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Oh, come on. Anybody that is "shocked, shocked, I say", about football players who've taken thousands upon thousands of hits getting squishy after their playing

Oh, come on. Anybody that is "shocked, shocked, I say", about football players who've taken thousands upon thousands of hits getting squishy after their playing careers has been asleep at the wheel for a long, long time. But grade school football and NFL level football are orders of magnitude apart. Life is a trade-off, and children aren't made out of glass.

gadders 9y ago
Yeah. It's like the difference between boxing for fun as a low-level amateur, and turning pro. //edit// And in that I mean that the health benefits from the exercise outweigh the slim chance of any damage.
jacobolus 9y ago
We are talking about high school students (14-18 years old), playing tackle football, with all the helmet bashing (and concussions, if you read the article) that entails. Many of these kids weigh 250+ lbs and hit each-other hard on every play. But if you want to talk about grade school students, the risks are possibly worse: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-football-brain-youth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-fo...
- lj3 9y ago
  > and concussions Scare mongering. Concussions don't happen at the high school level. I played high school football, my brothers played high school football, cousins, etc. There is no helmet bashing. It's illegal and it hurts, so nobody does it.
  - alistairSH 9y ago
    Concussions don't happen at the high school level. Yes, they do. But, they also happen in soccer at a surprisingly high rate.
  - tallanvor 9y ago
    So... You didn't read the article. "A week ago, he left the second half of North Dickinson’s loss to Superior Central because of a concussion. He looked ready to return for senior night, then took a turn midweek when he couldn’t remember some of what showed up on the game film of Phillips High, this week’s opponent." Concussions are common in football, and are not just due to helmet bashing.
  - nvusuvu 9y ago
    Yes, they do. I got one. Hit to the head. Flash of white, then blacked out momentarily.
Jaruzel 9y ago
But it's now an open fact that kids (who, lets remind ourselves, are not mature enough[1] to make the decision themselves) who play American Football in High School are damaging their brains. It's akin to having a high school based lesson where the teacher walks around the classroom repeatedly hitting every boy on the head with a baseball bat. If that was a thing, as a parent you would never stand for it. However you happily let your your child suffer the same cranial damage out on the football field simply because it's 'cool' to have a kid on the team. As a parent, my mind boggles at this. -- [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority

gadders 9y ago

Yeah. It's like the difference between boxing for fun as a low-level amateur, and turning pro. //edit// And in that I mean that the health benefits from the exercise outweigh the slim chance of any damage.

jacobolus 9y ago

We are talking about high school students (14-18 years old), playing tackle football, with all the helmet bashing (and concussions, if you read the article) that entails. Many of these kids weigh 250+ lbs and hit each-other hard on every play. But if you want to talk about grade school students, the risks are possibly worse: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-football-brain-youth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-fo...

lj3 9y ago
> and concussions Scare mongering. Concussions don't happen at the high school level. I played high school football, my brothers played high school football, cousins, etc. There is no helmet bashing. It's illegal and it hurts, so nobody does it.
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Concussions don't happen at the high school level. Yes, they do. But, they also happen in soccer at a surprisingly high rate.
- tallanvor 9y ago
  So... You didn't read the article. "A week ago, he left the second half of North Dickinson’s loss to Superior Central because of a concussion. He looked ready to return for senior night, then took a turn midweek when he couldn’t remember some of what showed up on the game film of Phillips High, this week’s opponent." Concussions are common in football, and are not just due to helmet bashing.
- nvusuvu 9y ago
  Yes, they do. I got one. Hit to the head. Flash of white, then blacked out momentarily.

Jaruzel 9y ago

But it's now an open fact that kids (who, lets remind ourselves, are not mature enough[1] to make the decision themselves) who play American Football in High School are damaging their brains. It's akin to having a high school based lesson where the teacher walks around the classroom repeatedly hitting every boy on the head with a baseball bat. If that was a thing, as a parent you would never stand for it. However you happily let your your child suffer the same cranial damage out on the football field simply because it's 'cool' to have a kid on the team. As a parent, my mind boggles at this. -- [1] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority