Get rid of organized football; take it back to the sandlots and backyards of my youth and it's a great game; hard touch or flag could save it.
4
Couldnt we also just take the pads and helmets out of the game? Rugby tends to be a much safer sport with less projectile tackles. Keep the targeting rules and I think the sport will be able to stay on par with Hockey.
1
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is no laughing matter. The game of football is a veritable meatgrinder especially as it pertains to the human brain. The film "Concussion" staring Will Smith as Dr. Benjamin Amolu who discovered this chronic football injury to me served as a wake-up call. Pittsburg Steeler's Hall of Fame center proved to be the canary in the coal mine of what blunt force trauma does to the brain. Congratulations New York Times. You people are going to win the Pulitzer printing investigative journalism like this. Great story.
4
It may be that the stereo type of the 'dumb jock' is the result of playing the sport and not in any way a trait of those attracted to playing it.
2
Can't go away too soon.
4
Excellent graphics in this piece, NYT! As someone who consumes data as part of my job description you do as well as anyone I've seen presenting visually appealing and contextually relevant numerical information.
5
Anyone know how Football compares to Rugby in terms of Brain Injury?
Not a big fan of football. I think the stop-and-start play of the sport has been pushed by larg companies who want sports to have more advertising time.
3
But what will the colleges do?!
When my 6’9” #230 son joined the high school football camp, I admit, I had visions of him becoming an NFL Star and buying his mom a house. That lasted till day 3 of the camp, when he called me crying “Get me out of here!” due to unconscionable hazing. I was totally oblivious to the health risks then, but now I only thank goodness he bailed. (He went on to play and enjoy rugby.) The whole sport could disappear and it would not make one bit of difference to my world. Even as we’re all gathered for Thanksgiving, we never even turn on the tv.
4
Time for football to go the way of boxing and gladiatorial combat.
6
I’m curios if the drop in White players will deprive us of the next Brady, Rodgers, or Brees! Something to keep and eye on and definitely not good for sport to see a drop from this demographic as Mexicans tend to be too small to make good football players.
1
There is a wealth of important information potentially available through a deep dive into data outlined here.
Testable hypothesis one: The growing percentages of Black and Hispanic youths from the participant population is the result of the exit of White participants from the population (similar to changes in the percentages of Irish, Black, and Hispanic boxers during the 20th Century), not an increased Black or Hispanic participation rate.
Harder to test hypothesis two: The participation rate in traditional high-interest states and at high-success schools has fallen by a larger percentage than in low-interest states and at less-successful schools. (First, going a step too far: The decrease is because the “it was expected of me” and/or “it was the thing to do” students are now playing soccer. Second, the high-interest, -success teams had more marginally interested players who had been encouraged or coerced to play football. Now, they can claim “I like soccer.”)
1
I wouldn’t ever let my son play this game. There are way better thing to do than smash your brain into other people and today children need all the brain power they can get . Let the NFL fend for themselves the whole country would be better off not wasting time watching a 4 hour commerical for things we don’t need . It is really worth risking your future for a game that is proven to damage your brain , who will take care of you not the NFL for sure
6
"...some parents have come to fear that they may be putting their children in danger by letting them play football."
Some parents have come to fear? Yeah.
They ARE putting their children in danger by letting them play football. It's not a maybe. And the danger is getting greater and greater, for every dollar increase in TV revenue. Competition gets more fierce, physical demands on individuals are through the roof, and the little band-aids they put on the rules don't do diddley squat.
Every competitive activity in the US is more dangerous than it used to be--even high school marching band, which used to be a low-impact physical activity, is exponentially more physically demanding and physically dangerous than it was even 20 years ago, all in the name of competitive advantage.
We are a heartless nation when it comes to competition of any kind--sports, business, academics. The demands keep increasing with no end in sight, and there is no empathy for "losers." "Losers" are expected to just disappear entirely, lest they spoil everyone else's view. Be expecting the return of internment camps, so that "nice, decent" people don't have to look at homeless people in Pleasantville. Also debtor's prisons.
It used to be competition to "get ahead," to "succeed," to "excel." Now it's a life-and-death competition just to SURVIVE. And it keeps getting worse.
Look at the callous, heartless person we elected president. And witness the numbers who still rabidly support him.
10
At least football has not been outlawed.
No wonder football is so often called a religion. Just like the various religions, it was invented by men, for men, while excluding (and demeaning, a lot of the time) half the population - the female half. Toxic masculinity thinly disguised as a "sport." Its persistence and glorification says more about the power structures and values of this country than its fans are willing and able to see.
5
Football is a rediculous and potentially harmful, waste of time. This country has its priorities backwards in regards to highschool academics. High schoolers will litterally spend 8 hours everyday during the summer practicing for football in the fall. Why cant put more emphasis on math and science, instead of wasting our kids lives on a game that doesn't even matter. It will have no use in their future lives. AT ALL.
9
Football's dying? I say great! An unsophisticated and brutal sport.
5
Lacrosse and Soccer...bye bye football.
1
America needs to play soccer.
1
Off topic, but I'd like to give kudos to the NY Time staff that does the data visualization. You guys crush it again and again. Superb display of data. Edward Tufte would be proud.
4
Traumatic brain injury cannot cured. Once you have it, it's always there. And helmets do not prevent brain injury. The soft brain sloshes around inside the skull and breaks against the bones.
No to football. No to heading in soccer. No to fighting in hockey.
No to overusing a player beyond his/her ability to heal.
Humans should not be sacrificed for entertainment.
5
The underlying socioeconomic trends are the major issue here. The upper echelon of educated persons will prevent their kids from playing, and how that intertwines with ethnic distributions is up for debate, but its becoming a game for the poor to entertain the rich
8
Yes, the team in these photos has less members in the second shot. However, shooting it in wide angle vs using a relatively normal lens in the earlier shot has an overly dramatic effect on the difference. Less figures should not also appear to be smaller.
Like many others writing here, I no longer watch professional or college football. To me, it is too dangerous and harmful to young men. It is deeply exploitative at the college level (your future mental and physical wellbeing for a scholarship?). It is also disproportionally exploitative of young men of color at this level. It has a disturbing celebration of violence built into its fabric (as in the near obsessive 'big hit' replays) in ways that most other team sports, many of them pretty darn physical, do not. And that is all without considering the dangers posed to younger people in football. I'm out ... I found I could no longer support football by watching it, because to watch it is to feed its largest revenue stream, from television. If you differ, then that is your choice, but my respectful request is that you examine this game to see if it deserves your support.
7
Another case of billionaires organizing to battle enlightenment? Thankfully parents are waking up. Flag football at all levels with continuous play except when the ball changes direction would be more interesting anyway. A speed game instead of a contact game. Maybe by 2050.
3
I think between concussions and debilitating knee injuries, football is the equivalent of the Roman Circus. I refuse to watch it.
6
In other words, there is just too much money to be made by the guys who have no literal skin in the game, and so they keep looking for ways to get kids to put their lives at risk for our entertainment. Sad. Kinda like ancient Rome without the lions.
4
"On the Football Matters website, there were resources for parents on rule changes and safety advances; articles about leadership and teamwork and overcoming adversity; ...."
Overcoming adversity is making it to school each day despite one's family being homeless. Facing a football team that managed to score a few more lucky touchdowns hardly qualifies.
3
I think fans, too, are culpable. Fans' viewership and attendance gives reason for this unsafe game to be played.
3
I loved smoking until my first heart attack. My kids definitely don't smoke. I still remember getting into trouble for passing forward to a football player easy answers from high school geometry. Hey, I am giving him the answers didn't work, and I found out the girl next to me in the back row, my only competition was a speed freak. Detroit's Osborne back in the day. Baseball is better. Boy, did we smoke a lot in those bathrooms.
Make a max weight to participate at JV and Varsity level. JV, max weight 150 pounds, Varsity max weight 200 pounds. Would reduce injuries and dramatically increase the eligible pool of players.
Domestic violence peaks for the year, in the 24 hours after the Super Bowl. Need I point out the obvious? Football supports the evils of patriarchy in its most brutal forms. The dean of students at my daughters High School gave me this memorable advice: "don't date helmet heads." He was right.
Enough with American Football.
3
Great news! Game can't end quick enough. We've sacrificed enough young men for the likes of Roger Goodall, Robert Kraft and the other owners who greeted medical evidence of serious brain injuries with indifference. Don't ever forget the NFL's first reaction to the concussion news: They (the players) were damaged before they got to us. Beneath contempt.
5
I've already started a campaign against the idea of my 13 month old grandson ever playing football. There are too many other choices that don't use your head as a battering ram.
2
There are still 22 kids on the field at the same time. This has never changed. What has changed is there are fewer kids on the bench just watching. There are a lot more things for kids to do now than in the past. We should not mourn the loss of the also-rans. I was a mediocre high school player who spent much of my game and practice time on the bench. What a total waste of time.
2
These apologists for football, were they to appear before Congress as did the CEOs of tobacco companies, would obscure and even lie to maintain their sport's profitability. How many of their children and grandchildren have decided not to play football?
Fortunately I was so bad a football player in high school that my "career" was brief, but I did love to watch. Shame on me.
1
I’m curios if the drop in White players will deprive us of the next Brady, Rodgers, or Brees! Something to keep and eye on and definitely not good for sport.
Soccer is clearly the superior sport. I don't even watch the NFL anymore. This Sunday is Liverpool vs Man City. Must watch game. I have no idea who the broncos are playing and frankly, I don't care.
Also, just came to me...No girls/women's version of this sport. Honestly it's day should be over.
Maybe if we let the players carry guns it would be safer. Start a pro flag football league and hope for the best.
America, the solution to your football problem is...football! ACTUAL FOOT+BALL. Enough with the hand+egg. I'm an Italian-Brazilian married to a New Yorker, raising kids in the US and for us handegg is just for throwing and catching at the beach. My kids can choose any sport they want, should they want it, even baseball (well, maybe... 😂),except for handegg. Luckily my son loves football, I mean, REAL football. It's a game that welcomes everyone, every body type and gender, any intensity, and it's so entertaining! It's time to evolve, America, and join the rest of the world.
1
I want to be clear that I am not defending football and I wouldn’t allow my child to play football. However, there seem to be serious misconceptions in these comments about the head trauma risks for other sports.
Rugby has a concussion rate per practice/game comparable to football. At the youth level, girls soccer has a concussion rate almost as high as youth football. All “contact” sports, including rugby, soccer, and lacrosse, pose concussion risks and the reality is that we need more research to determine the long term risks of all of these sports.
1
Maybe the solution is not to wear pads at all? You never hear about degenerative brain disease among rugby players, and they were next to nothing in the way of padding.
Today's HS football teams needs to suit at least 20 plus to survive a season @ "Depending on the equipment, the cost to outfit a player for practice and a game can be from $800 to $1,000 a player. The cost for a helmet and a pair of shoulder pads alone can easily be $500 per player, and that’s just a starting point."
Good luck with those costs in states that squeezing operating budgets.
1
Quite simple, as@Paul suggests.
The solution is so simple: eliminate helmets altogether. Players without helmets do not plow head-first into other players (more than once or twice before regretting it). For comparative figures, compare Rugby, a similar contact sport. Tackling with (ones) or at (another's) head is a red card offense. Period. While bent noses and missing teeth are common, spongiform brains are not.
It many be interesting to consider the case of the German Army in WWI. When provided with a vastly improved helmet, the number of head injuries ROSE sharply..... because, of course, the number of deaths fell. But at what cost?
1
Yes, football is too dangerous to play.
However, many young men play football to obtain an identity and to say, "I am male." And boys will not brook female traits, nor should they have to. Nonetheless something is going to have to take football's place among the archetypes of the masculine self.
In addition to video games and esports, there is another digital factor in the diminution of football with the locals. And that is quite simply the smart phone and social media.
Today, everyone can be their own producer and consumer of media. The local newspaper is gone. Radio and broadcast television have faltered.
Modern denizens can map out their own world on social media. There is less team, and more me, as well as more outlets for self-expression. A young person has less fealty to institutions and less compulsion to join a group, either athletic or academic.
In a way, it is good to do your own thing. In a way, it is bad because there is much less societal unity and more bowling alone.
The diminution of football will create a partial vacuum in American society. This presents an opportunity for some insightful impresario.
1
Nowhere is the sport of lacrosse mentioned in this article. The number of high schools having varsity lacrosse programs went up by 21.4% between 2013 to 2018, and the number of high schools having women's varsity lacrosse went up by 25.7%. Plus it is a beautiful sport that combines the best of athletic attributes, and is blast to play and to watch. The nexus of lacrosse excellence used to be limited to Long Island, Upstate NY, and Baltimore MD. Now numberous states are expanding the number of lascrosse schools, including Florida, Utah, Texas and California.
1
The amount of injuries that are caused by playing football is crazy. Many people have to deal with lifelong back problems and numerous other things. I can’t see the justification for having such a dangerous sport just to entertain people. They’re like modern day gladiators in many ways. Most of my life I enjoyed watching professional and college football, but now, I think that it’s unethical to support something that is destructive to the bodies of so many people.
2
The millions of dollars spent on high school football would be better spent on tablet computers for every student, computer science classes and upgrades to programs in every subject. Why on Earth should a sport be more important and prestigious than academics? It's a school, not a playground.
It's been this way for decades. I graduated in 1974, 45 years ago, and football was so important that we had mandatory "pep rallies" to cheer for a bunch of boys whose only claim to fame was their ability to play a violent game in which most of us had no interest.
The good students and those who participated in activities like band, orchestra, plays, yearbook and the school newspaper were considered
by many students to be boring, dull, "nerdy" and undatable. There was nobody cheering for us except our peers, the other dull academics and musicians and artists.
When my sons entered high school, I advised them to hang out with the "outcasts" because they were much more interesting. They took my advice and made many good friends. They never attended a football game because they had no interest in the sport. They never played it, of course.
I've had at least a half dozen concussions so far, most caused by low blood pressure that plummets when I stand up and causes me to faint. The most recent was almost 2 years ago and I still have aftereffects, mostly dizziness that lasts for hours. Why anyone would deliberately take the risk of suffering a concussion is beyond me.
1
With kids delaying tackle football until high school (like Tom Brady, Dree Brees did) , less contact in practices, rule changes outlawing dangerous hits and better concussion awareness and diagnosis, football is getting safer and will ptoably make a comeback in the future. Although still dangerous, football is a fun, challenging sport that requires the sacrificing of the ego for team success.
In Colorado, besides football, young people participate in other dangerous activities, such as, downhill ski racing, snowboard x, cycling, rodeo, ice, hockey and rugby, which all have the potential to cause serious injury or, heaven forbid, even death. Young people were born to push the envelope and challenge themselves, just like we did when we were young. That will never change!
Ships are safe in port but that is not what they are built for!
Football - at all levels - can't go away fast enough for me. It is the epitome of everything that is bad about America - and Americans. I had the good fortune to attend Alan Dundes' lecture, "Into the Endzone for a Touchdown: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of American Football," as an undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, and have never forgotten how accurately he captured the sport and the culture that surrounds it. Football is not a way out of poverty; it is a guarantee of lifetime of pain and suffering if not an early death. Parents who think their kids are somehow miraculously going to avoid injury are deluding themselves.
1
The injury chart only takes in to account the acute injuries. A kid can never have a full concussion and still get CTE from constant hits. Either the hits go or the sport goes. That's the only long term solution.
3
Americans should join much of the rest of the world and embrace rugby, a much better sport from which American football descended. Football is much more expensive, more prone to injury but a slower and duller game. It is hard to tell where football went wrong: perhaps in the padding and helmet that encourage direct hitting, perhaps in the unlimited substitution rules that insure players' fitness is never challenged. Whatever the case, schools should drop football and encourage rugby.
Full disclosure: I love football.
My answer to people who worry that their sons will get hurt playing football is this: Every year in the US, 40-50 people are killed skiing or snowboarding. In contrast, last year, there were four football-related deaths (out of 4.2 million players at all age levels). And the incidence of serious injuries such as broken bones are similarly disparate. Clearly, skiing is far more dangerous. Yet mothers of teen boys are not trying to keep them off the slopes.
@John Burke False equivalence...football is a team sport played in schools, and paid for, by alums or other supporter and by taxes in public school. Football programs are notoriously expensive and take school dollars away from other school programs - like...academics...or sports that also involve girls. Schools build increasingly outlandish stadiums which are used once a week for a short season and and they are difficult to repurpose for other college uses. There are few school ski teams, so the allocation of resources don't compare. If parents want to risk injury in skiing/snowboarding, etc., that is a personal parental and financial decision. Injuries in school-sponsored athletics are the result of societal decisions and societal costs in addition to individual parental ones.
1
I coached middle school football and now coach middle and high school rugby.
No comparison. In football I still payed ahainst teams that were coached "old school". In rugby, everyone's first concern is safety of the kids. Rugby players play the sport the rest of their lives. Football players do not. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of football still, but I know more families are looking at other options like rugby and lacrosse.
Most high school players will never play football after high school. Not once. All they have to look forward to is a lifetime of injuries and bad golf
Parents no longer want to put their sons into that meat grinder on the off chance of the brass ring of scholarships and the NFL, with the parallel effect of less emphasis on the actual education. I see that as an excellent development. My sister and her husband encouraged their three strapping, sports minded sons to play any sport as long as it was not football.
As a toddler, my middle child pounded her head. The pediatrician told me it wouldn't harm her. She gave herself two noticeable concussions, one of which prompted a CPS investigation of me for potential child abuse which was only halted when the neurologist's resident FINALLY bothered to do something the emergency room workers, the Army pediatrician, the Army hospital social worker, and everyone else involved in the farce of an "investigation" did not do... she *observed* my child doing what she had done multiple times in front of each of the professionals before. She pounded her small head on the concrete floor. I was cleared--than heavens--of something I had never done.
My daughter had terrible behavioral fallout that we could not explain. She was EIGHT before research in Gulf War soldiers defined the ten distinct symptoms of Post Concussion Syndrome and multiple micro-concussion traumatic brain injury. To this day, there STILL has not been ANY research on toddlers pounding their heads. NONE. NADA. NIL. My daughter has every single symptom of MMTBI. I couldn't even get her to a neuropsychologist because the records of her TBI are so old they no longer exist.
Get your kids off that field as soon as you can. In no manner do you want your precious child to have ONE concussion much less the exposure from a sport like football. Football is not worth it.
I have thought that NFL and MLB are out of touch with the Communities they want. The games are so expensive that it prohibits young families to attend. 4 Tickets, Parking, 4 Meals, 3 Soda Pops, a Beer (maybe two), a couple of bags of Peanuts, and a Souvenier for each kid and we are talking an average monthly Rent or Mortgage Payment. The NFL and MLB are for Corporations, not Fans anymore. Kids have no access to highly paid Superstars. They do not relate to them because of it. The teams have priced themselves and placed themselves into the cultural abyss to children who represent their future.
Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones can scream all they want but remember, it is their greed (Fantasy Betting ie Draft Kings which they own) that has placed them in this position.
