Texas High School Students Are Moving Away From Football

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Pompous Elitist said:
Ok, you don’t want to put a number or a risk level on it. Fine.

We always need to balance the benefits vs the risks. Every human does this calculation for activity everyday. Maybe parents should be worried about inactivity, lack of real social bonds, and staring at a screen all day and night.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...th-an-uptick-in-teen-depression-suicidal-thou
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Alright, so why can't we discuss both? There's no need to let the football/head injury conversation go unheard in an effort to promote awareness for the affects of social media on an adolescent brain.

Are you suggesting that parents aren't smart enough to balance both the parenting of keeping screen time to a minimum and the parenting of reducing the risk of injury when playing sports? No one is arguing that exercise is bad, they're arguing the head injuries are bad and that football has been shown to have an increased risk of head injury. I think that a sport like football can be changed to reduce the risk of head injury to a point where the risk isn't as scary, but it's not gonna happen when people try to brush the issue under the rug.

Concussions are not something to be brushed off because there are "other problems", that's just plain irresponsible.
 

To some extent, this falls on football coaches at all levels. starting in the 70's, the NFL started promoting the "big hits" - often head-first - and that style of play slopped down to colleges and then high schools. Form tackling - leading with the shoulder - went by the boards, and everyone wanted to make the big head shot. Now, coaches at all levels need to make a 100% commitment to get the head-tackling out of the sport.

I can see the day when leading with the head - for any reason - will be a penalty, and a player who gets flagged twice in a game for 'head shots' will be ejected.
 

monk10 said:
Yes. I totally agree. I keep being amazed at these year round soccer kids putting their heads at risk so often for so long. It is amazing that these parents seem to believe there isn't a risk between soccer, head injuries, and long-term effects.
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At least in MN, the MYSA has made heading the ball illegal until age 13. Even then there are restrictions on what you can do in practice. One can certainly debate if that is enough (as there is a definite link there too), but it is at least acknowledging that risk and it is a step in the right direction. IMO, it would be nice if Football acknowledged the risks too.


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monk10 said:
Yes. I totally agree. I keep being amazed at these year round soccer kids putting their heads at risk so often for so long. It is amazing that these parents seem to believe there isn't a risk between soccer, head injuries, and long-term effects.

However, i keep looking at the other side and looking at all these kids burning out from year round sports and stopping sports all together and seeing the long-term effects of not playing sports. I then can understand why sports like football really need to be emphasized to get us back to multi-sport healthy active kids. I continue like the football options being developed at lower levels and hope they take hold in local associations.
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Hello sir,
You Sir, don't know what you are talking about.
Soccer kids aren't allowed to do headers until a certain age. Not even allowed to practice them until 11 or 12 maybe.

The occurrence of headers (especially for a kid who doesn't want to header) is relatively low.
From watching the game at the youth level a lot,
I would say out of a group of 15 kids on a soccer roster, you'll have one kid who decided to do a header an average of once per game.
You'll have 7 kids who will do about 1 header every 5 games possibly.
You'll have 7 other kids who did a header once a year or not at all.

The bigger issue with soccer from a health perspective would be heart attacks more so than anything concussion related.
 

The numbers will continue to dwindle in more affluent areas.
Those on the lower spectrum of socio-economical status will play at a higher rate than those of a higher economic standing.
For them, the risk to send one of your boys to play football in hopes of NFL dreams might be the ticket out that you need to support your family.

If you would have asked me when I was 20 if my kids would play football, I would have said absolutely yes.
But the information has changed and none of my will play football because of it.
 


Face The Facts said:
The numbers will continue to dwindle in more affluent areas.
Those on the lower spectrum of socio-economical status will play at a higher rate than those of a higher economic standing.
For them, the risk to send one of your boys to play football in hopes of NFL dreams might be the ticket out that you need to support your family.

If you would have asked me when I was 20 if my kids would play football, I would have said absolutely yes.
But the information has changed and none of my will play football because of it.
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I am a bit in the opposite boat. I played soccer and was full on getting my kids into soccer, until I did the research (and therefore am informed to have an opinion on this topic). My kid isn't going to be an NFL'er and most likely won't play college. Therefore, there is a greater risk my kid will quit all sports at 13 from the pressures of year round specialization then there is having a life long head injury.

As a huge fan of soccer I am really happy you guys are grooming the next World Cup stars for me to watch. Hell burn out a hundred thousand kids from sports, but this last embarrassment stings! Don't light me just because I see a different value. sheesh.
 

monk10 said:
I am a bit in the opposite boat. I played soccer and was full on getting my kids into soccer, until I did the research (and therefore am informed to have an opinion on this topic). My kid isn't going to be an NFL'er and most likely won't play college. Therefore, there is a greater risk my kid will quit all sports at 13 from the pressures of year round specialization then there is having a life long head injury.

As a huge fan of soccer I am really happy you guys are grooming the next World Cup stars for me to watch. Hell burn out a hundred thousand kids from sports, but this last embarrassment stings! Don't light me just because I see a different value. sheesh.
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Well, I can't defend other people's decisions.
Too each their own.
 

