Playing football young can lead to emotional and cognitive issues
Specifically, subjects whose posthumous brain donations were part of the UNITE study had their family histories examined. The earlier they started playing, the earlier their symptoms would appear:
"...the researchers discovered for those players who had CTE, every one year younger the individual started playing tackle football predicted the earlier onset of behavioral and mood problems by 2.5 years and cognitive problems by 2.4 years."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/30/health/youth-football-cte-study/index.ht…
What you're saying is only partially true. I've coached high school football for a decade, kids need to be given the proper amount of coaching on tackling before throwing them into live-action tackling drills. Waiting is not the problem, rushing kids and not teaching them proper form is.
I say this because your one example does not represent the whole. 1st: some kids will never want to tackle and will always be fearful of being hit. 2nd: it doesn't take years of experience tackling to learn to do it properly. 3rd: if the only kid on your team that was tackling properly was the one who was coached by other coaches and had years of experience, your staff didn't do it's job and shouldn't have been running live-action drills.
I played football, did wrestling, judo, and still weight lift.
I caught all sorts of shit all the time from older people. And yes, I have paid a price. I have arthritis in my feet, ankles, and knees.
But the older folks who gave me shit have their own issues for not having done anything other than the 'safe' activities they took part in: Dance and golf. My FiL's back is a complete mess from years of golf.
*duplicate
If you would take it back, you couldn't. Because your parents allowed you to make the decision, or decided for you. For those who would take it back and have parents who encouraged it, whether actively, or passively by watching college football / NFL all weekend long, they cannot. That's the point -- you're making the decision for someone who does not yet have the life experiences to make such a decision. Young people think they are invincible mainly because they are young. Only when one ages does one think, maybe I shouldn't have fucked up my brain since society seems to value brains in the 21st century and not brawns.
April 30th, 2018 at 10:05 PM ^
But I'd sure as shit rather my daughter have a teen pregnancy than get CTE. There are one million ways to take risks, be involved, and not be entitled that don't require you to play football.
It really feels like you're conflating parents holding their child out of football with the idea that they are making sure their child never takes risks...
I might have my Doctorate instead of this lowly Masters.
Yeah I was a pretty quiet kid, but when I played during sophomore kid in HS I realized that the meaner kids were usually the better football players. At that skill level you can usually just out-aggression the competition.
....Paterno?
Yesterday, I signed up my 11 year old for tackle football in the fall. It will be his first season.
I would hate the idea that I'm putting him at an unreasonable risk. Anticipating that this day would come, I have tried to read as much as I can about this subject.
For the moment, the reason I'm not uncomfortable with him playing is that these studies seem to be based on former NFL (and occasionally college) players. It's very hard to see my son playing past high school. Also, the NFL (and sometimes college) sample of the studies introduces other factors besides collisions. Specifically, there is reason to suspect that roids are a contributing cause, or perhaps even the cause, for some NFL cases of CTE. And with guys I know played through high school only, I haven't seen any evidence or even heard anecodotally concern about material cognitive decline attributable to football.
With that said, if I'm wrong about any of that, please reply with details. It's important to me personally to have the best information I can. Thanks.
April 30th, 2018 at 11:36 PM ^
You're on a roll, Lundberg.
We've only just started to make progress on research into the brains of NFL players. Will be a long time before we have research on high school level players.
It is reasonable to believe that a driver of CTE cases is player size and speed. High school kids are generally not big or not fast so impact are less forceful because physics. However, a kid tackling head first is still going to be bad. Repeated helmet to helmet collisions in HS football are still bad.
People keep saying "we just need to teach them to tackle better," but I don't buy that, given the nature of the game, you can't always have perfect tackling form and people put their body on the line all the time to make a play. Even if you play right, it doesn't stop the other kid from driving their head into your skull.
You probably need to go into this knowing that it's not risk free for your kid. The chances of him developing full blown CTE are going to be very low, but we still need to accept that there probably exists some brain injury risk playing at the HS level.
My advice would be to proceed with caution IF your son is enthusiastic about playing, but emphasis safety and hopefully steer him into positions that reduce the risk of injury. Discourage him from playing RB or LB.
Anecdotally, when I played in high school, the kids that end up in the worst shape at the end of the season were the high usage RBs. Even game the would have their body parts athletic taped and they just looked like crap.
We've only just started to make progress on research into the brains of NFL players. Will be a long time before we have research on high school level players.