1
Excellent piece. I’ve been on all sides of football, from PeeWee to middle school to high school and college (D-III) player to middle school, JV to Varsity coach in independent schools. M What I’ve observed in 50 years since my first tackle in pads is an increase in the “means to an end” participation in football — as opposed to “joy and growth in the game” participation. What I mean is, more and more kids (and their parents) are participating in football in the 21st century seeking scholarships, college app points, respect, a varsity jacket— whatever— out of it. Fewer seem to be in it for the love of the game or the intangible assets the sport can promote when coached correctly. It also seems like fewer and fewer neighborhoods (urban, rural or suburban) have as much “sandlot” football energy as In the past. I remember having to drive slowly through the Bronx for fear of running over gaggles of 12 year olds playing touch. Time was you couldn’t pass an empty green patch outside of any town without seeing groups of kids or young adults playing informal football. That just isn’t the case anymore. Football has changed, yes, but more poignantly so have we as Americans. I’m not sure the Foundation can PR it’s way out of this other than by de-emphasizing the NFL and NCAA in our collective consciousness. Perhaps also stripping down the game to its back yard roots and emphasizing ball skills (which anyone can master) over contact (which only physical freaks can excel in) can help.
2
Until such time as violent collisions are once again an aspect of the game rather than the object of it, football will continue to decline in popularity until it is gone altogether.
1
I played Varsity in HS, and boxed light heavyweight in the Army. No drain bramage here.
3
My father was a high school football coach; he played offense on Auburn University's football team after going there on the GI Bill after serving in WWII. Both my brothers played high school football and my entire family, male and female, were big fans of the NY Jets (Joe Namath was my childhood hero). My father was one of those old-school coaches who expected his players to stay in the game and play, even if they were injured - likening it to a gladiator who was expected to fight to the death. When my father played and coached, injuries were a part of the game and one just played through them. My father passed away before anyone had any idea of the impact head injuries, such as those suffered by football players, have on the brain. Would he have let my brothers play football if he had known? I'd like to think he wouldn't have, but I am not sure. But I do know that, between what we have learned about brain injuries associated with the sport and the way the NFL reacted about "bending the knee", I refuse to watch NFL games any longer - even the Super Bowl. As far as I am concerned, no parent should encourage their child to play football. It's the sport of dinosaurs and, like dinosaurs, will someday become extinct.
2
@Morningstar I hear you, but what will fill the economic and social void that its demise will leave?
One of our local high schools did not field a team for two seasons. it started when there was not enough participants to Safely field a team, I think that speaks volumes. There are two regular high schools in the district, the kids flocked to one. There was a push to reinstate a team, finally happened. I think that participation is marginal, many parents I talk to think guiding to a less injury prone sport is the way to go. The school did not need it for an identity.
I went to two high schools when I was a student, for one, a big school, big team, 4,000 seat "Stadium" courtesy of the "Dad's Club". The other, we did have one, no stadium, no college bound players.
I started playing football at age 9 and stopped after an injury ended my collegiate career at 22. I grew up in a football family, my Father was a Head Football Coach at the High School level for over 35 years, I myself coached at the collegiate level for a few seasons. I understand how the game has evolved, and in my opinion for the better. The game, like life is inherently dangerous but there is an element to the game that cannot be under appreciated. That element is the value of team. Football is often referred to as the ultimate team sport. Often a wide range of kids or men; economically, socially, physically, all striving together towards a common goal. It’s a unique game that will come with bumps and bruises but that element of team in my opinion leads to life lessons that a textbook will never be able to accomplish. I hope the future is bright for this game as I view it as a core foundation to my life even though I know the brutality of it will follow me physically. It may sound crazy but I wouldn’t trade the joy, sorrow, friendships, lessons, wins and losses for anything. I know there are many like me who would say the same.
2
I can fully understand and agree with parents who don’t want their sons to play football. This is just one reason why. More than 20 years ago, I ran regularly at a local track where many young kids practiced their sports. One fall day, I witnessed a father-coach yank a youngster (maybe 8-9 yrs old) up from the ground by the chin of his helmet, yelling in anger over something. I did nothing but look aghast at the physical damage he could have inflicted. Today, I would have spoken up and taken a video perhaps sending it to the athletic group sponsors and parents. I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen any longer. Football was a sport I found barbaric and boring. I liked watching tennis, skiing, track...all sports one could continue to enjoy from childhood through adult years. Thank goodness both of my brothers were interested in other sports and their sons did the same.
2
Interesting that the foundation’ goal is the health of the game and no word about the health of the kids. Just a reminder of how much the NFL fought against the science regarding the permanent brain damage to football players. For the sake of our children, I hope this foundation’s effort fail fast.
8
Ecclesiastes 3 (KJV)
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted...
Football's time has come, and gone, regardless of the season.
1
Let's also think this through unsentimentally. Boxing used to be the most popular sport. How much have we lost through its decline in popularity? What's the damage from baseball's (much lesser) decline? What would we lose if tackle football goes way down and something else comes into first place?
The desire of people to play and follow sports will remain. Whatever character-building effect sport has for the young will remain. Those things aren't at risk. So if it turns out football is unusually dangerous compared to others - maybe let it go?
7
There's a growing feeling nationwide that football is not only very dangerous, but games at nearly every level are rigged to favor the big money teams. Small teams, small towns, small markets stand almost zero chance. As Brian Touhey of thefixisin.net says, "Would you leave a multi billion dollar business up to chance?"
2
There are two statistics that are used to prove the downward trend of football that represent much bigger trends that have nothing to do with football. 1) the statistic they use is the decrease in the amount of high schools that play 11 man football, well, I can tell you that is not because the interest in football has decreased, it is because the 100,000 small towns across the country in rural areas have all mostly shrunk 10-20% in the last 15 years. Thus, the schools don't have enough kids to play 11 man, so they go to 8 man or 6 man. That is the main reason for less kids playing football, is because there are less opportunities at small schools, which is where the majority of kids would have played. That is also part of the reason for the up tick in black/hispanic, but also due to the slowly demographic shifts of the nation too. I am sure that more sports options, health awareness, and increased couch potatoes all factor in some, but I would say the decrease of the small town programs due to the sheer shrinking of the towns is probably the primary reason for decreasing high school statistics.
1
Looking at the comparative incidence of injury chart, if you say that football/lacrosse/soccer are the the menu items for a certain kind of fall team sport for a certain kind of boy, the numbers are 112/37/35. Seems to me the choices parents give their kid is pretty straightforward--soccer or lacrosse. And that's said as the dad of a 35 year old son who, in the next few years, is probably looking at shoulder surgery for issues dating back to his high school sports days (lacrosse).
The evidence of brain damage from repetitive blows to the head over days, weeks, months and years keeps piling up.
Personally, as a person who spent 49 years in medicine, I think organized football ( pop warner, high school etc) should be prohibited. I also question why any parent would knowingly submit their child to what could easily become a life changing affliction.
Ah... but there’s so so much money to be made in football!
6
It's all about money, more money than ever, always. Slo-moed, freeze-framed, replayed, highlighted in yellow, and played again ... dramatic speed and athleticism heading for dramatic contact makes great TV. At home or on the enormous, hyperactive screens in the electrified, sound-amplified, lavishly sponsorshiped, mulit-camered collesiums where the game is played ... great TV sells product. So hit away. That style of play will be emulated by college players hoping to be drafted (whose schools have stooped to become a farm system for the pros, while raking in money for themselves),by high school boys hoping for whatever high school boys hope, and by little boys who are taught to emulate in all things. It was a beautiful game. It taught kids good lessons about work, discipline, preparation, and accountability to teammates. Now it's as ugly as its money.
1
I love football. I played (badly) in high school. I have followed TCU football since I was old enough to remember. I still follow the games every fall Saturday. That said, when my son decided to swim in HS instead of playing football, I was very relieved. It is a dangerous sport and the decision to play the game is subject to peer and parental pressure. I don’t know of any other sport that teaches the lessons of teamwork as well as football, but the value must be carefully weighed with the dangers.
1
@KO in Texa All team sports teach the lessons of teamwork. Many non-sports activities do too. This seems to be a myth that's been constructed around football to help justify its existence.
3
@KO in Texa I don't know of any sport that teaches hubris and entitlement as well as football does.
2
The percentage drops in such Football hotbed states like Ohio, Nebraska and Arkansas are shocking to me.
Perhaps it's because participation had been so high compared to most states previously...
President Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ban college football in 1905 if the sport was not reformed to reduce serious injury and death. More than 40 college players had died due to on-the-field injuries between 1900-1905.
Similarly, the Georgia legislature came close to banning football in the early 1900s due to the death of a player. Ironically, it was the plea of the dead boy's mother not to ban the sport which saved it.
The difference between then and now, of course, is the shiploads of money that the modern game brings in.
3
One hit to the head is one too many. I know, I suffered a closed head TBI seven years ago as an adult & lost everything: my career, driving license & my marriage. Medicine is just now catching up to the notion that head injuries are often a chronic condition, not an acute event.
Parents should not let their kids play full contact football. Often times, a hit is under diagnosed because the changes to the brain don’t show up until days or even weeks later.
I was in an ICU for a week and walked out thinking I had “bumped my head”. It was six months later I was diagnosed with post-traumatic epilepsy, not even realizing I had been having seizures. Now I have a host of autoimmune conundrums wreaking havoc with the rest of my system.
Do everything to protect your brains; they are remarkable machines, the command center for our bodies but they require care & protection.
3
Imagine if high schools put the same amount of time, money and energy into math or science or reading as they do into football? Two hours a day every day after school and Friday night competition. Different "coaches" could hit different topics to change things up. Bus trips to other schools to compete. And not a head injury in sight.
11
@Kristine. Excellent point. Of, if they put that money, energy and prestige into sports that students could continue AFTER they leave school, helping to keep them healthier throughout their lives.
1
Any single hit to the head is dangerous. My son had to quit first year university because he bumped his head on a door frame. My friend's son had to do the same when he bumped his head getting into a car. My girlfriend hit her head on a door and developed vertigo and headache. All three took a year to recover and still experience periodic symptoms - vertigo and headache. And that's one hit! My son and I watch football, but we wince every time we see a head hit - and more than one person is getting a head hit on every single play.
Scientifically the data may be rolling in. But anecdotally, by my own very personal experience, it's clear that any kind of head hit that can be prevented must be prevented. From that perspective, tackle football is doomed.
2
Switch to Rugby. More exiting better flow and very few head injuries. Only problem is no timeouts for TV commercials.
3
That case full of football trophies looks like the cases in the entryways of schools across America, even those not in prime high-school football territory. Go Blue Devils! Or Bobcats. Or Rangers. Why are our schools' identities are defined by their sports teams?
Meanwhile, reading and math scores are stalling or falling across America. Maybe if our schools celebrated the math and debate teams the way they do sports teams, we'd have fewer concussions and more high-performing students.
8
@Elizabeth A For that matter why is almost the only thing that anyone knows about a given college or university in this country the football mascot, and not the quality of professors in the chemistry department or production of school's theater department? We have our priorities with respect to education completely out of whack.
2
The brain injury problem is only one of the reasons I've lost interest in football. The crazy celebrations that show lack of sportsmanship, the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick and related efforts by wealthy, plutocrat owners to deprive players of free speech, and the ambiguous response to domestic violence are some others. There are much better ways to spend Sunday than feeding the NFL's money machine.
2
Smoking kills. We have known that since the Surgeon General reported it in 1964. But here we are 55 years later and look at all the people who are continuing and starting to smoke. Unfortunately, football will probably have a similar timeline. With cigarettes, smokers are the addicts. With football, the fans are the addicts. And young boys and men are being led to the slaughter. I find watching football unconscionable. It is similar to a blood sport.
5
This is great news for many young adults who will have the chance to grow up without severe disabilities due to what football has become. It has evolved into a macho kill-or-be-killed Gladiatorial revery (an interesting term).
Orthopods repeat, over and over again, that they have seen way too many kids severely injured with broken bones, damaged organs and brains that leave them crippled in early adulthood. So few will make pro and the "glory days" off High School macho football should disappear upon graduation. They rarely do in small towns.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for real sports, just not ones that damage living beings. There is more to sports than chess and, from a Doctor's view, well-coached Soccer, tennis, water polo, golf and baseball all provide safer exercise than American football. It's great to win, but it's greater to learn humanity, respect and civility.
This is, for a great part, grown up men reliving their would be macho lives. There is strategy and discipline, but from my observations, it's mostly about brute destruction of opposition. There are better ways.
2
Here is how to save football. Get rid of helmets and pads. Change the way people tackle. Make it more like rugby for tackling.
Rugby does not have nearly the number of concussions as football.
3
Ah Mississippi - always either the top or bottom state in the wrong way. Forty nine states saw a drop in football players. All but one. Congrats Mississippi - on being wrong again.
5
I still have nerve damage in my neck shoulder which occurred
42 years ago during a high school varsity game
3
The problem with football is simple physics. To wit, F = dp/dt. When the brain smacks against the inside of the brain pan hard enough it will cause an injury to the brain. No helmet technology can intervene on a brain sloshing around inside a person's skull. There is nothing so special and unique about football that the lessons of work ethic, teamwork, leadership, etc. so often extolled about the sport can't be learned through participation in another sport, or some altogether other non-sports activity. If the high school programs dry up and disappear, the big-time college programs and NFL will die from lack of available talent.
2
@Jack
It's fun.
Humans do not give up things that they like, easily.
A lot of bullying happens in high school, in sports venues the most. Violence for the masses, one level above other violent tv stuff - tv programs and movies constantly normalizing murder, “pro” wrestling, calibrated boxing matches. Quality non violent sports are premium, golf only available on paid channels, tennis rarely shown and doled out sparingly. Shoveling out violent and fake-violent stuff is easy. Pro football is beyond the pale,. College football is traditional and caters strongly to alumnae appeal. The TV media is soaked in violence, mostly fake trash, but the appeal has them churning it out. It helps feed the cultural illusion that violence is “natural”, common, widespread, and to be constantly feared. It keeps the military and other weapons makers in business. It supports the perverse notion that it is right and honorable for our country to constantly engage in bloody war overseas, even though the USA is virtually militarily unassailable. We are safe, mostly, from outside attack.
3
@Pat "Alumnae" appeal?! Really?
1
High School football (tackle) exists due to its ability to be exempt from death / injury liability.
The liability release signed is the equavlent of a, 'Get out of jail free' card. Corporate America is incredulous a blanket liability waiver exists in HS sports, particularily dangerous football.
Eliminate the liability waiver & watch the viablity of High school football evaporate.
Make HS football carry its full costs & then see if the lobby/ football community remains as supportive.
Medical & disability (lifetme) policies are available...
3
Best news story of the week! Hope the game dies completely! Yeah for track and field, cross country running!
3
I hope football just disappears. I taught at Swarthmore College when the college had the sense to eliminate football, and that was before concussions and ECT was a conversation.
Parents who send their kids onto the field should be visited by social services.
4
Can't happen soon enough. I have a torn meniscus in my knee that reminds me everyday of playing HS football in a small Texas town. On top of the injury, and what these articles fail to talk about, the ostracism I experienced afterwards for not playing anymore was painful. When football is king and you don't participate, you are no longer a prince.
5
@lndn
In a lot of small towns, football is an institution. But in a lot of countries, soccer takes that same role.
1
@Casual Observer But in most countries, soccer is run by clubs, not the schools. Let our schools concentrate on academics, not sports.
2
Football isn't a contact sport it's a collision sport. Is any other 'sport' better designed to undermine good health?
2
Anything football can teach in the areas of team work, leadership, etc. can be learned in many, many other activities. For pete's sake, you can learn all that when putting on the school play or working on the school newspaper! High School football exist to be a feeder into college football which acts as the minor league to the NFL. To claim that its anything else is dishonest.
8
“If we stand for anything, it’s to protect the game"
I guess that says it all. Nothing about protecting the boys.
7
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds just like the tobacco industry. Gimme a break. Next they'll have studies claiming concussions are good for you.
The Romans loved gladiators. That didn't make it a good idea.
Civilization moves us progressively away from our savage ape roots. If you have to beat somebody play soccer....or chess.
1
I like how they only lost 9 people, they just made the "after" picture farther in the background to make it look more significant. Nice reporting guys.
2
NFL Football is entertainment but it is faltering at that. The games are too long, too many penalties, too many commercials. It has become a way out for a very small percentage of players. Better chance of getting hit by lightning then making it big in the NFL. The risk of getting injured for life is not the worth the payout possibility. If kids are looking to do a sport for exercise and fun there are a lot out there that won't kill you or damage your brain.
1
Never liked it save for the competitive ones, which are rare. I don't like violence...army vet here and no wimp...and the game is based on the strategic use of violence. And the time spent by players and coaches talking about the next play makes it an even greater waist of time. Like watching Paint dry with cheerleaders.
1
Football is a gladiator type sport. Soccer is a better choice and played worldwide.
1
Football is too dangerous, too costly, requires too many coaches and is a sport that players can't continue after graduating high school. It is really a silly game if you stand back and look with an unbiased view.
The sooner it dies the better.
2
I never played football, but went to every high school football game as a member of the marching band back in the late 70's & early 80's. We had a great time in the band. We didn't need helmets, although we wore big goofy hats. I don't remember any music related concussion issues. But I do remember when our Board of Education slashed the music budget to spend lavishly on a new football coach and staff. I'm glad to see this stupid sport in decline and I hope in another 40 years the obscene amounts of money spent on football in high schools gets redirected to the arts programs.
8
I played Canadian football in high school in the mid-'70s. I was defensive outside linebacker -- which I believe you guys call a cornerback -- and also offensive end.
I only signed up for it because I was talentless in the other school sports and because you had to pick one or be banished to loser purgatory.
I got two out-cold, no-memory-of-the-event concussions in the space of three weeks, one on each position. One happened when a 7ft x 7ft assassin threw himself on me from behind (but, hey at least I didn't drop the ball -- or so I was told). These I didn't need, as I was already failing most subjects and was socially quite hopeless. Now I was even dimmer.
Have to say, I was pretty glad when winter ended football season, and I could enjoy far safer pursuits, like bashing moguls and doing aerials.
Honestly, I loathed organized team football. You just never knew who the psychos might be on the other teams, and who/where your next big injury would come from. Pick-up games were better, and we even played tackle, because you generally knew everyone, and thus who to stay away from. But still we all broke bones, dislocated joints and tore things and it all seemed kinda moronic to me.
And I never saw football bringing out the most noble of qualities in young men.
So yeah, good riddance, football.
7
Houser said it could be very hard when “parents get caught up in the ‘let’s don’t take a chance’ thing.”
Those pesky parents!
“We’re not going to change anyone’s minds, but we hope to . . . give people enough information to make their own decisions,” said Ken Luce.
The problem is that many of the "people" making their own decisions here are children-- by definition UNABLE to make their own decisions.
Those pesky kids!
One word of advice to the NFL and the NCAA: robots?