Face The Facts said:
Hello sir,
You Sir, don't know what you are talking about.
Soccer kids aren't allowed to do headers until a certain age. Not even allowed to practice them until 11 or 12 maybe.

The occurrence of headers (especially for a kid who doesn't want to header) is relatively low.
From watching the game at the youth level a lot,
I would say out of a group of 15 kids on a soccer roster, you'll have one kid who decided to do a header an average of once per game.
You'll have 7 kids who will do about 1 header every 5 games possibly.
You'll have 7 other kids who did a header once a year or not at all.

The bigger issue with soccer from a health perspective would be heart attacks more so than anything concussion related.
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No headers allowed until U12 soccer (some 11 year-olds in that). I'm not as worried about headers causing concussions as just a normal collision, unrelated to a header. Still a pretty low occurrence though. I think your estimate of numbers of headers is maybe a tad low, but not by too much. Probably depends on the level of play (C1 vs C3, etc)

I will say though, I played tackle football through 7th grade and then soccer in high school. I got far more injuries in soccer than I ever did in football. My son plays soccer, mostly because he's good at it and that's the sport he chose. I would have let him play football if he really wanted to though because I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

Can we all just agree that more research and more protection for the players of any sport is a good thing? I'd like to just leave the discussion at that.
 

Spoofin said:
At least in MN, the MYSA has made heading the ball illegal until age 13. Even then there are restrictions on what you can do in practice. One can certainly debate if that is enough (as there is a definite link there too), but it is at least acknowledging that risk and it is a step in the right direction. IMO, it would be nice if Football acknowledged the risks too.


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You don’t think football has changed at all levels?

People will believe what they want to believe.

Hysteria.
 



Face The Facts said:
Hello sir,
You Sir, don't know what you are talking about.
Soccer kids aren't allowed to do headers until a certain age. Not even allowed to practice them until 11 or 12 maybe.

The occurrence of headers (especially for a kid who doesn't want to header) is relatively low.
From watching the game at the youth level a lot,
I would say out of a group of 15 kids on a soccer roster, you'll have one kid who decided to do a header an average of once per game.
You'll have 7 kids who will do about 1 header every 5 games possibly.
You'll have 7 other kids who did a header once a year or not at all.

The bigger issue with soccer from a health perspective would be heart attacks more so than anything concussion related.
Click to expand...

I coach traveling soccer for 12 year olds. Heading is not allowed until 12. (At least in US Club Soccer. My club left MYSA last year and I believe it was 13 until headers were allowed there.) And the kids aren't supposed to head the ball in practice until they are playing at an age group that allows it in games. Similar to tackling in football, if you head the ball in soccer with the right technique you are WAY less likely to have any issues. The problem is when the kids don't know what they are doing and they just let the ball hit them in the head.

You are correct that headers almost never happen in games at the younger ages. Obviously I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd say what you have there is about right for 12 year olds.

I've never heard of a heart attack issue in soccer. I play on a couple of men's league teams, and one of them has probably 5-7 guys in their forties. They're all in relatively good shape, and I'd imagine soccer helps keep them healthy because I know how much beer they drink.
 

bizzle22 said:
I coach traveling soccer for 12 year olds. Heading is not allowed until 12. (At least in US Club Soccer. My club left MYSA last year and I believe it was 13 until headers were allowed there.) And the kids aren't supposed to head the ball in practice until they are playing at an age group that allows it in games. Similar to tackling in football, if you head the ball in soccer with the right technique you are WAY less likely to have any issues. The problem is when the kids don't know what they are doing and they just let the ball hit them in the head.

You are correct that headers almost never happen in games at the younger ages. Obviously I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd say what you have there is about right for 12 year olds.

I've never heard of a heart attack issue in soccer. I play on a couple of men's league teams, and one of them has probably 5-7 guys in their forties. They're all in relatively good shape, and I'd imagine soccer helps keep them healthy because I know how much beer they drink.
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MYSA is U12. It's a USA soccer guideline, which MYSA follows.

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bizzle22 said:
I coach traveling soccer for 12 year olds. Heading is not allowed until 12. (At least in US Club Soccer. My club left MYSA last year and I believe it was 13 until headers were allowed there.) And the kids aren't supposed to head the ball in practice until they are playing at an age group that allows it in games. Similar to tackling in football, if you head the ball in soccer with the right technique you are WAY less likely to have any issues. The problem is when the kids don't know what they are doing and they just let the ball hit them in the head.

You are correct that headers almost never happen in games at the younger ages. Obviously I don't have the exact numbers, but I'd say what you have there is about right for 12 year olds.

I've never heard of a heart attack issue in soccer. I play on a couple of men's league teams, and one of them has probably 5-7 guys in their forties. They're all in relatively good shape, and I'd imagine soccer helps keep them healthy because I know how much beer they drink.
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Take it with a grain of salt, but this list shows that a good number of soccer players who die, die from heart attacks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_footballers_who_died_while_playing

Evidently, 265 million people are playing soccer, so it's not a real high percentage despite a decent length to the list.
 




Word said:
MYSA is U12. It's a USA soccer guideline, which MYSA follows.

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You are correct. I said U13, but was remembering wrong.


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