• The KillerFrogs

OT: Warning -- Youth Tackle Football is Like Smoking

Pharm Frog

Full Member
According to the CTE Center at Boston University

For every year of absorbing the pounding and repeated head collisions that come with playing American tackle football, a person’s risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a devastating neurodegenerative disease, increases by 30 percent. And for every 2.6 years of play, the risk of developing CTE doubles. These new findings from an analysis of 266 deceased former amateur and professional football players—reported in Annals of Neurology by a team of researchers from the Boston University CTE Center—are the first to quantify the strength of the link between playing tackle football and developing CTE.


 

Deep Purple

Full Member
Serious hyper-PC overreaction. I played organized tackle football from ages 10-13 (youth league and junior high JV team) and there's absolutely noting wrong with me.

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DeuceBoogieNights

Active Member
I played football from 2nd - 12th grade. Don't regret it. I have a 5 year old son, and I battle with allowing him to play in the future if he wants. When is the right time to start tackle? Is there ever a right time? Hopefully he just gets into something else. We'll see I guess. Tough decision to make because I love the sport but it definitely has plenty of downside.
 

steelfrog

Tier 1
For the people who play football, except for the under 1% who have a chance at making money at it, football is the dumbest thing you could do.

And the reality is that the research is still evolving and not in a good direction.

One study covered a HS football team after just one season, and only measured the kids who DID NOT receive a concussion during the season, and found that micro concussive forces caused measurable cognitive decline in just the span of a few months.

Steel would guess that another study will soon find that the proliferation of older white dudes with goatees can directly be linked to CTE. So dumb, so, so dumb.
 

HFrog12

Full Member
I've got two boys and I don't think I will start them on tackle football as early as I did. That being said, I think there are invaluable life lessons that can be taught in football, tackle especially. Tackle football can truly help grow boys into men. Having the responsibility of blocking for your teammate so they do not get destroyed cannot be paralleled in any other sport. Sure there are other team sports where you have to pick up one another but it is not the same. I still remember middle school two a days like they were yesterday.
 

steelfrog

Tier 1
For the most part, not really.

There's a certain size and athletic ability that is very rare that results in an NFL player. In Steel's experience, that is quite obvious.

Now there are many people who have that size/athletic ability who still can't play in the NFL.

Let's look at numbers. There's something like what, say 5% of HS players who go on to play D1 football; of those, 1% or so play in the NFL. So that's, of HS players, what, 5 of every 1,000 is a NFL guy? Probably fewer than that, but you get the point.

Multiply that by 20 and that still means only 10% of HS players even have the basic size/athletic ability to make money at football, which means 90% do not. Visit any HS game and that becomes obvious.

So, you've got 90%+ of the kids who are essentially cannon fodder for the others. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
 

steelfrog

Tier 1
I've got two boys and I don't think I will start them on tackle football as early as I did. That being said, I think there are invaluable life lessons that can be taught in football, tackle especially. Tackle football can truly help grow boys into men. Having the responsibility of blocking for your teammate so they do not get destroyed cannot be paralleled in any other sport. Sure there are other team sports where you have to pick up one another but it is not the same. I still remember middle school two a days like they were yesterday.

This life lessons thing is so amorphous and dumb. It's what everyone who tries to justify playing a violent sport where you smash your head into someone else's head likes to talk about. Plus everyone dreams of their kid being the ONE who makes plays and gets the glory when most kids end up being practice cannon fodder and standing on the sidelines during games.

Oh, also, the scholarships. They like to talk about that.

Put it this way -- let's talk about playing highly competitive sports at all--If every kid/parent combo who spent countless thousands of hours doing a sport--ANY sport, much less one proven to cause brain damage -- spent the same amount of time on furthering their academics, they would surely win academic scholarship money much easier than sports scholarship money. Last time Steel looked, there was 400 times as much academic scholarship money as there was athletic scholarship money available.

And if you are talking about a sport other than football, good luck getting a "full boat" scholarship. Chances are you'll get the same or even less than the average academic scholarship at a given school -- that is, you'll be playing MORE than the average smart kid there. It's a marketing thing for many schools -- hey let's have a boys' soccer team, then we can bring in 30 kids who will be paying a premium to be here and do their sport.

Higher education is a money-making endeavor. It's a racket. The people who work for these corporations are there to make money, to increase assets and line their own pockets. Sports is but an extension of that. The schools wouldn't continue doing sports if they weren't something that ultimately pads the bottom line.
 

Frogo

Full Member
For the people who play football, except for the under 1% who have a chance at making money at it, football is the dumbest thing you could do.