1
Colleges are complicit in underwriting the hyper-competitive youth and high school athletics industry in sports with known CTE risks (tackle football, contact honkey, and soccer with headers) by offering billions of dollars in athletics scholarships. They are encouraging young people and students to play sports that will destroy their brains.
State governments do the same at state-supported public colleges: the coach of Alabama is paid 100X more than the governor of Alabama to recruit young men to play a sport that will destroy their brains in exchange for an academic scholarship that is intended to help them develop their brains. Colleges and states need to divest from these sports in their current forms to force the NCAA’s hand in making common sense rules changes (no heading in soccer, no tackling/checking in football).
With recent studies showing around 15% of HS football players going on to develop CTE and professional soccer players 3.5X more likely to die from neurodegenerative diseases, it is very likely that huge numbers of young brains are being destroyed each year for recreation and the hope of a college scholarship. This needs to end. When your college calls asking for an alumni contribution, tell them you won’t donate until they divest from these sports.
2
"There was no hand wringing, no table pounding", and no women either. Such a progressive group!
3
It is about time that people are getting smarter about sports. I say let it die in peace.
2
Let’s not forget the role of the pretty girls who flock to the football stars.
Football is a brutal, gladiatorial, and to me at least, boring sport. As a child, my father watched football and I tried to get interested but I just wasn't having it. Baseball is much more interesting and soccer as well. Both sports where sheer brawn isn't required. Even golf is more interesting as the mental aspect of the game is huge.
@Robert I was with you right up to the point you brought in golf. Golf??? Commenter, please!
Football as a sport and a pastime is a dead man walking. You can't stop physics from occurring inside the skull of a human being.
1
Think the article makes solid points, disappointed on the editorial decision on the team picture crop at the top of the article. The “was” photo is cropped close and the “now” has a more distant perspective. NYT should know better and let the information speak for itself without playing imagery tricks. The pictures should have been cropped identically and readers would have still been able to interpret the difference.
1
Any hit to the head, even one, is “too much”!
1
Football should be banned. A despicable sport.
Let's take a real look at football. The NFL doesn't punish players for their off-the-field crimes (great role models those guys are...). The cheerleaders make a whopping $100 per game. The billionaire owners regularly extort money from cities / counties / states to build stadiums. The league uses (and the capitalistic owners embrace) salary caps and revenue sharing to level the financial playing field (how un-American to use such a Socialist system (sarcasm)). And finally, the players are basically paid to suffer a slow death due to CTE, Etc. What's not to love...???...!!!
8
Perhaps sad, but perhaps the right turn to prevent so many men from living lives of pain in their knees, and holes in their intellects.
1
It’s simply not possible for the New York Times to cover this issue without an obvious negative bias. Not a single positive comment highlighted as a NYT pick, not a single anything from any of the tens of millions of people, myself included, who played football, loved it, benefited from playing, and would like to see the game continue to evolve and be available to future generations. You’re fast becoming nothing more than the journalistic equivalent of cancel culture
3
Those two pictures of the football team are a discredit to the NYT and journalistic standards. The not at all subtle difference in distance that makes one team appear larger than the 10% difference in the article is just sloppy. Let the numbers and facts speak for themselves, and leave audience manipulation to Breitbart and the other propaganda sites. If this was done in purpose, shame on you , and if it wasn’t, shame on you.
3
Shortly after the truth came out about player deaths, CTE, repeative hits etc. The NFL set up USA football to change the narrative and brain wash mother's and children. They provide counter NFL subsidized studies claiming the game is safe to mother's hesitant about allowing their sons to play football. They came up with Play60 an after school program to battle obesity, BTW half of all players are encouraged to be obese to be effective in the sport. That provide free gifts and actual jerseys and balls to elementary schools to promote the game and NFL. Public schools allow these sharks access to our children.
1
Robert Kraft should stick to visiting the president's massage parlor and not put kids at risk.
1
It's not nice to play with photos and graphs to exaggerate the facts. The photos show 31 players in 2008 and 28 players in 2019, but the visual message is that the team lost half of it's players not 3. The graphs are focused into a short portion of the measurements making the changes appear proportionally greater than they are.
An 11% change is for statisticians a big and significant change. So asserting that the popularity of football is declining is a valid assertion. It's a fact that the way football has been played results in injuries that affect many players rather early in life. There are strong reasons to argue for it's being played only with a lot of limitations which will likely cause the sport to become history.
Tell the truth and do not try to manipulate the readers.
@Casual Observer I count 37 vs 28 in the pictures (2008: row 1 - 5, row 2 - 11, row 3 - 10, row 4 - 11; 2019: row 1 - 3, row 2 - 7, row 3 - 8, row 4 - 10). That's a difference of 9 players or a 24.3% decline between 2008 and 2019.
4
@Jack
You are correct, 9 players difference.
Look at the size of the players in the photo, though. They are smaller in the second photo. The building looks the same, though the angle from which the photo appears to have been taken is different.
Football was safer when the helmet was only a leather shell with no face mask. If only we could go back to those days where you would never throw your body head first at full speed into another body. Unfortunately I think the fan base craves the violence and wouldn't watch football without it.
How ironic it is to sit at a football game and listen to people complain about rules protecting the players when they won't even let their kids even play the game.
59
@Paul
This is an oft-raised point that I'm not sure is supported by statistics. Between 1931-1965 (part of that period was pre-face mask) there were ~18 football deaths per year. That number is now less than 5 (with a much larger population playing football).
https://web.archive.org/web/20130518020338/http://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/2012FBInj.pdf
And given the much more competitive nature of the sport with a larger and faster athletes with much more money at stake--I'm not sure that going bask to leather helmets wouldn't result in even more football deaths that there were in the 1930s.
10
@Paul. How can you argue that football was safer with just a minimal helmet? There was no imaging technology in those days to measure brain injuries ... either at the time of a hit or years down the line.
6
@Paul I don't relish the violence. I do love watching amazing passes and catches. Marvin Harrison got me interested - I didn't watch until I was in my 40's because I also dismissed it as too violent. There is more to the game then tackling.
3
Perhaps if kids were taught to tackle the way they do in rugby — arms around the thighs, head to one side — there would be fewer concussions. Paradoxically, by giving an exaggerated impression of protection, helmets and padded clothing make the contact unnecessarily forceful.
87
@Anthony there are actually more concussions in rugby than in American football. Below are data from a 2018 article in Sports Medicine looking at concussions per "athletic event" (a game):
Men’s rugby match play (3.00/1,000 AE)
Men’s American football (2.5/1,000 AE)
Women’s ice hockey (2.27/1,000 AE)
Men’s Ice hockey (1.63/1,000 AE)
Women’s soccer (1.48/1,000 AE)
Men’s football (or soccer) (1.07/1,000 AE)
Here is the link to the article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29349651
Matt
5
@Anthony While helmets most certainly give people a false sense of security, I feel its become far too much of a misnomer stated as fact that rugby tackling prevents brain injuries.
Rugby related brain injuries are being diagnosed more and more as CTE is being better understood. You can google for results but they're everywhere. Helmet or not, rapid acceleration and deceleration which occur in violent tackles can lead to the brain being jostled. When contact is a main point of play brain injuries are almost surely to follow.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-27/rugby-league-players-found-to-have-deadly-brain-disease/11254032
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/10/ian-roberts-concussion-is-irreversible-brain-damage-we-need-to-have-this-conversation
6
I reffed high school and college football for about 30 years. Saw many players and refs get hurt in the game. Saw coaches and parents go wild. Saw crowds deminish.
As kids leave the sport for others less damaging there are fewer adults who played the sport. More kids are playing soccer every season. That means soccer will soon surpass football in viewership. And that's where the money is.
What can be done--exchange a football for a soccer ball.
1
I called this trends years ago, long before we ever heard of CTÉ. Why? Simple math.
The implied value of human life, and of a well functioning body is so much higher than it was 100 or 50 years ago, because of economic growth, education and the increasing complexity and needs of our society.
About 80 years ago, Simone Weil said of the Iliad that it is the nature of violence to turn persons into things. Although capitalism and technology get a bad rap, it is in their nature to reduce the economic value of things and increase the value of functioning persons. Football reduces the lifelong functioning of persons. Over time, the cost of that becomes too high for society to accept.
1
Tackle football is a dangerous sport no matter what rationalization is provided. Unfortunately for many, it's the only avenue out of these small towns. The reason why football is more popular than other sports in America has more to do with the betting that takes place. Take betting out of football and see just how popular it is. Keep in mind that commercial network television and sport packages provided by alternative media providers all depend on the gaming foundation upon which football is based on. Football isn't going away as long as there are people betting on the games.
1
Amazing reading through these comments, almost all against playing football. The irony to me is then why is Football on Sunday, Sunday night, or Monday night always the most watched program on TV? Is the answer because those watching don't read the Times, maybe, but to be honest those owners are providing a product that is being lavished up by the American people. The TV networks are paying Billions to then show the owner's product, and advertiser's are paying billions to show their commercials on the owner's product being televised.
For the sake of transparency, I played tackle football from the 6th grade until my Freshman year of High School. I wanted to play my sophomore year, but being 4'10" and 85 lbs soaking wet the football coach said no thanks and I turned to playing golf (were I did receive two varsity letters). My son played from his 5th grade until his senior year in high school. He had injuries (sprained ankle and sprained MCL he was a running back), but fortunately never a head injury. I now have a grandson, although my choice doesn't matter as it will be my son's choice, I am not sure whether or not I would want him to play football. I am sure I will give it some deep thought, but what can't be totally underestimated (especially for those of us that played) is that there is a draw to the game of football for the intangible reasons listed in the article. Trust me I played basketball and baseball through high school, and none of those were like football.
2
@Russell Smith "The TV networks are paying Billions to then show the owner's product, and advertiser's are paying billions to show their commercials on the owner's product being televised."
The question is whether it is morally acceptable to derive so much entertainment value from the destruction of the bodies and brains of other human beings. You seem to be saying yes.
Grew up playing baseball, Basketball and track and field in small towns. Three boys, two of us never played football and had no interest at all in that "sport". the youngest grew up in another small town that was football crazy. Although a big strong player he ended up with several chronic injuriesfrom football that have really limited him as he has gotten older. He is several years younger than I am but is now the first family member anyone can find with dementia. For several generations of men this is the only case anyone an identify with clear dementia.
My son also didn't play football and we were very happy he didn't.
2
The brutality of this sport is well known. In 1903, 25 players lost their lives playing football. It is the only American sport that had a sitting president, ( Theodore Roosevelt, 1905), intervene to stem the significant injuries, fatalities, and violence associated with football. We are a century pasted that now and incredulously it's still popular and played all across the US. Tragically more and more football players today are those from poor minority families who see this sport as a way out of poverty, yet so few succeed. I don't have children, still I cannot possibly comprehend how any parent, knowing the history and health risks associated with football, would allow their sons to play this brutal sport.
2
I loved playing high school football growing up in Georgia. This was despite the fact that my team was never very good, and I suffered a neck injury that caused painful "stingers"-burning nerve sensations that often came after I made a tackle. My mom hated that I played the sport. And yet I still loved it, for precisely the same reason that I suspect many other young men do--it can be an incredibly fun, exhilarating experience, one that pushes you to the extremities of physical endurance and strength, fosters great camaraderie with teammates and instills physical toughness and discipline.
I am 100% for putting in strict safety rules at all levels of the game, and compensating college athletes who risk their bodies to play the sport. But I feel as though stories spelling out the imminent doom of football are a bit over-determined. Yes, football is a brutal, often dangerous sport where players collide violently with each other. But as it turns out, there are a great many men who play football because of, not in spite of, those aspects. And there are a much greater number who are all too happy to watch.
5
The high school where I work has seen a steady decline in the number of football players, and a steady increase in the number of rugby players. And we have added a women's rugby team.
2
Each helmet should have 12 inch thick variable density foam rubber outside the helmet to soften and cushion collisions.
Why not put weight restrictions on players as well. If they weigh in too heavy for a certain position before the game they don't get to play.
I played 10 years of football. My success was a function of my size at a given age. When I started out I was big for my age. Later I was small. Parents and coaches and politics and money in the game all teach you a little bit about the fact that life isn't always about merit. I wish I had played less football. I have better memories from the pick up games we played as friends than anything in or organized leagues school. I'm not sure if half the time I was doing it to make my parents happy but I did learn a great deal about life, competition, humans, etc...
If I had a kid now, I would in no way encourage him to play football. I'm not sure I would want my kid to be around too many adults who can mess with their heads in oh so many ways. I've lived overseas where schools are just schools. Universities are just schools. People just go to them to learn. They have club sports - usually where they coached themselves. I'm not sure it should be anything more than that.
3
It looks like more and more only the poor kids will be playing football given the known head trauma which will be occurring in tackle football players at all levels and which is cumulative. Only parents who don't care about their kids future learning prospects are ok with this.
Thirty years ago, I couldn't argue my son out of playing football. Still a huge sports fan, he is adamant that his son not play. In his town of Elmhurst, the ranks of JFL players has dropped by half in three years. Football will go the way of boxing.
2
As someone who moved from Europe to US, American Football seems to be the perfect distillation of all the preconceived notions of the American society that most foreigners have.
The commercialism, the violence, the protection of the owners (no relegation), no protection for the workers.
1
Frontline’s "League Of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis" detailed how the league worked to refute scientific evidence that violent collisions are linked to early-onset dementia, catastrophic brain damage, and other alarming consequences. They also worked to discredit the scientists, which was disturbing. I no longer watch pro football and think differently about the team owners.
3
I played tackle football from age 9 or 10 through age 21. I have three sons. They all played soccer through high school and one through college. One still plays in a night league. These facts speak of my advice to them in choosing a sport. In short, if you need scholarship money to finance your education and your good at it, play football. Otherwise, play another sport.
Football is a public health hazard that should be banned. If players don't develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), they will very likely develop other serious problems resulting from injuries suffered for Old Alma Mater U. As a friend mine whose brother was the team physician for a professional football team once told me, "The disability rate is 100 percent." As a former educator, we entrust our children to schools, colleges and universities under the guise of "in loco parentis," but we are failing our athletes for the money they bring in via tickets, TV, and alumni giving. It's wrong; and sharing the revenue is equally wrong.
In 2010 i said football is going to be gone in 50 years. Now knowing how bad the injuries are i cannot watch the game. I never would allow my very athletic son to play. Its a shame because it is such a great game to watch and to play but i cannot in good conscious watch it or let my sons play it.
Now, the next big issue: what the decline of American football would mean for small towns and cultures whose entire economy, identity, and even self-worth are defined by this one sport.
@Allen I’ve never understood how American towns seem to live through their school sports teams here in Britain most parents don’t even watch school sports
1
Football is a tedious game to watch. The action is short and the waiting is long. Soccer and basketball on the other hand move quickly, take agility and require stamina. Football in it's present form is dangerous for youth to be playing and many of the problems don't surface for years into adulthood. The damage is only being brought to the surface now since medical knowledge has improved, but how many unidentified sufferings of players in the distant past have died or permanently been damaged from this sport? There is no way to tell.
2
Football - like all sports - should be voluntary. Concerns over safety are warranted and are receiving increased attention. The country's sporting preference evolves over time - and some of the evolution is driven by demographic changes.
Despite the article's overtones, nothing dramatic here.
2
Youth football should be played as flag football, and headers should not be allowed in youth soccer. Kids need sports, but we need to ensure that the sports they play are reasonably safe for their brains. The culture of tackle football is also not healthy. The focus on violence and gender roles creates expectations for boys that are unrealistic and harmful. As the mother of two athletic sons, I allowed them to play only flag football. They also play soccer, baseball and badminton. One was also on a wrestling team. There is no good reason to allow any child to play tackle football. It's violent, dangerous, and the culture is incompatible with the responsibilities they will have as men. One of my sons is 17 and the other is 13, and they're both healthy and well adjusted, and they've had plenty of accomplishments and team-based experiences. They also are not brain damaged, and they haven't absorbed a "man" = be violent and misogynistic mindset, meaning they are ready for healthy relationships and behaving appropriately in college and the workplace.
Youth football should be played as flag football, and headers should not be allowed in youth soccer. Kids need sports, but we need to ensure that the sports they play are reasonably safe for their brains. The culture of tackle football is also not healthy. The focus on violence and gender roles creates expectations for boys that are unrealistic and harmful. As the mother of two athletic sons, I allowed them to play only flag football. They also play soccer, baseball and badminton. One was also on a wrestling team. There is no good reason to allow any child to play tackle football. It's violent, dangerous, and the culture is incompatible with the responsibilities they will have as men. One of my sons is 17 and the other is 13, and they're both healthy and well adjusted, and they've had plenty of accomplishments and team-based experiences. They also are not brain damaged, and they haven't absorbed a "man" = be violent and misogynistic mindset, meaning they are ready for healthy relationships and behaving appropriately in college and the workplace.
1
As a boy I steered away from contact sports. I had a life filled with running, swimming, biking, hiking, tennis,yoga, surfing, table tennis, basketball, and weight lifting. Now at 74 my body still works very well. I hike, I walk, I still lift weights, I have no major injuries, my brain is clear and I'm enjoying a good life. I've always encouraged my children to take care of their bodies as young people so that they can have a quality life throughout. Parents do not help their children when they put them into heavy contact sports that lead to injuries at a young age because those injuries never go away. They return in your 50s, 60s, and 70s and plague you for the rest of your life. Life is a long haul. Don't ruin it for a few years of guts and glory on a football field that is meant to make you the cannon fodder for rich owners and colleges who just want to use you to get richer.
5
A school district's football Program can occupy close to 300 boys between 7th and 12th grade.
It gives these young men a chance to be a part of a team it also gives them a chance to set and achieve goals.
It teaches them commitment and dedication. They have a responsibility to be somewhere after school and gives them a chance to get out their natural aggression.
Football practice is also a place for physical exercise.
If you have it in your mind that a few serious injuries (largely stemming from a much larger player pool) are not worth the benefit to all of these boys are currently occupied after school with Football then I have this question:
What are you going to replace it with?
We have a country with an obesity problem, there are too many kids left unsupervised after school, and too many kids don't have any chance to belong to anything.
Football solves a lot of that!
I think it's the helicopter parents who want only sun and rainbows for their children that have the real head injury.
1
@Jordan Parker Replace it with soccer.
@Jordan Parker
Are you for real? What happens after these kids are finished with organized football, which for 99 percent of them, is high school?
There are plenty of low-impact activities that do of the things you mention here, like biking, swimming, running, even a basic gym class.
You seem to think that football players somehow represent the "cream of the crop," that they're the only really healthy people around, that they're all destined for wonderful, long lives. That's ridiculous.
1
The football industrial complex lost credibility in a way they are unlikely to recover by the NFL's years-long denial that CTE even existed and that the sport itself was responsible. That denial was led by the likes of Goodell, Kraft, and Jones.
If admiting that CTE exists and that safer blocking and tackling techniques become mandated, some may call that progress when it's really backdating reality.
