury.
Again--one of the biggest issues with concussions seems to be repeated concussions--getting injured again when the brain isn't fully healed, and that's where you most often see really devastating traumatic brain injuries. The way they're addressing it here is very common sense. Many schools are working with local trauma centers to evaluate each athlete PRIOR to playing, to find out what the student's baseline is--our boosters program pays for this at our school. If a kid is injured, they have to be back at baseline before they can play again--they're out of sports until then, with no exceptions. It used to be that the coach looked them over and said get back in and play, OR if it was bad enough, the medical community said to keep them out for a set number of days and they'd be fine. They've found that a one size fits all approach doesn't fit because each kid is different, and heals differently--some people need a much longer recovery time. They're doing this with EVERY sport (with the parent's permission) at our school. It isn't just football--kids get concussions in basketball, soccer, volleyball, wrestling--you'd be surprised.
You know all this but still let your kids play contact sports?
If one of them gets a serious, damaging concussion, who's to blame?
More like, "here we go again we discover a problem let's bury our heads in the sand."
Fortunately, the NFL, of all people, isn't taking that attitude.
Football was NEVER considered a "dangerous" sport it was considered a tough sport with sprains, pains and on rare occasions a sport, like many others, resulted in catastrophic injuries and even rarer still death (usually as a result of an undetected pre-existing condition. However recent research has discovered that thousands of former players are having their lives and mental health cut short due to chronic brain injury. You can remain a productive citizen with early onset of arthritis, and other acute skeletal muscle injuries, but living with diminished mental capacity is a whole other set of issues particularly for young children who will never have the opportunity to play at the professional level.
Anyone other than skillkit read anything in the articles linked to or a post on this thread remember reading anyone call for "government intervention"?
You do know, don't you, that they once played football without helmets or pads at all and those things were eventually mandated BECAUSE of the injury rate.
Question: Mandated by whom? That's right... the state, ie: government.
You know all this but still let your kids play contact sports?
If one of them gets a serious, damaging concussion, who's to blame?
I let them play because I use common sense, sort out the pros and cons and actual risk, and then take measures to make it as safe as possible, rather than responding emotionally by just saying no, without facts to back it up.
Did you let your son get a drivers license? More teen drivers die from head injuries from car crashes than from any other cause. Do you have a daughter who's a cheerleader? That sport is actually more dangerous than football, in terms of fatalities among high school students. Did your kids play soccer? Many sports physicians believe that soccer is probably one of the most dangerous, widely played sports in this country--it's full contact without the pads of football, and it's constant motion vs. start and stop for plays. Other really dangerous, potentially deadly sports--swimming/diving, basketball, and baseball/softball.
The question--do you wrap kids in cotton wool, or do you take safety precautions and let them participate in a reasonable way. As I said, we wouldn't let our boys play tackle football until high school. We moved to a home in the country that's part of a small (but very good) school district. The starting varsity line up in small town football (with the exception of individual, excellent athletes) wouldn't even make JV in the larger districts--they're not as big and they can't hit as hard. It IS safer. Not completely safe, but not much in life is.
You do know, don't you, that they once played football without helmets or pads at all and those things were eventually mandated BECAUSE of the injury rate.
Question: Mandated by whom? That's right... the state, ie: government.
First you interject a totally BS line of argument that had absolutely nothing to do with the thread, and now in a mendacious attempt to salvage your comments you again try to dazzle us with more BS.
Now if you would like to salvage your credibility, please feel free to post a link to the statutory requirement that helmets be worn.
A little warning, usually before I post a comment, I triple check my information (old news paper habits die hard) in this case I've been to five sites including Riddell's, the first manufacture of plastic helmets, the NFL, and the authoritative book 'Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis From The NFL to Youth Leagues' by Christopher Nawinski.
Pay particular attention to page 101 where it recounts the reasons why the NCAA decided to mandate the wearing of helmets in 1939! Then come back and try to extricate yourself from foot and mouth disease.
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