It is reasonable to believe that a driver of CTE cases is player size and speed. High school kids are generally not big or not fast so impact are less forceful because physics. However, a kid tackling head first is still going to be bad. Repeated helmet to helmet collisions in HS football are still bad.
People keep saying "we just need to teach them to tackle better," but I don't buy that, given the nature of the game, you can't always have perfect tackling form and people put their body on the line all the time to make a play. Even if you play right, it doesn't stop the other kid from driving their head into your skull.
You probably need to go into this knowing that it's not risk free for your kid. The chances of him developing full blown CTE are going to be very low, but we still need to accept that there probably exists some brain injury risk playing at the HS level.
My advice would be to proceed with caution IF your son is enthusiastic about playing, but emphasis safety and hopefully steer him into positions that reduce the risk of injury. Discourage him from playing RB or LB.
Anecdotally, when I played in high school, the kids that end up in the worst shape at the end of the season were the high usage RBs. Even game the would have their body parts athletic taped and they just looked like crap.
there are studies linking it to CTE as well. This is a question we don't have an answer to: What are the root causes. What is the prevelance across the population for different sports and non sport players?
If it is truly sub concussive impacts then we also have:
Wrestling
Soccer
Volleyball
Hockey
Basketball...
to name just a few that could also be CTE risks because of hits and falls. But again, what are the numbers of kids playing these sports across the nation vs. the amount of brain damage?
Until we can get that information, I think it's hard to accurately assess the risk.
I know people who have smoked three packs of cigarettes per day their entire lives and they know the risks. My best friend growing up joined the military at 18, then 9-11 happened. He knew the risk. He has now served 9 tours of duty and has witnessed the risk first hand. Football like smoking or playing soccer, or joining the military come with a price. One thing is for sure, we all will live and we all will die for one reason or another, and we all deserve the freedom of choice in how we want to spend our very short lives. If I want to play football as a youth, which I did and all the way to pros, which I only made it as far as a semi pro league, I deserve the right to do so. I know one thing, my son, or sons will play football. My seven year old daughter plays basketball religiously as if it’s in her blood to do so. Go Blue.
High school kids are disallowed from smoking for a reason. What do you think that reason is? Possibly because they do not yet have the mental capacity to make a decision that will permanently fuck up their lungs for the remainder of their lives?
We start them easy focusing on form over force. Get them feeling comfortable in their pads. Butt low, head up, wrap and roll. We also keep size & aggressiveness matched up in all drills. Removing the kid getting wrecked just for coaches entertainment from the equation(something that still pisses me off from 30 yrs ago).
Are there still A-holes coaching like morons? I’m sure. To that I say be the change you want to see. Coach. Protect them by being aware & teach it safely.
At every level I’d venture that hitting has been reduced by 80% from even 15yrs ago. That’s the problem with the study’s. They’re looking at people who played in a different time. In HS we HIT!! Every day, all day. Run it again, go harder. Run it again. You have to smash thru him!! It was WAY overboard. Watch a HS practice today and it looks nothing like what it did.
My son enters the 7th grade next year, the football question has come up. How does heads up tackling help the following
Their heads bouncing of the ground?
Linemen hitting heads?
Whiplash affect when getting hit?
Have you seen a decrease in the above? The folks at bostan U have state it's not the consussive blows, it's the many sub-concussive blows that are the issue.
This is one thing I don't get about what I'm hearing....
"We start them easy focusing on form over force. Get them feeling comfortable in their pads. Butt low, head up, wrap and roll. "
This is exactly what I was taught in city league and middle school. My coaches would rip us a new one (in an age appropriate way) if we lowered our head and lunged at someone. Tackling was taught that you 'broke down' in front of someone, head up, hit with your shoulder, and wrap.
At the time our coaches were concerned with head down contact because A) neck injuries B) letting the player get by with a poor arm tackle, and C) getting called for spearing.
Now, spearing doesn't seem to be called and some tackling form out there is just wretched.
With all respect to CTE and the effects repeated brain trauma have on a brain, which I believe does have a correlation, arent cognitive and behavioral mood diagnoses on the rise in general? I have both (behavioral and cognitive) problems and never played contact football. It was my perception that these things have seen an increase in focus and thus an uptick in diagnoses. I'm not discrediting the survey or the results of it, just something I was wondering about.
Mental illness has myriad etiologies including BOTH genetic/hereditary and environmental fwiw.
April 30th, 2018 at 10:44 PM ^