The soft brain/hard skull physics will never be solved by a better helmet and body blows will always inflict head trauma. Primate skulls evolved, just like the helmet, to protect the brain's owner from singular traumas, not repetitive ones; if it were othewise, our physiology would have vastly different characteristics.
Football, you have a problem; it's long term and it will resolve itself in accordance with better educated parents and children setting aside the character-building myths of sport and making the most intelligent choices of athletic participation.
1
At long last parents and students are waking up to the fact that football is dangerous for both the mind and the body. Very few players will ever make a living from playing but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be injured first. I resent that my school tax dollars are spent on football. It should be banned from schools and those parents who are negligent enough to want their boys to play should pay for it themselves.
5
One factor that is rarely mentioned in these articles is the impacts of pushing tackle football play to younger and younger children, starting the cycle of damage much sooner. When I was in school 40 years ago, you had to be in high school before you would play tackle football. When my dad was younger - 65 years ago - he played flag foot ball until he made varsity in his junior year. His team did not have the heavy training schedule seen in high school today, either - they all had farm chores and they didn't have a summer training camp because they got fit from hurling hay bales onto trucks just before the season started. Now I see kids as young as 9 or 10 suiting up with pads and helmets for tackle ball. This is insane to me. There is no need for this.
2
There can be no denying that American football is too dangerous for children and adolescents. The medical evidence is strong. It is also too dangerous for adults, but adults must make up their own minds. It is a collision sport, not merely a contact sport. It cannot be modified to be safe enough for young persons to avoid bodily and brain injuries. Educational institutions have no business sponsoring an activity that causes immediate and long-term brain damage.
4
For me, a recently ex-fan at 67 years of age, the answer is simple.
Flag football.
No repetitive head injuries, fewer concussions, fewer blown-out knees, far fewer star injuries, many more parents willing to let their kids play. A much much larger talent pool to draw from. The league no longer responsible for all of these health problems.
Fewer space wasting plodding 300 pounders. Faster and quicker players, more excellent QB's. More exciting passing, running and catching.
This could be forced by the High Schools.
I'll be back watching when they move to flag football.
4
Most of these comments focus on the risks of football, and for understandable reasons. Truthfully, football must get safer--and in fact, it already has. What makes this discussion so difficult is the quantifiable nature of football injuries vs. the unquantifiable nature of life lessons that derive from the sport. 34 head injuries per thousand is easily understood, but buzz words--building leaders, teaching tenacity and grit--are by definition subjective and therefore more difficult to understand, especially by those who have never played the game or been surrounded by it in a meaningful way. But these lessons are still very real and it'd be a shame if a focus on a small minority of injuries obscures the many benefits thousands and thousands of players have had.
@Zach
34 head injuries per 1000 is the tip of the iceberg.
In post-mortem studies of ex-nfl football player's brains, EVERY SINGLE ONE had CTE.
87% of those that had played football to college level also had CTE.
Now CTE affects individuals differently, but it affects them all, from suicidal depression through slurred cognitive processes.
The life lesson here is simple: do not allow children to play football, period.
8
@Zach
I doubt football teaches life lessons any better than any other sport. Football just has more pain.
5
There is another factor that is pushing many football programs to the end. That is, insurance carriers who are concerned about the potential liability for brain trauma injuries are beginning to reject coverage for high school and college programs. When that happens, it effectively ends the program.
6
The images are misleading. There are 37 players in the first image and 28 in the second one. While this represents a 24% reduction, the difference in numbers is not nearly as dramatic as the images make it look. Most of the visual difference is due to a change in perspective, and perhaps the players have gotten skinnier.
1
@Quasar
You do realize it takes 11 players to field a team? So if you have separate defensive and offensive players, you barely have enough for substitutions, so players are playing more and more downs, taking more and more collisions, increasing the likelihood of injury, short and long term. Or you have players going both ways, doubling the risk. And these are boys, kids, still undeveloped. There might not be much of a difference between 60 and 50 players, but 37 to 28, when you need 11, over an entire season? That's huge.
1
@Quasar You don't think a nearly 1/4 decline in just over a decade is significant?
1
I grew up with the sport and played until high school. But I still remember getting concussions at the age of 11 and 12 -- of seeing stars. It's a great sport but just too harsh on the players. I knew after high school that I would not be a college or pro athlete (other than intramurals) and focused on my studies. I have two daughters so I did not have to make the decision whether I would let my son play (probably would discourage other than flag and catch).
1
I think that within a decade or so, the country will conclude that playing tackle football is like smoking: a dangerous activity that we let adults do (if they must), but not children and adolescents (or college students).
6
When I was in high school and played football, the players were smaller than the high schoolers today seem to be. The equipment wasn’t as protective. Pads, for example, were smaller.
The size of the players and the false security of today’s equipment might be leading players to being more aggressive. The sense of have so much “body armor” probably leads to it.
A 300 pound lineman falling on a 180-225 pound running back, wide receiver or quarterback can lead to nothing less than a possible broken bone or concussed head.
How about ending enforced eating to gain weight. Maintain the players at a healthy weight, one they can live with the rest of their lives. Shrink the pads so players won’t be so overly aggressive.
Does any of this make any sense? Look back to the game played between the 1930s into the 1950s. A 300 pound player was a rarity. Equipment was as protective. If a player feels his equipment won’t protect him as well he might be less likely to hit as hard. Think about it. Playing sandlot tackle football, with no equipment, how many of your fellow players were seriously injured?
3
Football is like war. Americans love battle.
I'm left wondering what the numbers look like when we compare those who played high school football with those who joined the armed forces if they didn't go on to play in college?
We already know that those who come from lower income families are more likely to join a branch of the military than a kid from a wealthy family.
I'm also curious how many police officers were football players?
2
I played football as a child. My high school did not have a football team, in hindsight it was a blessing. Stopped watching the game 20 years ago and never allowed my son and now my grandson to play the game.
2
I predict baseball returns as America's sport once again. My son did not play football becasue of the CET issues associated with the sport. I suspect the trend continues.
1
As a former college level football player I am glad to see the attention being given to the injuries; just not a safe sport to play. I get why some kids that think it’s a way out of their circumstance play, a chance to go to college or possibly make it to a big pay day. There is a tremendous price to pay for those perks.
Maybe if the game gets brought to its knees we can get some sanity on athlete pay. At the end of the day professional athletes are entertainers, and we pay this sector entirely too much for what they give back to the overall common good for humanity. Not like they are saving lives, souls or educating tomorrow’s leaders.
248
@Duffy Could not agree more on the insanity of pay for professional athletes. As a society we give too much credit to this group while our scientists, teachers, or veterans to name a few go with little to no funding and every year it gets worse.
25
@Duffy While I don't disagree with the sentiment, the fact is that these athletes (or 'entertainers') generate a ton revenue, so it makes sense they get paid as much as they do. No one is filling a stadium or watching live teachers live on tv.
15
@Duffy
My brother-in-law played college football and he is now a physical wreak. He has had a lot of surgeries on his knees and hips. Was it really worth those moments of glory?
17
I made the decision to stop watching football. I made the switch to Premier League "soccer" and I absolutely love it. The games last ninety minutes, the action is continuous and because of that there are fewer commercials. Far fewer. There are two, not three, commentators and they tend to stick to the game, not boring small talk. Variety is added when the top teams from countries all over the world play each other and then there are qualifying games for the World Cup. Soccer is an international game with a huge proportion of players on teams coming from other countries. Last week there was a serious injury, which is rare. The player who caused the injury cried. He felt terrible. NBC sports and the main channel show games all the time. Check it out.
377
@Susan Kuhlman
Besides the entertainment value of soccer vs football, there is also what these sports teach their participants and society as a whole.
The play in soccer is continuous and dynamically evolving and requires constant adaptation due to its fluid nature. Playing in this environment (and remember, that all sports are supposed to be play) develops far more useful mental skills than the rigid and static structures of football. Brute force is almost useless on a soccer field: skill and teamwork easily triumph over brawn and even speed can be neutralized by a well-coached side.
All of the players actually touch the ball----- not just the select 5-6 that regularly handle the football in the normal run of a game. Soccer's restriction of not using your hands further encourages out of the box thinking and enhances development of the creativity that defines "futbol" as The Beautiful Game.
47
@Susan Kuhlman me too! Another thing about soccer is that with the promotion and relegation system, it adds a freshness to each season. It also makes the competition seem less artificial than the closed, franchise-based system of the NFL because owners are pitted against each other instead of colluding with each other. After I started watching soccer watching the NFL made me feel a little manipulated and exploited by the league moving teams, extorting taxpayers for stadiums etc. Premier League is far more interesting for many reasons, and comes with far less guilt.
39
@Susan Kuhlman Bravo! What American sports could learn from Association football is the flow of play that comes from a sport that isn't bogged down in endless time outs, clock-stopping and mandatory TV time outs. There is so little actual play in American football, that I'm astonished that it attracts such a substantial TV audience. Taking three plus hours to play a mere 60 minutes, make the game all but unwatchable.
53
A few years back, my son was the leading scorer and co-captain of his high school's basketball team. He also wanted to go out for football but I refused to permit it because of the high risk of injury. Natutally, he felt I was being over-protective. But the other bball co-captain DID go out for football and broke his ankle, which ended his basketball chances. Today, that same high school football team had a total of 11 players going out for the sport. They might as well pull the plug on the whole program and refocus on soccer, which is popular and successful.
4
The reality is that the "funnel" system, in which HS players are culled up to the elite college football "factories" (essentially professional programs) then for the few to the NFL, has the same DNA as professional boxing did in the past. The NFL is some 75% black, hispanic, Polynesian, with many of those players basically interchangeable parts to be discarded readily after four years or less, tossed to the curb without any real education or hope for the future. The NFL personifies our 1% society of wealth aggregation with a handful of players on each team garnering some 85-90% of the salaries while the rest see their bodies and minds destroyed for a relative pittance. The Jets recent travesty of denigrating a player who sought an independent medical diagnosis for the sheared labrum in his shoulder and subsequent surgery proves the league hasn't changed at all. The Jets wanted the player to be shout up with Toradol in order continue to play. Toradol is to the NFL what Advil is to the rest of society, except Toradol masks injuries resulting in further, permanent harm. I suggest people read Dave Meggysey's book from some 50 years ago. Nothing has really changed, and its getting worse.
307
@marty,
Is anyone putting a gun to players' heads to force them to play? Are NFL players paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, to play? Can someone be set for life after just a couple of seasons of playing pro ball?
So, so, so tired of all this "stuff" about how dangerous football is. Yes, some players develop brain injuries, but many more do not, and no one knows whether 10 percent of players are affected or one half of one percent of players are affected.
If you don't like football, then don't watch it. But don't pass judgment on folks who play the game and watch the game. It is, after all, a free country, and all this preaching about it being a gladiator sport and exploitative, etc., is reminiscent of a Puritanical attitude once held by folks who burned witches when they weren't telling other people what to think and how to live.
5
@August West I'm not seeing the part where Marty "judges" viewer or players of football. His criticism seems squarely directed at the way in which the NFL treats their players. Are you the NFL? If you are not, then you are not being criticized or judged.
32
@August West
Gee, you sound like a tobacco company defending cigarettes.
43
I have loved football since I was a little boy. and I spent many years rooting for my beloved 49ers, but as a parent of an elementary aged boy I can say with certainty that he will NEVER play football or hockey.
Knowing even what little we know about C.T.E. and the consequences of repeated hits to the body and brain, I can’t comprehend how ANY responsible, loving parent could allow their child to go out on the gridiron each week and roll the dice to see whether they end up battered, broken, and suicidal, like so many football players before them.
And even if C.T.E. weren’t an issue, I have friends who played high school and college football who have spent lifetimes dealing with various injuries, such as trick knees, bad elbows, muscle tears, etc. from injuries they sustained in football decades ago.
Colleges and high schools refuse to compensate young men for injuries they suffer helping their schools make millions of dollars on their backs, and players alone live with the long-term consequences.
How can any caring parent allow their boys to be exploited so institutions can make money off players who will, in many instances, suffer for the rest of their lives?
As is so often the case in America, the profit motive supersedes rationality and safety and doing what’s best for our people. What makes this situation especially egregious is that the people are naive, vulnerable children relying on adults to help them make the best decisions for themselves and their future.
433
@Bill
I have two young sons and understand your perspective; however, how can you enjoy watching the sons of other parents participate if your sons are too important to play?
I worry about the damage, but if my boys want to play football, we will let them with limits. My older son is in high school and he chose soccer and track. My younger son is in elementary school and plays non-contact flag football. If he wants to play tackle football, we will let him in 8th grade.
Life is full of risks. Take precautions and move forward.
16
@Allan
Dying to know what "precautions" you intend to take when your son starts contact football and sustains the repeated hits and potential concussions the result from the game of football. What are you going to do that the thousands of wounded and traumatized football players weren't smart enough to do? Please help out everyone and share your plan.
Cause to my mind that's sort of like saying "I'm going to smoke a couple packs of cigarettes a day because I like smoking, but I'm going to take precautions."
Who enters into a behavior in which there is incontrovertible evidence it maims and kills and says, "Hey, life is full of risks, but what the heck, it's fun!"?
Please educate me.
45
@Bill Yet you still watch the game that you feel is too dangerous for your own children.
7
Played football for 12 years. Got into Harvard. Played one day. Hater the violence. Realized I only played to get in please my dad. Quit. Never urged my kids to . They never it. My dad was wrong. My kids were right.
3
In my opinion, football is the lamest sport going. I reject it.
3
A quote from the article: "The people who play the game are changing, too, with the number of white players diminishing as black and Hispanic players increasingly make up a larger plurality of the player pool." Isn't that something the Times should celebrate? After all diversity is our strength, right?
2
@Ken It's important to note the wording in that statement. They didn't say there is an increasing number of black and Hispanic youth with the opportunity and resources to play, they said that they simply make up a greater share of the player pool. Some would argue that this could be explained by white players leaving the sport for other, safer options because they have the financial means. Whereas some black and Hispanic players might see the risks of football as their only option to get into a nice college.
2
despicable for them to deny or ignore the now clear evidence of brain damage caused by head injuries in the face of evidence of still living former players mental deficits in early middle age. They are like climate deniers playing with children's brains. Football is nothing but a brutal money grubbing cynical rich man's toy. A pox on all their houses.
1
Know a few ex-college players and Football fanatics that won't let their kids play Football. Good parenting IMHO.
5
4 Grandsons. They play everything.....except football.
They've all got cool little brains. We want them to keep them.
10
Bells and whistles and annoying, pointless, distracting scroll-visuals are fine, but keep the comments link where it usually is - at the top of the article.
. . . anyway, parents don't want their kids brain-damaged for a pointless game. Same thing is happening to ice-hockey.
duh.
1
As an Australian I often laugh when I see Americans reacting to my country’s brand of football (australian rules, in case you don’t know). Most Americans are horrified by the lack of padding and the big hits. But, no, no-one dies from Australian rules football and brain trauma is not an issue. Nor is it a major issue in either of our rugby codes, although all our codes now have fairly strict concussion policies.
I’m no expert but it seems to me all that armour Americans wear in their sports is the real problem. Common sense suggests that an armoured man will hit his opponent harder than an unarmoured man. And with the brain floating around in the skull that inevitably means a bigger hit to the brain.
Get rid of the armour and see what happens. And if you think that might end up killing anyone just watch the videos of Australian rules football big hits and remember that nothing you are seeing resulted in death (even if it looks like it might have).
4
The NFL is a plantation and the overt racism is causing talented kids to pursue opportunities that weren’t historically available to them.
Black boxers became acceptable when Jewish and Italian kids pursued other opportunities, the problem for the NFL is the players are 70% black (owners 0% black) - there’s no societal notch further down for the owners to exploit.
3
Great. Future leaders "nurtured" on violence and pummeling folks into mush. Football is already descending into a gladiatorial spectacle of the less educated/privileged damaging each other for rich white guy profits.
4
What is that Country-Western song I heard the other night, driven' through Georgia??
Got it!
Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Football Players.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlIEoKg8ZQg
Football players (and their owners, Bob Kraft) just aren't the role models they used to be (or at least as publicized back in the day). Immoral and criminal(verdicts as charged, and charges pending) behavior, by industry owners and workers are a problem. Couple that with with bad owner politics, including brazen, no holds barred(pun intended) support of Trump(concussions are for sissies). These are more than isolated examples, they are symptoms that the industry has gone bad, out-of-step with contemporary concerns and values.
Gee, I can't imagine why it's declining. What's not to love about getting your body slammed, your head smashed, your knees destroyed, your neck and back pummeled, concussions, breaks, sprains and such?
Humans...
5
Our son was on the football team his senior year of high school. I refused to sign the permission papers because I just knew he’d be paralyzed from the neck down. His father signed the papers, being the calm person in the family.
When I asked why he wanted to join the team his answer was simple: he wanted to be with a real team and with people he respected and had never spent time with. You see, he was always in gifted programs. He taught himself to read and never looked back.
It was one of the single best experiences of his life—he’s pushing 50–and he still talks about it from time to time. Fortunately, from my perspective, he was neither quick nor fast so he did a lot of sitting. He was the only “gifted “ kid on the team and learned the plays immediately. He was respected for what he was, and well liked.
One day he came home in tears. “Mom, X came up to me and asked, because he said I was smart, if I could help him with his math. Mom, it was double digit multiplication.” The kid was a junior.
So I taught him how to teach the kid in a way he understood it. Evidently they both sat and talked about their differences and aspirations. The next semester they both were in auto mechanics and the kid shone. Ours did not.
The young man went on to earn a substantial living as an auto mechanic.
2
@Lodi’s si
You know if he DID break his neck you would be having a different conversation, and probably divorced the dad. Sure, some kids will have good experiences and coaches and stay safe. The point being there are many other much less risky and violent ways to grow up. Your kid, who sounds like a fine person, could have had other ways to join with the less broadly talented or fortunate.
3
As an avid football fan who never played hopes their kids won't - I don't see CFB/the NFL going anywhere. Many High school players who want to play are way more commited to the sport. They are bigger, faster, and stronger than 10 years ago in many serious programs. 'Casual' players will not play in high school but Ohio State and Alabama need not worry.
If you know you will grow into a 6'2" frame and enjoy sports - the social/educational/and now even potential monetary benefits of playing D1 college football could way outweigh the risks for many. Obviously the same is true if the players are able to make it to the NFL.
Smaller schools could lose their programs which might lead to a slow decline of interest, however.
2
When young jockeys turn professional at age 16, to get licensed they need to be emancipated, acknowledging the danger. Given the accumulation of data on on the effects of repetitive head injuries, high school football is child abuse. High school football players need to be similarly emancipated. If grown men want to play football for our entertainment pleasure, good for them and let them get paid every penny they can get.
4
The money men's push to "protect the game" shows where their priorities lie. Telling. Very telling.