...

Steel would guess that another study will soon find that the proliferation of older white dudes with goatees can directly be linked to CTE. So dumb, so, so dumb.

Correlation, not causation! Besides my goatee did not emerge till I was, um, retired.

On second thought, maybe occurred from butting my head against the wall late in life.
 

Wexahu

Full Member
For the most part, not really.

There's a certain size and athletic ability that is very rare that results in an NFL player. In Steel's experience, that is quite obvious.

Now there are many people who have that size/athletic ability who still can't play in the NFL.

Let's look at numbers. There's something like what, say 5% of HS players who go on to play D1 football; of those, 1% or so play in the NFL. So that's, of HS players, what, 5 of every 1,000 is a NFL guy? Probably fewer than that, but you get the point.

Multiply that by 20 and that still means only 10% of HS players even have the basic size/athletic ability to make money at football, which means 90% do not. Visit any HS game and that becomes obvious.

So, you've got 90%+ of the kids who are essentially cannon fodder for the others. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

What if a kid just really loves the game and wants to play it? Should we just stop doing everything that might have some risk involved? Wow, how fun.
 

steelfrog

Tier 1
That is such a facile argument. What we are talking about here is what kind of parental leadership we are going to provide to our kids? That's the issue. Kids don't just love things in a vacuum. They don't pop out of the womb looking for a football to toss around. They love things first because their parents put them in positions to do certain things, and oftentimes because they want to please their parents and do what their parents want them to do. And many times, because the parent PUSHES them to do certain things. Obviously there are other cultural/societal influences, but parents are where it starts.

And let's not forget, the sport ACTIVELY SUPPRESSES information about the risks, and has paid handsomely for it.
 

Zubaz

Member
What if a kid just really loves the game and wants to play it? Should we just stop doing everything that might have some risk involved? Wow, how fun.
"Some" risk? No. Significant risk of permanent damage? That's where it becomes a little more relevant. I wouldn't let my kid smoke if even if she "just really likes the smell and the feeling and wants to smoke". There are some things that present such a significant and long-term risk to health that it's my job as a parent to step in and say "No, for your own safety I can't let you do that"
 

steelfrog

Tier 1
@steelfrog

What's up with that championship wrestler squid of yours?

Haven't seen an update in a long time.

Had a operation. Still recovering. Three years, three injuries. From Steel's perspective as a parent, ready for college sports "career" to be over. This whole escapade has proven to Steel that even as an elite athlete in a sport, focusing on sports in college is misguided at best. Ready to move on to more productive uses of time designed to further an actual career.

His sister who is 1 year older, has 2 degrees and is 1.5 years into a career as a computer programmer.
 

Billy Clyde

Active Member
What if a kid just really loves the game and wants to play it? Should we just stop doing everything that might have some risk involved? Wow, how fun.

Thanks Herbie. Shouldn't you be prepping for GameDay, or out trying to nail some coeds?
Had a operation. Still recovering. Three years, three injuries. From Steel's perspective as a parent, ready for college sports "career" to be over. This whole escapade has proven to Steel that even as an elite athlete in a sport, focusing on sports in college is misguided at best. Ready to move on to more productive uses of time designed to further an actual career.

His sister who is 1 year older, has 2 degrees and is 1.5 years into a career as a computer programmer.

Yeah, but how's she gonna program her way around a WWE ring?
 

4 Oaks Frog

Active Member
This just in from the CDC...
Tackle Football, on all levels, will be abolished on day one of President Bernie Sanders’ new administration. Dodge Ball will be the new college money making sport. Universities may start recruit at Junior High PE level immediately. The NFL is exempt until all of its current players die.

GO FROGS!
BEAT KSU!
Spit Blood ~~<~<and [Baylor asshoe]!!
 

Wexahu

Full Member
"Some" risk? No. Significant risk of permanent damage? That's where it becomes a little more relevant. I wouldn't let my kid smoke if even if she "just really likes the smell and the feeling and wants to smoke". There are some things that present such a significant and long-term risk to health that it's my job as a parent to step in and say "No, for your own safety I can't let you do that"

I think the "significant risk of permanent damage" is a huge exaggeration. Virtually half the kids I grew up with played football and every year there are thousands and thousands and thousands of kids who play the game. The % that have suffered permanent damage that materially affects their way of life is extremely small. And it's not like a large percentage of kids are playing past the high school level anyway. Yeah, playing at the professional level carries some substantial risks, but at the money those guys are making most all think it is worth it.
 
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