Time to eliminate youth tackle football

theboat said:
CAAR, sounds like you needed to wear a helmet eating breakfast.
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me-wearing-finished-laser-messiah-1.jpg
 
CAARHawk said:
I received two concussions playing youth football as a receiver running across the middle with a bunch of kids colliding at the point where the fluttering ball came down. Exact same pass, pretty much exact same result - twice.

I also sustained a concussion while using correct form heading a soccer ball while in JR High.

However, my most severe injuries were hitting a goal post with my head, requiring stitches while I was tracking down a pass as a defender playing flag football in JR. High, and tearing all of the ligaments out of my thumb joint without receiving any contact while playing receiver in High School (This has required 2 surgeries and I number 3 will happen this year.)

So, yes, kids are going to get hurt playing sports. However, I think we can be sensible and make good decisions. I could understand that holding off on young kids playing tackle football might be one of those good decisions.
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That is a whole 'nother issue. Football experiences the most concussions of any high school sport. Second place? Girl's soccer. Boy's soccer is not too far behind.

For this reason some have suggested that "heading" should be minimized at the youth soccer level. That is a tough one, though, because it is a skill that can only be learned by smacking your head against a ball. I will leave that discussion for the soccer forum.
 
CAARHawk said:
I received two concussions playing youth football as a receiver running across the middle with a bunch of kids colliding at the point where the fluttering ball came down. Exact same pass, pretty much exact same result - twice.

I also sustained a concussion while using correct form heading a soccer ball while in JR High.
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Now we all know why you post the way that you do. This explains a lot.
 
theboat said:
My wife tells me all the time that she won't let our son play football. I can see holding him out of fully padded football til 7th or 8th grade, but beyond that he IS playing football whether he likes it or not. ;)
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It is such a great sport, it would be a shame to hold a kid out of it if he really wants to play, although I can understand your wife's concern. There were some terrific athletes from my high school area whose parents did not let them play football (mostly to protect the upcoming college BB scholarship). I always felt sorry for them.
 
Organized youth football exists for one reason, and one reason only. To give the dads who's glory years were high school football an avenue to continue living vicariously through their son's sports accomplishments. It's absolutely pathetic. No parent in their right mind should subject a first or second grader (7-8 year olds) to tackle football unless they were a complete loser who's self-esteem and self-worth was predicated on how well his son did in sports. Tackle football shouldn't start until somewhere around age 12-13 when a child's body is more developed and prepared for that kind of contact. In addition, I've seen too many kids who didn't develop until later get completely discouraged playing football that early. The goal of youth sports shouldn't be to weed out "undeserving" kids who may develop later in their teenage years...it should be to develop a love for the game and to develop a sense of teamwork and learn the joy of hardwork and accomplishment.

All you pseudo-tough guys in this thread crack me up!
 
For what it's worth, we didn't have tackle football until 7th grade, so guess what we did? Went to the school lot after school 2 days a week and played unorganized tackle football from 4th-6th grade. Which is better?
 
bighawkeyedaddy said:
For what it's worth, we didn't have tackle football until 7th grade, so guess what we did? Went to the school lot after school 2 days a week and played unorganized tackle football from 4th-6th grade. Which is better?
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Unorganized is much better. It allows boys to be boys without loser, hangers-on parents dictating the action to a bunch of 1st and 2nd graders.
 
hawkeye12345 said:
And it continues......

We played flag football through 5th or 6th grade. I broke my arm (was in traction at a hospital for month) and I got bit above my eyebrow going up for a pass that required 9 stitches.

Kids are going to get hurt even playing tiddly winks. Its part of life. You pick your *** back up off the ground and keep moving forward. If it is too much for you then you get out of the way. Nobody has to play football. Its a choice. If you don't like it then go play something else.

The market is telling us that kids like to play football and we like to watch it.
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Can seven year olds provide informed consent?

Do you understand the issues around cumulative head trauma?

Are you just an angry person? I have so many questions.
 
SpiderRico said:
Unorganized is much better. It allows boys to be boys without loser, hangers-on parents dictating the action to a bunch of 1st and 2nd graders.
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I love to watch the aggressive parents at kids' games. They're a real hoot.

I saw a mom and dad berating a kid after a "poor showing" at a swim meet. The kid looked like he wanted to jump off a building. Good times.

But, I digress, sort of.
 
Ok so obviously 7-8 is too young they don't know what they are even doing. In my town it starts at 10 which I think is completely fine. It gives you enough time to learn the sport before middle school ans high school.
 
truehawk said:
Ok so obviously 7-8 is too young they don't know what they are even doing. In my town it starts at 10 which I think is completely fine. It gives you enough time to learn the sport before middle school ans high school.
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Starting later is better. If a community decides 10 yo is the right age, I guess that is better than 8. In conjunction with this, knowledgeable coaches who can emphasize technique and minimize unnecessary collisions in practice are required.

Although you could also make the argument that they can learn most of what they need about the sport without collisions. Thus, why not delay the collisions even further until junior high? Perhaps the level of junior high play will suffer a tiny amount, but you will still have plenty of opportunity to get them used to hitting prior to high school, and hopefully you will have a healthier bunch of hitters moving on to the high school level.

Of course, when does it end? Do we eliminate tackle football in high school as well to save them for college? And then in college to save them for the NFL?

Ultimately I would side with someone's earlier assertion that youth sports (and I consider junior high to be youth sports) are about getting kids excited about sports and teaching fundamentals. These goals can certainly be accomplished at the junior high level, with or without previous exposure to tackle football.
 
hawktransplant said:
Signed my soon to be 9 year old up this morning for football. It starts on Sunday.
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He's probably pumped. I would have loved to do that in elementary if it was offered. If you attend any practices, I would be curious to hear how things go. How much hitting is there? Are you impressed by the instruction of fundamentals?
 
SpiderRico said:
Organized youth football exists for one reason, and one reason only. To give the dads who's glory years were high school football an avenue to continue living vicariously through their son's sports accomplishments. It's absolutely pathetic. No parent in their right mind should subject a first or second grader (7-8 year olds) to tackle football unless they were a complete loser who's self-esteem and self-worth was predicated on how well his son did in sports. Tackle football shouldn't start until somewhere around age 12-13 when a child's body is more developed and prepared for that kind of contact. In addition, I've seen too many kids who didn't develop until later get completely discouraged playing football that early. The goal of youth sports shouldn't be to weed out "undeserving" kids who may develop later in their teenage years...it should be to develop a love for the game and to develop a sense of teamwork and learn the joy of hardwork and accomplishment.

All you pseudo-tough guys in this thread crack me up!
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Wow! What a horribly over generalized statement. You make some compelling points, but it gets lost in your rant. I saw just as bad of collisions in my son's flag football games as his tackle games. Kids run full speed and are expected to just be able to stop and pull a flag. Doesn't always happen that way. The coaches in our league went through training and had guidelines to follow in practice. Did that make the "experts" no of course not, but it was very structured. In a 4A school you just can't assume your child can wait and play jr high/high school.
 
CP87 said:
He's probably pumped. I would have loved to do that in elementary if it was offered. If you attend any practices, I would be curious to hear how things go. How much hitting is there? Are you impressed by the instruction of fundamentals?
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Before I signed him up, they had a free camp day that I went to with him. I helped coach the o-line. We worked totally on technique. We had high school kids from the two schools around the corner that helped. One of those schools is De LaSalle which is arguably the best high school football program in the country.


I push my kids to do an activity, my son chose football since most of his buddies do it too. This will be his first football season. He is pumped.
 
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