4
Some one asked about testing for those who would suffer from head trauma. Those with APOE4 gene may be more at risk. (Scares me to death as my two kids, who both suffered concussions--one from soccer, the other from football and MMA--both have the gene. What I wish I knew then, what I know now).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK299179/
1
With what is now known about what this sport does to the brain, it is astonishing that any parents still let their children participate. It is astonishing that so many can still enjoy watching it, knowing what it is doing to the players. Whether it can be made significantly safer is doubtful, but in any case it is singularly unsafe now. There are plenty of less dangerous sports that don't make you a raving madman in old age, with equal levels of skill required and equally complex strategies involved. They are, however, less violent. The inconvenient truth is that football's violence is a big part of its appeal.
5
So much ground to cover: (a) college and pro players bigger, faster, stronger - serious long-term brain injury difficult, if not impossible, to avoid (b) our national proclivity to violence is manifest in this blood sport (c) mostly white viewers and game day patrons watching mostly young (disposable) African Americans beat each other senseless. How many men in that room were men of color? How many were there to protect the players, not The Game? Precisely.
4
Follow the money.
Profits trump (ahem) everything in this country.
Promoting football participation by the youth of this country while expressing "concern" about CTE and other life-changing injuries that come with that participation is, of course, hypocritical -- not to mention it being a clear example of cognitive dissonance.
Testosterone and greed. Testosterone and greed.
After millennia of patriarchy how about we put women in charge for a change?
What have we got to lose?
2
You do not want your child to ruin their health. You do not want them handicapped by loss of mental functions, perhaps severe dementia at early age. As a parent you must try and avoid this. You do not allow your child to play contact football as much as you try to stop smoking or drinking while driving. You are not doing your parening if you allow them to do this.
3
Pondering this image: Who will be the Muhammad Ali of football? Which star quarterback, running back, tackle, will have to be led into a room, shuffling, slurring words, hands shaking with tremors? The greatest boxer of all time became the face of boxing's damage. Who will be football's Muhammad Ali?
2
NFL doing there best to keep the young meat coming into the arena so they can keep their money machine going. Trouble is, lots of minds and bodies are going to suffer for it with no recourse to these rich manipulators. High school football should be illegal, period.
4
I ran track, played baseball, played 'league' basketball 'til 45 (am 70), and -- though not a 'big guy' -- was more than fast and athletic enough … but decidedly not 'dumb enough' … to play football (other than the 'touch' variety we played on Brooklyn streets, schoolyards and NYCHA 'parks').
May football (and all the 'fantasy' and other betting' that comes with it) die a peace-less death, so that would-be 'practitioners' may have a peaceful one (and suckers can loose their money, but not their likely-few brain cells, playing Lotto).
2
#footballmatters?
How about #repeatedsubconcussiveinjurymatters?
As a physician I felt I ethically couldn't watch or support football anymore at any level. I gave up all football in 2016 and I haven't looked back.
10
I stopped watching pro football about 10 years ago. When people asked why, I said I did not wish to watch grown men slowly kill themselves. People's response was to nod in understanding.
5
"In the coming weeks, The Times will examine football’s hold on America, among children and their parents in the heartland, at public high schools and elite colleges."
Oh, lordy, here we go again.
"In the coming weeks, The Times will run a series of stories about the dangers of football and CTE, with maybe one or two stories about the positive side of the game--the comraderie, etc.--with the intention of scaring folks even more than they are now and encouraging kids not to participate even more than they are not participating now."
There. Fixed that for you.
1
@August West
Oh, please. There are too many other sports that provide these same positive benefits without the risk of banging heads on every single play. Let's stop telling our boys that they need to "take it like a man". We are the only country in the world that plays this stupid sport--and it is simply child abuse.
3
Concussion resulting contact sports need rules changes. Touch or flag football with No check (or fighting) hockey
1
Re: the dramatic opening photo comparison - "In 2008, the Maiden High School football team looked like this.
This year, it looks like this." The two photos are sized such that the structures behind are identically proportioned within the frame, but in the 2019 photo, the players are standing farther back, so they are smaller, which makes the difference seem much greater. I did a crude photoshop mockup - left is 2008, middle is 2019, and right is 2019 with players' bodies in proportion to 2008.
See https://www.dropbox.com/s/263j9wa73ppc0g7/teams.jpg?dl=0
Still an attenuation, but not nearly as much as the initial photo comparison suggests. Which is not to say that the statistics aren't unequivocal and trending in that direction — just a point about accuracy in visual representation.
1
@Ruth Carver I counted 37 kids in the 2008 photo and 28 kids in the 2019 photo. That's a 24 percent decline in 11 years. Regardless of the photos, that's a significant drop.
@Cloud Hunter Agreed (hence my "still an attenuation" comment) but the photo exaggerates the difference significantly. A comparison would be a bar graph in which Y axis is different for different bars. My point concerns not the numbers (which can be verified) but the journalistic standard of accurate visual representation of information, which can have a significant impact on people's perceptions. A proportional visual comparison (see my mockup) still conveys the diminution.
Why isn't flag football mentioned as an option?
Football has not become the national pastime.
Baseball is still the national pastime.
Football has become the national knife fight.
From being a die-hard NFL fan, I moved on to tennis and now admire the grit and finesse of this global sport.
But it wasn't superior athleticism that forced this change, but medical evidence pointing to severe damage by skull-crunching concussions and black-balling of Kaepernick. Both were morally wrong and I just couldn't be a part of it anymore. Sports must represent the highest aspirations of humans and football slipped from that pedestal.
1
Imagine the angst in the NFL if a judge ordered the helmets to be coated with foam rubber incapable of polish or logo, but save player's brains.
Sickening to see another group of fat cats get together and figure out how to maintain their revenue streams on the backs of other human beings.
4
Read "A Football Story" by Peter F. Lester
Knowing what we now know, there is no reasonable way that high schools can responsibly have minor children participate in football, a barbaric activity which causes CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Brain damage.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/25/sports/football/nfl-cte.html
I will have nothing to do with football.
Cock fighting and bull fighting are illegal because they are harmful to the animals. Football harms human beings and this is OK?
I regretfully allowed my son to play middle school and high school football. I am sorry. Son, I apologize.
5
Head injuries suck. It's not like in the movies where you wake up, mutter the traditional three words, "Where am I?" then hop into bed with the other romantic lead.
Football leads in head injuries, and these can involve more neurological damage be worse than other sports. Indeed, Football may be the only sport other than boxing where taking shots to the head is part of the game. Either you're fine with this ("Kids these days are coddled! When I was their age, I had to walk ten miles through the snow to get a concussion!") or you aren't. Your choice.
1
There are absolutely ways of making football safer. No sport is completely safe -- heading the ball in soccer is a huge problem, especially for kids who aren't learning how to do it safely--but there are a couple of things football can do to help greatly reduce head injuries:
1. Continue to enforce targeting and late hit rules.
2. Continue to teach safer tackling techniques (aka not leading with your head).
3. And perhaps the biggest one: Get rid of the kickoff and punt returns. I know these can be exciting moments in the game, but they are also some of the most dangerous moments of the game. The ball gets placed on the 25 yard line (in college at least) automatically.
1
College Football & Basketball pays for the entire NCAA, all the Athletic Conferences, AND all the other college sports programs around the country combined. Money talks and the Universities don't want to share profits with the young athletes that enable Coaches to be the highest paid public employee of whatever state they are in. These athletes make this possible every year, and some form of deferred profit sharing should be demanded. With a deferred trust a student athlete could leave there amatuer athletic days behind and have 20-40K to start a business or put a payment on a home.
@Bill H Actually student fees pay for most college sports. Football, basketball, baseball and women basketball are huge money Losers at all schools except the 20 biggest football programs which do indeed make enough to pay all sports at those 20 schools only.
1
It's too bad that a shift to flag football probably won't work. Flag football requires all the same athleticism, without punishing hits. But Americans love the violence of football, and flag football removes the violence. (You would also have to make rules about how the linesmen engage each other at the snap-- no more violent smashing into each other-- maybe do it more like a rugby scrum where they are allowed to begin by first locking arms so it is more of a wrestling match than a collision).
I wonder, though. Imagine if the NFL actually did some flag football exhibition games? Maybe people would be surprised at how fun it is to watch, and maybe the players would realize that they can have fun without nearly as much risk of severe injury?
3
The sooner American Football dies a natural death, the better.
I'm 61, and still look back on my experience in high school football with disgust. Football is the modern version of the gladiators. Not surprising that a greater and greater proportion of the players are from minority communities. Sure, a team sport builds cohesiveness and lots of good qualities in young people, but this functions just as well in basketball or baseball, without the trauma. Injuries can happen in other sports, but in football, violence is the inherent point, in every single play.
I think we need to begin to develop a cultural taboo against watching football. Like the gladiators, it really does come down to gaining entertainment value off of other people's suffering.
Take no interest in the super bowl, don't let your kids play American Football, and don't watch the game!
4
Some folks will point out that injuries occur in other sports. True enough; you could fall and hit your head while playing ping-pong, or get struck by a baseball, or tear a knee making a cut on the soccer field. But those are fairly rare occurrences, whereas serious injuries are commonplace ... and close to inevitable ... in football. The game features high-speed collisions, which harm body and brain, especially over time. The trend seems to be that fewer and fewer parents are willing to have their sons become gladiators for our amusement.
I’m surprised relevance hasn’t been mentioned here. The perception of the NFL as an institution was heavily tarnished after the Kaepernick protests resulted in bans on players kneeling. That doesn’t sit well with millennials and younger, as the optics of rich white men owning majority Black teams telling them they can’t speak out against very real racial treatment is pretty bad.
Also, in my view, football has always been a good ole boy’s club and as a woman it has always felt way too bro culture for me to feel like it’s worth my time investment. Every other sport has legitimate female leagues. I think playing a sport young makes you a lot more likely to watch it when you’re older.
1
Before it was “CTE,” it was “Dementia Pugilistica.” Dementia of boxers who were punched in the head too many times.
I used to watching football and playing with friends growing up. Today I see football like boxing. I see it like coal mining 50 years ago when people thought it was safe but it was permanently damaging those in the mines.
I still appreciate a great pass, a well drawn up play, the comebacks... even from NY, I respect the GOAT (Tom Brady) and young guys like Patrick Mahomes of KC.
But the pure joy of the sport is gone. I AC t watch it without knowing that many of the players, the majority, are permanently damaging the brain. Not just head injuries but the lower level repetitive hits to the head. I was not planning on pushing my kids to tackle football but now I couldn’t allow it. No judgment to those who do let their kids play, but it’s too frightening for me.
1
Hey, I didn't want my kid to play it. I don't think a responsible parent should, with what we know now.
I like to see physics and chemistry become the National past time.
5
Football has the same problem smoking did 50 years ago. An extremely popular product advertised as healthful which people were beginning to realize was unhealthy, possibly very unhealthy. Both obfuscated and lied about the dangers for as long as they could, and then took half-hearted measures at improvement: low-tar cigarettes and helmets with more padding. Football is now seeing what happened to smoking. Sensible people begin to drift away, leaving only the ignorant or desperate to smoke or play football.
7
@Bill The CEO of Pop Warner football recently admitted that point. He also stated that youth football must adopt the tobacco industry tactics to survive.
1
Knowing now about "hard skull, soft brain" and the proven cost of not only concussions but hits - it's clear: Parents who let their kids play football are putting them in grave danger. End of story.
It's the reverse of the old "If it's not broke, don't fix it" saying. It's broke, there is no way to fix it, and those who try are profiteers who'll do anything to protect their bottom line. It's really that simple.
4
Texas allowed a $70 million high school football stadium to be constructed? Putting aside that their public schools aren't even in the top half of the country academically, who spends that on a high school anything!?! Just think of the text books, salaries, and many, many, many extracurriculars this could have funded - and without a life altering concussion for a child.
6
Always love the claim that high school football has highest number of participants. Wrong ! Only because it's carried by most high schools and no one gets cut. Other sports except track & cross country have participation cutoff. Also if only 10 players go out for baseball , the season and perhaps the program is eliminated. The school doesn't start a 6,8, or 9 player baseball league. Schools used to sponsor boxing, it's time to let the multi billion football industry to develop their own players and for high schools to stop using taxpayers dollars to kill 16 boys each football season in the name of school spirit.
2
Players got way bigger and way faster. And that changed everything.
My son played football in high school. He was not a star player by any stretch. He was, however, an outstanding student.
I attended a practice one day and saw him essentially being used as a tackling dummy for the starting defensive line. At home, I told him, it's ok to quit if you want. Your future is your brain. I could see the relief in his face and he said he'd think about it.
A couple of days later, he told the head coach he was leaving the team. That night, an assistant coach called him and berated him. Told him he can't quit; that if he left football, he would quit everything in the future.; that he was letting his team down (mind you, his friends on the team agreed that he should focus on school.) Not once did the coach ask WHY he was quitting.
Fast forward to today. The kid ended up going to MIT and now works as a rocket scientist. He ain't a quitter and his brain works (most of the time!)
11
@Morris Thorpe It's why kids don't get cut from football at high school level. They just need the bodies as crash dummies.
2
May football rest in peace, the sooner the better.
5
“Nationally, high school participation in 11-man football has fallen more than 10 percent since 2009.” So, 90% are still playing football?
“…9 percent of those who identified themselves as football players said they had parents who voiced concerns over head injuries.” So, 91% of youth football players say their parents have NOT voiced concerns about head injuries?
“Still, only 4 percent of boys who had quit football said that personal concerns over head injuries were the main reason they quit.” So, 96% of those who quit football did NOT do so for concerns about head injuries?
The primary theme of this article is that football participation is declining because of the risk of head injury.
But the NYT’s own research almost completely undermines this contention.
2
It may not be the best movie ever, but "Bomb City" has some important lessons that more Americans should learn about regarding the culture of football.
I may have missed a reference to fantasy and gambling as one reason that tv ratings are high.
I’m betting Millennials will not be pushing their children to play football. That’s assuming they even have children.
Football inherently celebrates violence. Why is that appropriate as the national sport? My kids play ultimate frisbee. Much cleaner, safer, great for the kids and a lot of fun to watch.
I don’t buy the reporters’ absurd and breathy claim that “more children play it [football] than any other sport.”
How many travel and club youth football teams are there vs. those for soccer or lacrosse? How many girls play football? Have these reporters ventured outside their Brooklyn townhomes to visit any suburb in America?
The history is suggestive: The National Football Foundation was formed in 1947, when we thought we needed foot soldiers and company commanders to counter 50 Soviet armored divisions crossing the Fulda Gap. Could it be that Football is just another cultural relic of the Cold War to fall?
3
If you watch closely, notice that the billionaire sports owners are moving or branching out into other, less-injurious sports.
For instance, Joseph Tsai is involved in the NBA, WNBA, and the National Lacrosse League (NLL) and, I believe, perhaps Major League Lacrosse (MLL) or Professional Lacrosse League (PLL).
In the NLL, a 13-team league, has gone from 0 Big 4 owners in 2002 to 7 Big 4 owners (including NFL owners in 3 markets) in 2019. Joseph Tsai's San Diego team is now going to play one of its home games in Las Vegas as part of promoting the sport. The league also just changed statistics vendors to a company in which Mark Cuban has financial interests. Cuban's old HDNet used to broadcast NLL games in 2002 and it is rumored that he may be bringing an NLL team to Dallas.
The point is that the NFL is too pricey to get into and football is dying (until we have robot players!).
Those egos and new-found billionaires who need to be sports team owners are just going to grow these other leagues. (It also can give them some protection in case of a labor issue in another league they own.)
Back the National Lacrosse League for a moment, watch for it to grow in the coming years especially as lacrosse itself grows and parents are leery of football.
1
I would not let my son play football period. It's dangerous in many ways. Defenders have to beef up to take on 300 pound players - causing many problems includilng early death (often former professional line backers die in their 50's after long illnesses).
The worst threat is to intelligence and brain health. Concussions destroy brains, including "little concussions." There is no such thing. Every concussion is a permanent loss of brain connections and enough losses changes personalities, intelligence, and the ability to function. Each concussion drops IQ for life. How many are too many? One. Many former footballers have killed themselves rather than to continue to injure their families mentally or physically.
I would not allow my son to play football. Parents have woken up that the price boys and young men play to be heroes in this outdated, dangerous sport, dooms them for the rest of their lives, and often dooms the lives of their loved ones!
Change the game or go out of business. It's time for people to quit relishing watching human beings kill each other for violent entertainment!
The following statement from the article makes me believe that racial disparity is alive and well in this country: "The people who play the game are changing, too, with the number of white players diminishing as black and Hispanic players increasingly make up a larger plurality of the player pool."
Full disclosure, I am white. About 2/3rds of the players in the NFL are black (https://heavy.com/sports/2014/09/what-percentage-of-nfl-players-are-black-white/). At first glance this may seem like a positive for African Americans, and some may call it reverse racism. However, I think that it is just the opposite.
The chances an individual will play in the NFL are extraordinarily small, and it also requires a huge amount of work and sacrifice along the pathway to get there. Many of us with other (good) opportunities do not follow this path because it is too risky.
While there will always be a proportion of athletes who will take a risk and give up another opportunity to become a professional athlete (and I believe this to be a small proportion), I also believe that there are many who do it as their only means to get out of poverty.
So when I see a high proportion of black athletes in the NFL, I think that we still have a large racial disparity in this country because many do not have any other opportunity for success.
3
@WAEngelman Most football players need to be huge and fast ! Also Africans have higher bone density than non Africans which give them a huge advantage. There are many pro players that never played the game until high school or college, or made the switch from track or rugby. The average player has put in very little time to get to the pros as oppose to other team sports.
Football is risky. So is life. Properly managed the game reduces risk. The focus should --MUST-- be on the coaching professton.
I would like to see analysis of participation by socioeconomic status. Are relatively lower income families allowing their children to play in the hope that a scholarship to college will result, for example? (Ironically that would be risking brain function in order to get higher education.)
The most disturbing part of the article is that pushback consists of spinning the science so that parents will continue to allow their sons to play. Horrific.
2
"Robert K. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was there, as was the commissioner of the N.F.L., Roger Goodell. Commissioners from the Power 5 college athletic conferences were in the room. So were Northwestern’s head coach, Pat Fitzgerald, and a pair of Hall of Famers turned business titans, Roger Staubach and Archie Manning.
...
Within weeks, money had started to roll in. Kraft and Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a foundation board member, along with Goodell, on behalf of the N.F.L., came up with several hundred thousand dollars. The N.C.A.A commissioners pledged to set aside money from the College Football Playoff. Several doctors offered their counsel, including those skeptical of research linking repeated head hits to degenerative brain disease."
These propagandists that lied are the cause of footballs problems. And they won't be the cure. As long as PR, denial, cover up and obfuscation remain the plan, football will continue to die.
I tutored football players at the university of Tennessee in the '80s, and left with no use for football at all. The system was entirely corrupt. It quickly became clear that I had been hired to write their papers for them, not to teach them. The big fatcats got all the money, and these young men left with nothing, not even an education.
I worked for professor whose office was in Neyland stadium, and found out that the football program had pulled a boondoggle there as well, having the university pay for post-game stadium cleanup rather than the money coming out of the football receipts. My last year or two, the football program magnanimously gave the university money to keep the library open past 6pm.
