NYT article on CTE in kids who play football

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me on what sane planet a sport like this is good for kids:

You can argue about team sport involvement and physical activity all you want, but the above is what you don’t see that occurs constantly during practices all the time even to this day. The clip at 1:15 n the video is horrifying.

Plenty of other sports like swimming, track, golf, baseball, basketball, tennis, etc. exist.

Those are horrible.

But I've been involved in 3 youth football programs, and attended literally thousands of practices in the area. I've never seen that done at a local practice.

I have seen one coach dismissed for teaching bad form. He was told his kid could stay but he could not. Unsurprisingly, he did not let his kid continue.

Oh plesse, they have repeated collisions at almost every practice. Drills like these are very common:

Every single one of those collisions is like taking a jab punch or worse to the head. Over the course of playing multiple seasons kids will be exposed to hundreds and thousands of those kinds of hits that rattle the brain every time. There is no amount of 'proper form' that can protect against it, because even using proper form and the most advanced paddding/helmets possible still rattles the brain. It's basic physics. Then only way to remove the risk is to get rid of tackling and hit blocking altogether. But then you don't have football except for flag.

High school kids are getting Mohammed Ali brains by the time they graduate.

I tell people all the time. If you're in a discussion, and you think you are right, be sure to avoid hyperbole. It makes it too easy to dismiss you.

And FYI: my son's football team was incredibly successful (#1 seed, league champs), practiced 4 days a week (one was film study) and they were no-contact/no hitting from October on.

There was a lot of hitting in August. But once they got their legs back, it was no hitting in practice. To avoid injury.

There are good programs; there are bad programs. Parents need to do the leg work to find the right ones

Yikes. I’m not sure how you possibly justify this to yourself

[Anonymous]

Regarding the “I played football way back when with less padding and I turned out fine” argument, high school football players today are much larger than their counterparts were decades ago. Partly that’s due to the typical American diet, and partly due to weight training and conditioning. Speed and strength have increased as well.

Back in the 80s, my high school football team had just one player over 200 pounds. Most of the tackles were in the 160-180 pound range. Guards were 150-160 pounds. Nowadays it’s not uncommon to see 280-300 pound linemen at the HS level.

Getting hit by one of those is like getting a sofa dropped on you from a flight of stairs (multiplied by several times per game). Sure, padding and helmets are much improved, but they don’t protect against sudden deceleration forces, over and over.