I hate football. It's an apple that's rotten at its core. Vive la baseball!
1
Great article, but why is it relevant what race the people playing are?
The article illustrates the decline in youth players overall because of the sport's dangerous nature. That does not require a look at racial popularity in order to drive its point.
I have been reporting on this for several years now. You can look up my stories on the END OF JUNIOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL LAST YEAR IN ARIZONA. 8 teams-Poof! Gone. Jay David Murphy eacourier, just google it and eastern arizona college football from the end of last year. There are a dozen stories on the end of a 100 year program from the oldest school in AZ. There's YOUR Canary in the football mine.
I used to love to watch football at all levels. I must admit I found the combination of speed, athleticism, and violence exhilarating. Then, ten or so years ago, I began to see the MRI images of young men’s brains with large fluid filled spaces where brain tissue should be. I can no longer bear it. The sooner it dies out the better.
1
It’s the minority students ticket out of poverty and they are willing to assume the risk in when taking into consideration the reward, an opportunity to attend college and to reap the riches of the NFL.
1
"There is a great future in [soccer]. Think about it. Will you think about it?"
Football is dangerous and slow to watch. Plus today's school districts have taxpayers putting money into professional style stadiums while struggling to keep class sizes down because they can't afford more teachers--academic outcomes languish and its time for the U.S. to move past football.
1
Good to hear. As a former high school football doctor (1966-85) at a nearby town, I now think it is negligent to let your son play HS football, and even more so to let them play pre-HS such as Pop Warner and PAL tackle.
1
You don’t cure cancer by going to the local salon for a makeover. In my opinion, it is the NFL that has corrupted football. Sure, brain injuries are very serious, but that is only part of the problem. Arguably more damaging was the NFL’s blatant effort to deny and hide the problem. The league is so money hungry it’s ridiculous.
And having Robert Kraft at a meeting to improve the game’s image? I won’t even bother to describe what’s wrong with that picture.
Then there is the whole Colin Kaepernick debacle, Apparently, physically abusing women gets you a few games suspension, but if a player expresses an independent political thought he’s banned for life.
It’s pretty simple. Why would I steer my sons into a dangerous sport where the pinnacle of that sport is morally bankrupt?
1
My son's school, GFS, did not even have a football team. If they had, I never would have allowed him to play. It's akin to playing Russian Roulette with his life.
We send our children to school to improve their brains. So, I find it ironic that some parents will allow their children to participate in a game like football, which could injure their brains and jeopardize their future. The is no percentage in this for the students. Why take the chance?
1
90 % of a lot is still a lot. Sure, numbers are declining but this may have as much to do with the proliferation of other sports and activities as anything else. Football generally and the NFL specifically will need to get used to reduced market share. Big deal. Inform of the risks. Becareful with the youngsters. Let them play.
The NFL is great. Hate the commercials and the penalties, but love the raw emotion and the drama that unfolds. It's not MAGA arrogance talking, I just love the tradition and the game, and the fact that the stakes are high makes it great to watch.
Let it be, let'm play.
One of the biggest obstacles to US men's soccer being the best in the world is many of our best athletes are conditioned from a young age to play football. Note: US women don't have this drain of talent and they ARE the best in the world! Yes there is a strong tradition of football in the US but the science, and real human experience, is irrefutable-- football is hazardous to the long term health of many players. Even if only a small percentage eventually do show signs of CTE, it's a risk that's not worth taking.
Now is the time to start encouraging more kids to get into soccer. The MLS is well established and provides a viable option for professional level soccer which didn't exist in the US when I was a kid. Soccer is a team sport that teaches kids all of the same lessons of character and determination that can be learned from football, or any other team sport for that matter. Of course, injury is always a possibility as with any sport. But the risk of multiple, repeated concussions is not there in soccer. There is a reason why it's called 'the beautiful game.'
2
Fact: BU's CTE Center found CTE in the brains of high school football players.
No one should allow their child to be subjected to football. Knowing what we know now would indicate that football is child abuse.
My proposal is simple. It is time to divorce all tax dollars from all levels of football. No public support in anyway for high school or college football. Let the NFL set up their own farm system like baseball. And of course no public funds for NFL stadiums or infrastructure.
218
@NHBill I see little kids suiting up at age 8 for tackle ball and wonder what people are thinking! Kids used to play flag football until their teens.
104
@NHBill I fully support CTE study but your statement is wrong and hurts more valid science. The BU study looked at 4 high school patients (yes just 4 since you cant test for CTE on live patients). All 4 had played multiple sports. All 4 died less than 128 days after a traumatic brain injury. Only 1 had CTE.
Making false claims hurts the argument more than supports it. Theres plenty here to work with without resorting to false claims.
4
@Multimodalmama
Exactly! Even Archie Manning famously only allowed his sons to start full contact football when they got to high school. Two of those sons became pretty good NFL players from what I hear. (wink)
4
Football is the gladiator equivalent of Rome. Justifying it because of its TV popularity is mindless and a total disregard to the sad players who play this debilitating game, who BTW are mostly minority. I have never played or encouraged my kids to play this game. Any reasonable parent should do the same when thinking about the long-term affects of this game. No one has taken a statistical look at the audience but I willing to bet a paycheck that it is made mainly of white over-weight dudes who's only exercise is moving a beer can or potato chip from the coffee table to their mouth.
4
As a fan of football strategy but a vitriolic critic of everything else about the sport today, I find Flag Football a promising alternative. The biggest issue to most proposed changes is whether people will watch and spend money on Football without the violence?
2
I'd like to see the prevalence of head injuries in other countries. What is the rate of CTE in soccer or rugby? My friends in other countries are bemused that we spend tax money on sports that often result in life-long physical effects. The NFL keeps trying to get Europe excited about American football and they mostly aren't interested, as far as I can see.
1
As the horrific long-term consequences of head injuries become more widely understood, how could any parent willingly send their young son out onto that field, knowing that any moment could bring the hit that destroys his entire future?
Honestly, what good is football? It's a brutal, bone-crushing "game" that brings short-term financial gain to maybe 1 percent of those who play, while chewing up and spitting out the rest. The only long-term winners are the owners who treat the players like interchangeable cogs and profit regardless of who gets hurt.
If you want your son to learn teamwork, encourage him to play baseball. If you want your son to be fit and active, teach him tennis or introduce him to track. And if you want him to have a future, never let him play football.
30
@Cloud Hunter
Yes as a sensitive person with an “ectomorphic” body build, I was very quickly disabused of any notion of playing football, even “tag”, after quickly suffering really painful bone hits during only a few plays; this, even though I am drawn to and pretty good at sports in general.
We have 3 rules in our household:
1) No Motorcycles
2) No Skydiving
3) No Football
If I had to relax one of them it would be the skydiving. My son plays flag football though, which he quite enjoys.
4
Today, medical researchers correctly identify head injuries as a result of playing football at an early age as good reason thoughtful parents to question their child's participation in the sport. Having played football from age 11 through 18, I saw injuries other than head injuries cause life-changing results on teammates. Among the more common injuries which are detected right away--unlike the medical results of concussions and sub-concussive events that develop over decades in most cases--knee, shoulder, leg, and arm injuries can cause lifetime pain, suffering, and in some cases long-term disability. High school football players who 'blow out' a knee or lose a kneecap likely will not run or walk the same way again. Certain shoulder and neck strains have been known to stay with the athlete for a lifetime.
All this gives parents, guardians, coaches, and physicians something to consider. When my son was asked to play for his high school team years ago because of his speed and facility in handling any ball, my wife and I quietly reviewed these potential outcomes with him and it became clear that he did not want to risk being sidelined from baseball which he played since he was 6 years old. My point is simply this: we know a lot more now about the medical consequences than we knew 60 years ago when I played schoolboy contact sports and that means we have to be smarter and better informed about the potential for long-term injury
and more open with our children about them.
18
A former NFL Giants fan (since before the Fumble). I took great joy for years in watching both the college and pro games. Attended games at my college team. (Dan Marino and Pitt mushed them one Saturday long ago). But after watching the Frontline, League of Denali, reading Omalu and Nowicki’s books, and seeing the movie Concussion and watching Mike Webster’s actual Hall of Fame speech cross edited with the actor David Morse’s portrayal, I just can’t watch anymore. At my 35th college reunion, the Sat football game was a thing. I went to socialize. In the first quarter, the quarterback went down and out - head hit, targeting, out of game. Seeing The NY Times brain pictures of 110 NFL brains with spots of tau was damning. Team sports are great for so many things. Life lessons, etc. Seeing commercials where aspiring footballers celebrate how much time they spend lifting, sprinting, etc makes me cringe and think, where would those poor misguided souls be, if they devoted the time to academics. Time for football to be relegated to the backwaters like boxing and horse racing.
21
Maybe if football wasn't so boring, it would stand a chance against other games with speed and agility and hitting, like lacrosse.
@Brad Kunhardt Lacrosse is not very popular for many reasons.
"Football remains far and away the country’s most popular sport" from a fan perspective, and perhaps from a younger than 18 player perspective, but I'm guessing there are far more adult joggers and tennis players than football players.
Economically, football may be number one. But from a participation perspective, particularly among adults, it seems much farther down the list.
4
No surprise on tone of most posts in this forum. Few played and would never let their children play either. Most were never in the military or will let their kids join either. That’s fine. My view is that our culture needs football more than ever, but the game has to evolve. Youth sports participation is down overall and single sport focus is becoming the norm. Then add in the reality that football is demanding along with a genuine fear of head injuries and it’s a perfect storm against football. Those who love the game and recognize its significance in their life are also the most motivated to change the game. The game has changed dramatically in just the last 5 years. Rule changes, new tackling techniques, and helmet technology being the most impactful. Also, the comparison to the impact of an NFL career is misplaced. Literally tens of millions of boys and young men have played football over the last 150 years and 99.9% stop after high school. Millions from this cohort have gone on to excel in all walks of life and attribute much of their success to what they learned playing football. All but the smallest % have gone on to live long, healthy and productive lives. Those facts are just as relevant as what has tragically occurred to those who played in the NFL, but the media focuses on the most tragic. I’m 30 plus years removed from my last professional football and would let my own grand children play the game that is being played today.
3
@Rich Snuck the military comparison in there. Completely irrelevant. Is football patriotic? Are people who played football somehow more patriotic? And you make the wild claim that people who play football attribute their success to their experience with the game. What, exactly, do they learn? And does that imply that those who don't play football somehow miss out on some important life lesson. As far as I can see, playing football teaches you to play football.
2
@Danny T the military comparison wasn't "snuck" in there - it was front and center. I just retired after 25 years in the military and my experience was that the vast majority of men I served with, and who excelled in the military, played contact sports - football, wrestling, hockey, martial arts etc. Their athletic experiences contributed greatly to their military success and most reasonable people would agree that is a good thing. As for my other claim about former football players attributing success later in life to having played the game - there is nothing "wild" about it. It is a fact that millions of men have played the game. Now go to your local book store and read a few biographies. No shortage of former Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, Business Leaders, University Presidents, etc, etc who played football and say the game had an outsized positive impact on their life. I didn't imply anything abut people who don't play football - it's a free country. I just think most reporting on football is too one sided and negative. There are millions of men like myself, who loved the game, appreciate what it did for us, and want future generations to have the option to continue playing it. By all means evolve the game, but it's a game worth saving. If that bothers you, it's your own problem.
@Rich I often find that many of the people who want football "burned to the ground" have never played the sport themselves, while those who have played the sport (particularly at the high-school level, where the risk of serious long-term injury is lower than in college and the pros) have a much more positive, or at least nuanced, view of the game.
1
If the decline in school participation keeps up, the NFL might just have to pony up and pay for its own farm leagues, rather than using tax dollars.
7
When you watch football highlights you rarely see the bone-crushing blocks and tackles that lead to injuries and concussions. The beauty of the game you see in the highlights is the passing game, open-field running, and great catches. None of those has would have to be jettisoned if tackle football became touch football. We have the technology to make touch football accurate and exciting and much, much less dangerous to players of all ages.
2
@Magee Okay, so I stop watching a while ago, but as regards highlights I recall a popular pro football recap show that included a segment called "Jacked up" that depicted the most impactful of the week. When you lose "Jacked up," you kind of lose the soul of American football.
1
@Magee You must have never seen a pancake block. That is a thing of beauty.
1
@MaroonDude I played college football and I was on the receiving end of both passes and pancake blocks. Getting hit like that is not a thing of beauty.
2
Football only makes sense in the following context: we no longer (in the US, at any rate) have continual tribal conflicts that require the sacrifice of the bodies of young men. T
Think about, say, the era fictionalized in "Game Of Thrones." Now today, we don't have a lord in a castle to whom we pledge fealty and we don't need have the standing armies to defend our grain, our livestock and our women from attacks by the lord over the next hill. But back then, in our medieval times, the army was necessary because there really was another lord over that there hill with an army ready to attack.
But we still have that tribal bloodlust. Why do sports fans say, "We would have won if only we had scored more points?" The fans aren't playing, they can't affect the outcome, yet they act as if they are part of the team. That's tribalism in a nutshell. (And it's also bread and circuses.) American Football, of all sports, gives its fans that tribal bloodlust they crave, and they do it without having to leave the comfort of their "man caves" and bad beer.
The men who run the sport recognize this. They've known it all along. They're just giving the people what they want. I suppose it's better than riots in the streets, but at great cost to the athletes, who are actually gladiators by another name.
Now consider the logical end to tribal bloodlust replacing actual combat: the game called Rollerball in the 70s movie of the same title.
5
The game of football (or should I say business of football) will be forced to change. This change will accelerate when the tidal wave of lawsuits in the very near future are filed against school districts, coaches, and teams. It is a certainty that players from the past will have CTE in enormous numbers and the NFL would be bankrupted out of business. Change can't come soon enough to stop that.
14
@Jimmy
And when those lawsuits hit high schools, the schools make the economic decision to discontinue football, whether there is interest or not.
3
In 9th and 10th grades I was on the football team, mostly as cannon fodder for the starters during practices. A concussion ended that. I tried again as a freshman at a very small college, saw some game time, but this, too, ended with a concussion.
Something changed after that second concussion, but it took a long time to fully realize this. My concentration and self-discipline weakened, my temper flared up unexpectedly. I graduated from college, enlisted in the Army, earned advanced degrees and had a solid career. But I always struggled with concentration and self-discipline, and increasingly with temper and mood.
After becoming profoundly depressed and seeking medical treatment in my mid-30s, several doctors talked to me about the immediate and long-term effects of concussions. My profile filled almost every check box.
Self-awareness, behavior mods, and medication helped me get back on track and move forward, though it's still difficult at times. Showing early signs of memory problems, I have to wonder what the future holds.
Was it worth it? Did football offer unique experiences or teach unique lessons only it provides? Would I do it again? Would I let a child of mine play?
NO, not on my life. Whatever football offers or teaches is available in any number of ways that don't carry the risk of long-term damage and disability.
95
At our local high school, there are currently two football players out with concussions, and five others with various injuries. All these injuries have the potential for long-term consequences. We treat football so differently. If even one student was injured in a shop class, for example, they'd be a thorough investigation and policies put in place to prevent it from happening again.
Beware of these NFL owners trying to minimize the dangers. They watch -- safe and sound -- from their luxury boxes, while they make millions. They want young people to continue risking physical injury, so that there is always a fresh supply of players to make money for them.
No game should carry such a great risk of serious injury when there are so many wonderful and safer alternatives.
41
There is risk of some kind with almost any sport or athletic activity. But football has a documented risk of injury that is simply too high for any thoughtful parent to accept. I would encourage all parents to just say no and help their children find a safer sport to pursue. The world won't end without football and kids will be safer.
24
Parents want to protect their kids. Goodell and Co. want to protect the revenue stream for NFL team owners. I vote for the parents and their kids.
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@Ralph Braseth putting the old NFL out of business is fine by me.
3
Football is risky enough that only adults should be able to make it for themselves. The decision can't be transferred to parents as they don't live with the consequences that come to pass years/decades later.
Only when you become 18+ do you become free to make your own decisions about a lot things, football should be one of them.
14
At 68, I am a lifelong fan of football and boxing. That's all I record on my DVR aside from a few classic black and white movies on TCM. I am thoroughly entertained and can watch both sports endlessly. Many many years ago, I made the resolute decision that I would never allow any child of mine to participate in either sport. If I pause for a moment, I can easily recall enough football players, amateur and pro, who were rendered quadraplegics to count on both hands. With boxing, I can recall deaths. I still love the sports. I know that's warped and selfish - something inherent in man.
5
@StarvinMarvin It is more than warped and selfish. It is the literal definition of hypocrisy. You would protect your own but you are perfectly fine to see others become injured, or indeed as you pointed out, die for your own personal pleasure and then chalk it up as "something inherent in man" to say it is all okay. It is not.
1
It can't be a surprise that families are skeptical about tackle football safety. With all the news outlets today, including entertainment, word gets out, gets illustrated, gets dramatised and parents consider the price so many kids and young adults pay for playing. I guess there will be enough willing to go for it for the mid-term future, but those who suffer life-altering injuries are heartbreaking.
2
Football is too dangerous for student athletes. It should not be a part of high school or college athletics.
24
At its core, football is about physical dominance. It’s about taking land or defending against the taking. The successful football programs at all levels are made up of superior, strong, fast athletes, who are controlled most often by cerebral quarterbacks who survive by avoiding most contact.
Football, due to its emphasis on physical domination, is also an escape valve for boys and men to express their manhood.
It is a contradiction to believe that football can be made to be safe, or safer — not unless the game is fundamentally altered.
26
It is supposed to be tackle football but it often looks more like bumping football. Tackle should be the action of trying to grab or grapple the opponent not launch head or shoulder first into an opponent.
A lot could be learnt from rugby where rules have been much adjusted in the last 20 years to protect players. Any tackle that does not involve an actual grappling motion (say shoulder or head first) is now severely dealt with, with temporary or permanent expulsion. Interestingly enough it is now considered the responsibility of the tackler to safely bring the tackled down. No upside down tackle anymore, no tackling in the air etc. Maybe US football can learn for once...
Alternatively we could also equip football players with swords and let them have a go at it, ancient Rome style...
7
Ask yourself as a parent: if you can start your kids in a sport, why would you choose football? Most of the kids that get hurt have no future in the game anyway. I have friends with terrible back and neck problems from merely playing through high school and they never let their kids play football. Once they definitively connect concussions and brain damage - and that is absolutely coming — the demise will be within a generation or two. They just won’t have enough young kids playing. But, it could be like cigarettes, just start pushing it abroad. Bring in poor, foreign players who are willing to take the risk for a chance at earning a living.
35
Wasn't it also pointed out in a different NYT article that Archie Manning would not let his sons play tackle football until they were 14. That certainly didn't hurt their abilities. Probably we won't know if they suffered from CTE until they pass away. I have some difficulty in understanding why there is not a test to determine CTE before death. I just wonder if this football foundation in its eagerness to relieve parents of the worry of brain injury would financially support discovering a "living" test for CTE - or perhaps hidden in their 'Miscellaneous Expenses' they have done just the opposite.
I have enthusiastically in the past watched football and cared about the outcomes of games. But, now, the game has also become enormously boring!
I stopped paying attention to NFL & NCAA football a long time ago - not because of the violence, but because of the constant, insidious commercial intrusions. I can well understand why Chuck Bednarik, "The Last of the 60 Minute Men" (maybe) was contemptuous of modern players. A timeout after each possession? A timeout after each score and then another after the resulting kickoff? Injury timeouts and VAR reviews? Perhaps players get too much rest during a game to replenish their violence.
And despite the mention of $50mil stadiums, all this equipment plus insurance is costly. Perhaps, ultimately, it will the cost of liability insurance which ends football as we know it.
GO Prudential! GO Farmers!
7
"Practically overnight, rebranding football became perhaps the biggest part of the foundation’s portfolio, next to maintaining the College Football Hall of Fame and honoring the academic achievements of collegiate football players."
Rebrand it all you want, but once you know about the harmful impact on developing brains, you cannot 'unknow' it. We will eventually be left with players whose parents are willing to gamble away their sons' future cognitive and emotional health for a long shot at making a college or pro team. It's a very poor gamble.
37
@A teacher Unfortunately, all too often disadvantaged families see college as a sons' best chance for having a better life. They also see sports scholarships as the only path available to them for their sons to attend college, and the vast majority of college sports scholarships are for football. These disadvantaged families have been found to be less likely than others to be familiar with the current research findings on brain injuries. Perhaps that contributes to their decisions to let their sons play football.
Once, slaves brutalized each other in the Coliseum for the public's entertainment. Now, while we don't actually have slavery, the NFL is largely played by the economically subjugated (70% of NFL players are African-American), who are struggling to free themselves - and their families - from the invisible chains of poverty.
I've been a lifelong fan of football - college and pro - but after becoming aware of the long-term risk of players losing their mind for my weekend entertainment, I can no longer watch.
I found that I didn't like what it said about ME.
7
The elimination of risk seems to be the driving force in all of parenting. The elimination of youth football youth or hockey and other skating sports, wrestling, lax, skiing, equestrian and other sports will eliminate the higher risks those sports present for those who love to play them. It also presents the risk they will play nothing at all.
It does seem a weird paradox to eliminate physical activity choices for children due to risk in a country where 1 in 5 kids under 18 is obese and 30% are overweight according to the CDC.
Some activities are inherently more dangerous than others, and working intelligently to ameliorate these risks seems a better path than wholesale elimination of the sports and activities some kids love.
If your son loves cross country and you have made the choice to let him participate that is awesome, my daughter loves pop warner football and we have made the choice to let her participate.
There are risks, including those associated with concussions and the toll even smaller collisions can take, and we discuss them. The league she plays in has also made dozens of rules changes and skill develop to mitigate risk. We can live with that standard because with that risk comes rewards.
There is also a ton of hard work, great teammates, and valuable lessons on winning with class, losing with dignity, and trying as hard as she can for herself and her team. Just
as their are in other sports. This just happens to be the one she loves.
2
@William Mansfield cool that's great an all and you can do it all without football specifically.
@William Mansfield
Do you really feel you are fulfilling your role as a parent by letting your young child participate in an "recreational" activity that could take away her brain?
1
The biggest fear among the powers that be in football and It's continued dominance in America is not head injuries- rather it is the dismantling of the current business structure of college football: i.e., keeping the players from making any money/being paid. I attended a University of Michigan Alumni Association function in Chicago a few years ago at which the head of the Big Ten Network (a Michigan grad) spoke and took questions afterwards. I asked him point blank, who are the NCAA exactly, and why do they continue to have such power over college sports, and football specifically? He was clearly taken aback by the question, mumbled something about not wanting to get in to the subject, and abruptly left the podium. I feel confident that a softball question about head injuries would have elicited a company line response about safer tackling and better helmets.
17
We only watch NFL games now on replay because 3.5 or 4 hours is far too much time to spend on 12-15 minutes of action. The game is exciting, and strategies and abilities amazing too. But the announcement at the beginning “this is an NFL Presentation” is more accurate than calling it a game.
An NFL “spectacle” (game) is 53 players against 53, with dozens of coaches, free and continual substitution, no running clock - rather using arcane time keeping conventions, coaches calling the plays, restrictive rules about illegal formations, endless chatter, commercials, replays, delays and challenges. And yet it can be very exciting!
The tragedy is that thousands of players (all but a few amateurs who earn nothing) get injured or maimed for life, and not a few will suffer the ultimate sadness of dementia.
It will never happen, but to make this more like a sport again, radical change is needed. EG, no substitution, players playing offense and defense, once out finished, players calling own plays, guards again kicking PAT’s, no helmets only leather skullcaps like in the 1930’s, no head tackling... Average player weights would drop and players stamina would rise dramatically. Games would take 1.5 to 2 hours, and would be exciting sport (with similarities to rugby.)
Of course this is crazy talk. But real change is needed. Those who know the game should find the change.
11
I think the market will decide and that is a good thing. Atlanta is a good place to see how soccer may take over. I can't see how certain NFL teams can sustain their popularity and revenue when there are many cheaper, more entertaining options. Attending an MLS soccer game is much cheaper, less time consuming (no commercial breaks!) and just as entertaining, even to those who are not as familiar with the sport. Also, I know of many families who don't choose youth football because it's too expensive for their kids to play.
6
Setting the issue of head injuries aside, what else could be causing fewer high schools to field an 11-man team? It may be the rise of charter schools, publicly-funded-yet-private schools, and online education, which all take potential players away from a public school system that has been decimated by conservative policies. More and more families are also financially unstable, in part due to conservative policies, leading teens to work after school and weekend jobs rather than play unremunerative sports and/or leading families to have to decline expensive early programs like Pop Warner football. The school-to-prison pipeline peels potential players away as does a lack of universal healthcare and a poor diet.
11
Adults can make a decision to voluntarily accept earning a living in an occupation with significant risk of grievous harm such as in law enforcement, firefighting and the military. Children below the age of majority cannot rationally make a decision to play football, emotion plays too large a part. Parents are irresponsible if they voluntarily put their child in harms way.
Football must be left to adults only, as a way to earn a (good) living, while accepting the inherent risks that go with it.
The football industry can afford to train adults to play the game much as other occupations train their employees.
9
I played football in high school for three years as a center and defensive tackle. In my junior year, I found myself bashing my head into the opposing players, ending up with a blinding headache. That was what football for most players is all about. Using your head as a battering ram. I also did some damage to my back and to this day, at age 65, I have to do special exercises and I have pain from time to time. After that, I quit football and never looked back. I enjoy watching football today but it if dies out and is replaced with soccer, I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.
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@John Barry
You are incorrect about the relative risk of concussions in football and soccer.
The article being commented on has some good graphics.
reading most of these comments is just sad. There is risk in everything and yes football can be dangerous etc but we grew up with out wearing helmets riding a bike or skiing etc. Kids today are too coddled and this go along with allowing your kids to play football or any other contact sport. What the author does not mention is the growth of year round soccer and its impact on other sports. Or moms thinking soccer is safer than football yet they have as many or more concussions then football. I feel for our society in 20-30 yrs when the vast majority of then men did not learn life lessons playing football, overcoming challenges, bonding with your team mates. I played football from 1st grade to high school and played lacrosse in college. I regret not playing college football as I missed it so much. Not sure why the NFL is not investing millions into this as the product will be really watered down in 10-15 years.
1
@Wooster Comparing football to growing up "without wearing helmets riding a bike or skiing" entirely misses the point. Having your head in a collision with pavement or mountain isn't the point of biking or skiing. Having your head collide at high speed with another human is an important component of football, if not the entire point.
Soccer is not without risk, but is objectively safer (from a brain injury perspective) than football, and I am happy that the United States seems to be catching up with the rest of the world in embracing it.
And it is certainly not the case that important life lessons, overcoming challenges, bonding with teammates etc. is only available to those who engage in a violent activity like football.
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@Wooster
You are incorrect about the relative risk of concussions in football and soccer.
The article being commented on has some good graphics.
9
@Wooster Do you not see the presented data, or did you skip statistics in college? Football: 34 head injuries per 10k competition plays. Soccer: 11 head injuries per 10k plays. More than 3x more risk. 300+% increased chance of some kind of head injuries.
4
Two 250 pound men, running at each other, full speed, and colliding, will cause some physical damage. Unless they're wearing nerf helmets and pads, there will be pain.
As much as I love watching football, and playing since I was about 10 (and through high school), I didn't let my son play.
The sport has outlived its time, because it's fundamentally injurious to players. That's unnecessary. I don't want to see anyone injured for "sport". Players, if they get to the NFL, have a very short period of their life on the field, and that should allow for a long, healthy life after the game. It doesn't. The giant "sports entertainment/money" factory it has become still convinces too many to play, but soccer is making inroads in our schools. That's the future.
25
@Slann Hi Slann and thank you for your thoughtful comments. One thing you said was "I don't want to see anyone injured for "sport." So, if not for sport, why are they injured? It's for the televised video game we call football. It's the player as software in the larger game of profit for colleges, universities and the NFL. Profit rules at every level. Our local university rebuilt the stadium and shuffled the students down to the end zone so their seats could be sold at a higher profit. It's all profit, well except for the crippling injuries that last a lifetime. Most forms of sport have some inherent danger, but with football its much more.
8
There is no “solution” here for football other than to disband it or turn it into something like flag football. Violence is its soul.
The game is a vestige of the American cultural legacy of life as a Darwinian competition – meritocracy, education, the free market – every aspect of society driven by competition. “My religion is better than your religion.”
And it is a vestige of the legacy of solving our problems with violence and entertaining ourselves vicariously with violence. It’s a crude anachronism that, like boxing and ultimate fighting, has no part in a civilized society other than to appeal to our lowest instincts. To the fans it is a chest-thumping tribal ritual.
On the college and professional levels, it is a stark example of human exploitation, of huge profits being made off of the individuals risking their health and safety. It’s a gladiator “sport.” It’s blood money.
We need to put the “sport” back in sport.
The other issue about football is the “violence” it does to academic budgets. $50 million high school stadiums? Where are our priorities? In these times of vast inequality, if there is that much money available, wouldn’t it be put to better use preparing students for the workplace and citizenship?
BTW I am a long-time Packer fan. But increasingly, I find myself less and less emotionally attached to the game. Sometimes I watch; but, if I don’t, it is no longer a big deal. I am withdrawing. There are many less violent sports to choose from. Go Bucks!
57
@Michael I think a lot of the money used to build those high-dollar stadiums wouldn't exist without the football team. Either through wealthy boosters or ticket sales, they likely pay for themselves.
4
@Levi Or perhaps more to the point, the unpaid students on the field pay for the big stadiums with their bodies and possibly their minds. From that perspective, the stadiums are arguably too expensive, even if they make a profit for the schools.
9
I wonder if anyone has linked the rise of feminism to the decline of football. I mean, football is a very masculine sport, testosterone-fueled to the hilt. It seems anachronistic in this modern age in so many ways. It glorifies violence and there's something strange about 300-pound fat guys being called "athletes" (I know that's not pc, i'm just being frank here). If I were part of this foundation, I'd think about trying to make football much more women-friendly - and there are signs they are doing that. Ditch the cheerleaders, bring women announcers into the broadcast booth and add women to the officiating crew. Women players could only help - Carli Lloyd would make a great kicker, why not? There were Amazon women warriors, why can't they put a few women on the field - they've integrated successfully into combat Army positions. Making it more feminine could slow the trend of boys not playing - after all, in many of these households we can be sure it's not pop saying junior shouldn't play, it's likely mom. I played football growing up but it's probably heading to being a spectacle more than a sport, really. It's just terribly out of date in so many ways - no way the powers that be would make it coeducational or take any other action that might change it radically enough. They're making too much money off of it as it is.
7
@Joe Women, particularly mother’s, don’t want to see their kids brain damaged. I think they also prefer their children....boys or girls....to play a sport where an ambulance isn’t parked on the sidelines.
3
I traveled to the midwest recently. for a week I worked out at a gym in a small town that identifies itself with it's football program. The gym was mostly empty, though there was an occupational therapist there who seemed to have a client list of high school football players recovering from concussions. Very slow exercises, basic balance things combined with very simple cognitive tests. Wow. How many of those injuries does a town endure before parents say "no mas."
53
It seems like a lot of people are worried that this may lower the quality of collegiate and professional football. I remember when I was in high school, we were told that something like .00001% of people who play football in high school make it to the NFL. That means that high school participation would have to drop significantly further before we see a loss in quality players for colleges and pro teams.
Also, many injuries are caused by sloppy play. Players who don't care as much play sloppy. So, if high schools are losing players that don't care as much, that may inadvertently lead to fewer injuries.
@Michael CTE is caused by everyday blocking and tackling not sloppy play. CTE has been found in high school football players.
@Michael your logic makes no sense. A drop of 10% of the kids playing would mean there would 10% fewer elite athletes playing. So there would be a drop in quality. And clearly college and pro players get head injuries. These athletes “care”.
@Michael
I'd like to see your data that sloppy play causes injury. There is no data for that. The only data we have is that playing football causes injury.
Have a 205 6'5" 17 year old who can throw a football with surgical precision from one end of the football field to the other. Guess what - he rows. Rowing has transformed his life for the better in literally every sense of the word - athletics, academics, teamwork, character, work ethic - you name it - rowing teaches it. And now he's talking actively with Ivy League school coaches about college. I was one of those "anything but football" moms -- and that stance - and the choice to row - was one of the things about parenting I got completely right.
229
Except that rowing is flat-out boring. If you think it would be fun to a piston in an engine, try rowing.
8
@spareme Yup! Rowing is a great sport. The first of all intercollegiate sports, and a true test of athleticism and character. Those big football boys could go far in an eight.
7
@Doug Feinburg, to each his or her own. My granddaughter loves rowing and my daughter-in-law rowed in college. The teamwork part of it is lots of fun.
9
I think helmets and padding are largely the problem. People wearing that gear feel invincible, especially adolescent boys. I would be interested to see the injuries that resulted from a pilot program that stripped all of that away. I suspect not too many people would be willing to bash their bare skull against an opponent's.
9
@MikeJJNYC I agree. look at rugby with no pads/helmets, there's certainly still many head injuries there, it's rules around tackling and blocking are so different, it could give ideas for american football. it's where football came from anyways.
4
@MikeJJNYC We have a pilot program that stripped helmets away - football as it was played in the earlier 20th century. There were head injuries for life galore!
It's hard to let go of such an exciting sport, which is so entertaining and engaging. I was an enormous football fan until I learned the extent of the life long injuries - even for those who don't have apparent brain injuries. Great 49ers Quarterback Joe Montana was not hit in the head so much because of the position he played. But he took a lot of blows to other parts of his body. The result is early and dibilitating osteoarthritis - he limped around like an old man in his 50's. Health is more important than sports entertainment.
11
@MikeJJNYC what people don’t realize is that head injury occurs due to rapid deceleration. Rapid deceleration occurs with or without helmet to helmet. A players brain decelerates and the damage is internal with even a good tackle or block.
6
I had to ask myself why do I watch a game I would never allow my son to play. Since then I switched to watching soccer (or "football") on the weekends and I've never looked back.
9
@janet I can no longer watch football either because of seeing what it is doing to the players. It's horrible to hear them hit each other.
Football has joined boxing as a gladiator sport that no decent person watches.
2
The coaches of my 12 year-old nephew after school program were Lombardi want-to-bees. The injuries and the pressure they put on the kids to win meant nothing to them.
6
@Mike Teenagers think they are invincible. Football players are heroes in high school. You should try to talk your nephew's parents into putting their talented son into a sport that will not do him so much permanent physical and mental damage.
I remember admiring the football players so much in their games when I was in highschool. Now they all just look stupid - why do their parents let their coaches destroy their sons?
That football damages brains is not "controversial", unless you give statements made without evidence or understanding by those with vested interests the same weight as scientific studies. Come on, NYT, there's a difference between neutral reporting and just giving what everyone says the same weight, regardless of whether there is evidence to back it. What we need here is hard-hitting journalism.
Participation in football is declining - thank God! I was disappointed to read that it had dropped only about 10 percent since 2009. Football is a part of American culture, but it hasn't always been and it doesn't have to continue. The president of Harvard tried to put an end to college football around the turn of the 19th century but failed, unfortunately, so untold untold numbers of young brains have been damaged in the century since.
Far too many, and many for selfish reasons, still fail to acknowledge the dangers of this sport.
39
Ever since I started dating one of Bo Schembechler's managers at Michigan, I have been a fan of football. Through the late 80s, it was a joy. Then something changed: the "Refrigerator" showed the advantage of sheer weight in tackling, and the NFL swallowed the Kool-Aid. I have watched in dismay as the weights of defensive and offensive-line players rise and rise some more. Meanwhile, the weights of the mobile offensive players - especially quarterbacks and wide receivers - stay roughly the same. I watch 300-pound flying missiles land blows sufficient to.break through two walls. Yet no one in the NFL or the NCAA even mentions weight as a significant factor in the injury rate. It seems to me that a common-sense precaution to reduce injuries of all kinds is simply to PUT A WEIGHT LIMIT on players at all positions. Let speed, not bulk, become the hallmark of the game. The other step that needs to.be taken is to increase penalties and issue them more frequently for deliberate attempts to injure opposing players, something we all see regularly. This is not just common sense, but it would make the game more fair. In sport, damaging your opponent on purpose is the coward's and thug's way to victory. Let's sportsmanship back into the sport.
23
@Joyce L
Good point and after the real heavys leave football and the
calorie burning exercise that football requires and the calorie heavy diets that they need to build up that weight they can become morbidly obese. Carrying around 450 on damaged knees and other joints becomes a real problem,
1
My son is a high school Junior and he plays football. When he was younger, I steered him to other sports (swimming, tennis, soccer) and he excelled in all, and enjoyed them. In high school, the football coaches found him and invited him to play. He started playing as a sophomore and played both offensive and defensive tackle, so he was playing almost the entire game. Now on Varsity, he only plays offensive tackle. At first I was unenthusiastic about his new sport, and I still spend every game a little nervous and scared that he will get hurt -- especially because he is on the lean side for an OT (6'4 185) But I have become a convert. Football has improved his life for the better. He is more motivated about sport, school, and life than I have ever seen him before. His grades have improved. He has had the experience of playing a big rival in front of thousands of fans -- and playing well, and winning. It has made him a strong, confident kid. Tennis and soccer never provided the kind of motivation to excel that football has. I do worry about the injuries, particularly brain injuries. I was a college rower and hurt my back -- had 10 years of pain as a result -- but don't regret a minute of it. Its a complicated issue, I really do hope we can figure out how to make this special game more safe.
16
To all the naysayers who do not understand the appeal of football, let me say this. There is no other sport that compares to football in the "team aspect". Every organized sport will stress the "team sport" value, but each has an individual aspect embedded in the game that football does not wholly possess. In baseball, everyone gets an "at bat". In hockey, basketball, soccer and lacrosse everyone gets to touch the ball and puck and possibly score. Of the 22 players on the football field, most will not touch the ball. Offensive and defensive lineman battle from start to finish in an effort to help their team win. Sometimes they do not even see their player score as they are picking themselves up from the pile. That is life, there will be superstars and those who work anonymously toward a goal.
I understand the danger involved with participating, and that is up to individuals and society to determine football's future. However, in today's participation award society, football teaches disappearing values.
6
@DFH
The "team aspect" usually means the coach yelling "hit hard" and similar "motivation" to not only tackle but also hurt the opponent. There are too many 48-0 scores, in college where top teams schedule an "easy" opponent every other week and the inferior team does it because they get a good payday at a top ten school with its 90,000 seat stadium and they lose 63-0.
4
@DFH
"I understand the danger involved with participating, and that is up to individuals and society to determine football's future."
If you understand the danger, then you should surely understand why it's unethical to let a child play it.
3
@LBH your reply had nothing to do with DFH’s point. And you’re making a generalization about coaches that in unfounded.
2
My son is 11. He is a highly athletic kid. He loves to watch the NFL with his father. They throw a football around and he loves it.
He has a great arm, is fast, loves to juke, and make big catches. He used to ask if he could play tackle football. He doesn't even bother to ask anymore.
He can play flag football, and any other sport.
We will NEVER allow him to play tackle football, never ever.
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@Alexandra O. Same here for our sons, frankly, but did not come as an edict from us: They themselves tell us they don't want be drooling or slurring words at 40 or 50. I have several friends who played D2 football. All of them have aches and pains requiring medication - all. They are in their 30s and 40s. I'm sure there's a link (probably kept hidden) between this and the opioid crisis, which has been partly driven by people looking for cheaper alternatives to Vicodin, Percoset, etc.
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@Alexandra O. You are wise parents.
3
I've seen the sons of friends and neighbors spend their youth training and training to get in as a starting player on the HS team. Most of them spent their HS football years on the bench for basically every game.
The starting players were mainly the sons of the coaches, sons of friends of the coaches, and sons of VIPs.
With offense, defense, and special teams groups, there is little playing time for players compared to the training, injuries, and time away from studying.
I played soccer for several decades and coached my son's teams for four years and all players spent a lot of time on the field and not on the bench with a fraction of the injuries sustained by football players.
Football is overly commercialized. A game that can be played in 1.5 hours is stretched out to 3.0 - 3.5 hours because of commercials.
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@mrpisces I’ve never seen the sons of coaches, sons of VIP thing. Most coaches want to win and will play whoever gives them the best chance to do that.
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@mrpisces I used to LOVE football. Now I can't watch it. It's brutal - similar to boxing or gladiator contests to the death in ancient Rome.
I love to watch soccer and basketball. These sports require enormous skill and cooperation among players. All sports played well take a toll on bodies. (Stephen Curry complains about being old at 31.). But the injuries are more tolerable and correctable. Brain injuries cannot be corrected or treated! Football needs to be banned. Or turn full contact football into flag football. The people still playing today's football care nothing for the boys and young men playing it. They are in it for the fun and glory but if the boys knew the long term costs, they would find other, equally challenging sports. If you think tennis is not demanding enough, talk to Raphael Nadal!
Rowing, soccer, basketall - all of them require teamwork and hone skills for working with others throughout the players' lives. Boys should be directed to sustainable sports that will give them lifelong pleasure, friends, and good physical conditioning.
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Bicycle riding accounts for a lot more head injuries than football so to cut down on head injuries bicycle riding should be the number one concern. However, it is a positive development that people are paying much more attention to head injuries from football. And you are seeing an increasing number of pros walk away from the game during their prime because of concern of head injuries. John Urschel is an example. He was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens who also had extraordinary achievements in mathematics when he attended Penn State. But after having a concussion while playing for the Ravens he left football and entered a PhD program in applied mathematics at MIT. Hopefully he has spared himself from serious brain damage but only time will tell if he is fortunate in that respect.
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@Bob The difference is that head injuries from cycling occur by accident - no one goes riding her bike head-on into other people on bikes or driving cars. That's an important distinction. Turn on the TV and let me know the next time you see a tackle where someone DOESN'T lower his head.
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@Bob
Given the sheer number of people of riding bikes and the number of hours spent riding, your claim that bicycle riding accounts for a lot more head injuries is just plain false. The rate of head injuries from bike riding is very low . It takes ""at least 8000 years of average cycling to produce one clinically severe head injury and 22,000 years for one death"
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I have never understood the appeal of football as a sport. It’s fun to play with friends, but on an organized team, most of a player’s time is spent sitting on the bench.
At the high school level, football looks to me like a variety show organized by adults for their own entertainment. At the college level it’s outright exploitation. Perhaps it’s not surprising that young people are moving to more active sports that give the participant more to do.
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High school football MAYBE made sense when boys were being conditioned to work in factories or possibly fighting in war. Muscles were the most-used part of the body at work. Now, however, the brain is the primary body part used at most decent jobs. I'd never let my sons play a sport where their career success could be significantly hampered.
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@jazzerooni Nothing wrong with developing muscle. During football season one is too tired to work out. Mind, body, spirit for developing men should be the goal of a parent.
Or, instead of saving American football, teams could switch to rugby instead. It's got all the contact players and fans are looking for but without the brain-damage-inducing headgear. It's also a faster, more dynamic game that requires more aerobic fitness from players as well as more versatility. And there's a world cup!
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@Aaron
Sorry, but my son was airlifted off a field and spent a few days in an icu after a rugby tackle knocked him out for a half-hour and produced seizures. He eventually fully recovered, but it was possibly the most frightening moment of our our lives. Please do not tell people rugby is safe. The only reason its numbers aren’t as bad as football’s is that so many fewer kids play the game. And not having a helmet in a tackle sport is a JOKE. I have to say, your comment upset me more than anything I have seen in any of these discussions!
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@Aaron Switching from football to rugby to minimize head injuries is like jumping into a fire from a hot tub that's too hot.
Rugby players undergo vicious body contact and sustain terrible injuries. I don't know how players manage to survive the game. It was probably created to prepare men to go into battle when hand to hand fighting was the primary means of winning wars. Rugby is a terrible sport and does cause brain injuries like football.
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One of my son's classmates dropped on the sidelines from a head injury (which, thank goodness, he survived). He was wearing one of those high-tech helmets that is supposed to alert coaches when a player has received too hard a hit. There was no alert.
Technology is not going to save the game of football. The game itself has to change. I used to enjoy watching football, but now I just can't. My boys grew up knowing they would have to choose other sports. In my conversations with other parents, I can see that those who let their kids play often have misgivings themselves, and some feel relieved when their kid sits on the bench or drops out.
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I love football, but I don't like the current conversation about injuries.
I am bewildered by the pushing back from pro-football groups. Pushing back does not equate with trying to be part of the conversation. Sadly, the NFL can not be part of the conversation as it is stuck in the legal problems of head injuries of its players. So the NFL will never comment and be part of the conversation. The groups that support football will take the NFL's lead and will not participate. So we have a divide that may never be crossed and have no help for players to learn about injuries or to make informed decisions.
Ah, informed decisions...Playing competitive football must be done with full knowledge of potential injury and/or death just like joining the military and of whether one will be helped after injury and/or death. One cannot join the military until after obtaining a high school degree and after age 18, when we presume that person to be an adult capable of making informed decisions. However, kids playing competitive football are not old enough nor experienced enough to make an informed decision. Instead, the well-being of kids is left in the hands of their parents who are bombarded by opposing points of view, which, depending on whose side you are on, is full of junk science/fake news or a path to glory.
So the NFL and military machines will continue for now, and we will continue to feel sorry for those who are injured or are put in harm's way. Doesn't seem right.
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I think its obvious American football is a dangerous sport. People are concluding the risks are not worth the rewards. Whether it remains the most popular is to be determined. We Americans love violence. There are only maybe 2000 professionals playing the game. Who, exactly, is benefiting from all this?
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@Pete Who is benefiting? The advertisers, of course! Professional Football is a feature length Beer and Truck commercial.
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@Pete There are vast feeder organizations and minor sports teams like high school football feeding the pro-football leagues. There may be only 2000 active football players in the national leagues, but there are thousands and thousands more head-injured, cripled for life boys behind that statistic.
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Interesting that one of the members of that committee—and the most successful retired NFL player by far—is Roger Staubach. Staubach retired after having so many concussions his doctor told him to quit or risk permanent damage. Yet by all accounts, he is currently mentally and emotionally fine.
Part of this reckoning needs to include research into why people respond to concussion so differently.
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@Flyover chic I've never seen a "current account" of Roger Staubach. His life seems to be very circumscribed to me. Just because he can function in a public role doesn't mean that he is healthy - only Roger knows for sure (assuming he isn't too brain damaged to be able to assess his own brain condition...).
If players were required to play barefoot or in slippers it would decrease the velocity of the hits. All of the power and leverage is dependent on the grip of the foot to playing surface.
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@Billy Pajamas with no pads would keep them from hitting so hard! A nightcap instead of a helmet! A teddy bear instead of a football! I might actually watch that game for giggles, but football . . . I’m done.
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@Billy Foot grip on the turf is but one component of a hard hit.
Talk to water polo players. You can do a hard hit in a swimming pool...
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That's great by me. American football is a vicious contact sport with many serious injuries (often unreported). I hope to see it supplanted by soccer (the world's most popular similar game). Yes, there are also serious injuries in soccer but these are not built into the game; they occur largely as transgressions. Transgressions can be combated by stricter refereeing even though the fans may not like that.
But I'm not holding my breath.
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Still leaves headers, but that too can be managed.
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I once heard an NCAA HOF coach recommend the removal of face masks. That way, players would not strike an opponent’s head using their helmet, but instead force them to use their shoulders. More
chipped teeth and broken noses, but fewer spinal and head injuries.
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A salient fact about the analysis of the percentage of head injuries in the story: players in football, the sport with the highest rate of head injuries, wear helmets to protect the head. They don’t. They might stop, say, fractured skulls but not brain injuries. You can’t build a helmet that will stop the brain from sloshing around when the head is repeatedly hit. If you get rid of the helmet, players would stop hitting with their heads for a simple reason: it would hurt! It doesn’t now. Even a helmet-protected concussion doesn’t hurt. At least try it in practice to see if it changes how players play the game.
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@Michael Hill
Total nonsense. You can’t tackle somebody who is running at full speed without the tackler’s head getting bounced around, helmet or no helmet. On at least half the plays, bringing a runner to the ground without a helmet still means the tackler’s head comes in contact with the runner’s body, another player engaged in the tackle, and the ground. While running at full speed. You can’t play tackle, without a helmet, and think you are reversing the trend of head injuries.
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All PR and advertising re football and football games, at all levels, should include a warning to both participants and viewers similar to the Surgeon General's warning on tobacco-related products. Playing this game can lead to traumatic brain injury, to physical, mental and psychological disabilities and death.
We have other sports, other activities, other entertainment. The reality of CTE resulting from playing tackle football means that this gladiator-like debacle of a sport will progressively decline while other sports that don't treat players like punching bags will gain popularity for both players and viewers.
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As my BMW manual stated, although the car has sophisticated safety systems , you can’t deny the laws of physics. Tennis anyone?
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Well played, Mister BMW Owner.
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I write about this frequently on my blog here in Madison, the home of the Badgers and a very liberal college town. And every time I write about head injuries and the over representation of young men of color exposed to them I get silence or push back. Those blogs score fewer hits than virtually anything else I write about. My only theory is that the attraction of football is so strong that even otherwise socially aware people just don't want to deal with it.
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@Dave Cieslewicz
The race of a player is largely obscured by a uniform in football, but it is beyond obvious that the game at the highest college level is largley a black one played before a live white audience (but notice how the cheerleaders are white?).
Integration in football in the south had nothing to do with a desire for social justice and everything to do with wanting to win.
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@Dave Cieslewicz , I'd say your theory is spot-on. I've loved college football for decades, and I also consider myself to be a socially conscious person. The idea of stopping all consumption of football is depressing, but I'm also uncomfortable knowing the sport I enjoy so much is damaging the young men playing it. I don't know what the answer is. It's easy for people who never liked football in the first place to suggest giving it up.
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@John
Last year, I stopped watching all football after 40 years. Certainly it is difficult and I miss it. The way players are used and discarded was just too much for me.
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Soccer's ascendence among young men in the US is abundantly clear. The MLS isn't going anywhere. As it grows it's going to start taking chunks out of the NFL.
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@John Adams I love all sports, but we’ve been hearing that soccer is ascendant for the last 50 years yet it still ranks at the bottom of all pro sports. I think the sport that will benefit the most from footballs decline will be lacrosse. Fast paced, high scoring, physical contact and looks great on tv.
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NFL needs to take a lesson from Rugby Union and change some of the laws to protect players.
- no contact above the shoulders
- arms must be used for tackling
- no tacking when a players feet are off the ground
- no turning a player past horizontal when tackle
- a rigorous head contact protocol
Perhaps even replace the helmet with a soft head protector.
It hasn’t changed the game of rugby which is now faster and more skillful
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@John W Townsend These changes will change the sport so much that it'd probably die altogether - no one would play. People don't get that the main appeal of football IS its violence, not despite it. I watched a high school game recently and the players and the fans went nuts for the big hits - the more vicious, the better. I 'm not making this up - people loved it! The players were literally jumping up and down on the sidelines when one of their teammates absolutely leveled a wide receiver just after he caught the ball. He sent him about 10 feet off the field (the catch was a nice one, just on the sideline). It was helmet to helmet, a huge smack that you could hear 100 yards away. The receiver was on his back for a good 10 minutes - they were still visibly excited. So, rules changes are not going to save football. Making young men less excited about violence is probably the answer. Good luck with that. A heard a war correspondent recently comment that the truest form of love he had ever seen was a group of guys fighting together on a battlefield. I think that's what's going on here. If you take the violence out, football will not be football because that's what makes it so intoxicating for these guys. The risk of serious injury makes them bond like no other activity can - just like those guys on the battlefield.
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@John W Townsend "Perhaps even replace the helmet with a soft head protector."
Yes, make the helmets progressive impact foam, so its soft foam against soft foam. But it will never happen, it can't be polished and a logo wouldn't look grand.
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@Joe Boxing is also losing fans. MMA is ?
Gladiators aren't around anymore. We're evolving, slowly, but promoting violence as "team building" doesn't make a lot of sense.
Are you sending your kids in?
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Our high school fields a football team for one reason only: it is the key strategy to keep certain low income boys in school.
It is a small squad, and it rarely wins. The coaches are caring men who fill a void in these kids lives. Injuries are uncommon because the boys are not pushed very hard and their competition is similarly underwhelming.
I overheard one admissions officer from a Division 3 college say that their football players all come from outside New England. In essence, football is a way for their school to get geographic and racial diversity.
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@Cousy Sorry, this isn’t a benevolent way to achieve diversity. This is a way for people who don’t have money and better choices to sacrifice their bodies and brains for the dream of a pro football position, and someone else to line their pockets through the entertainment of the masses.
4
Changing the "brand" is immoral and irresponsible if the game isn't changed. Change the game! The Pro Bowl has rules moderating player contact. It[s faster, more spectacular, and more fun to watch.
Ah, you say, 'must be a woman's viewpoint. You bet. I have loved football; everything but the violence. But isn't that what the game is FOR? Change the game! Afraid of losing audience? (I won't watch any more, since the head injury data appeared. But I miss it.) There are a lot of women who would watch games if they weren't so violent. And as a cross between chess and billiards football is a fascinating game -- especially if players weren't beating up on each other all the time.
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Small towns are dying. Their populations are getting smaller. Small towns were the incubators for lots of football players. There's not as many football players in towns like Maiden because there's not as many people in them as there used to be.
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@Linda such a good point I hadn't considered. as people move from small towns to suburbs/cities, schools are bigger, but there's only one football team, so fewer spots. I think lack of interest due to health concerns and more choices is primary, but your point is certainly worth exploring further.
@sjl Linda is correct, also those small towns don't eliminate their football programs. They drop to 9, 8 and eventually to 6 man football. Even if a kid wants to play football he can because no player at high School level is cut ! Coaches just want Bodies and kids willing to scrafice those bodies.
@Linda, except that your argument does not apply to Maiden, North Carolina. The population of Maiden and the two counties it is in continues to grow (per Wikipedia and US Census).
1
I'm not remotely a football player, or even knowledgeable about the game, but I was struck by this sentence in your interesting article:
"Several doctors offered their counsel, including those skeptical of research linking repeated head hits to degenerative brain disease."
May I politely suggest to those seeking to promote a safe version of football that the last thing they need is their own version of "Doctors don't believe cigarettes cause cancer" or "Scientists dispute global warming".
You can't win that battle.
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@David S I had the same reaction: let’s discredit the evidence.
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@David S
“They can’t win that battle” but they can rake in $Billions for decades with denial tactics .
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The most recent research indicates that blows to the head and the concussions that result are not the only or even the most dangerous aspect of football. "Contact" alone, the collisions between players, can cause long term brain damage. A "better" helmet will not solve the problem.
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@jphubba The article does not point out the problem that football has: Moms. Women now are more assertive and say no to football. Moms probably have worried about the game for a long time and did not like their sons playing it. What is nice is that since girls play soccer, of now see informal games that in neighborhoods where there are both boys and girls. And, as everyone knows, girls can really play soccer.
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@Susan Kuhlman I coach select team basketball for 6th grade boys and our season is typically during fall football. Definitely can attest to grateful moms dropping off their boys to practice on my court than the Pop Warner fields.
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The long term damage inflicted by repeated hits to the head cannot be ignored, along with some of the attitudes instilled by the game. Too often football players are looked upon as the modern day equivalent of gladiators in an arena. We should not be sacrificing young brains we should be nurturing them.
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Good to see the 40% increase in soccer in Texas. I would love it if soccer became a top-tier professional sport for both men and women, the way it is in much of the rest of the world. We certainly have the talent.
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@Ed H. Part of that is demographics (Hispanics) but go look at the injury data on soccer - especially girls’ soccer. Amount of concussions and knee injuries are very high in terms of rate of injury.
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Why cant helmet makers take a tip from nascar and change from impact transmitting barriers to impact absorbing barriers. The materials for a soft impact absorbing full helmet are readily available and it doesnt seem like rocket science. It seems more like a commitment to keeping the helmet as an offensive weapon.
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@ben
New helmet design won't matter. The problem is that the brain is not solidly attached to the skull. When the head abruptly stops moving, the brain doesn't stop with the skull -- it keeps moving. And it moves and bashes into the skull and sloshes around.
And remember that in NASCAR, the need for the helmet (and the neck restraints and the rest of it) is to prevent serious injury in the event of emergency -- the rare crash. In football, the crashes occur literally every play.
1
@ben You may be able to absorb some of the impact to the head, but you can’t absorb the impact -from- the head. The skull stops short; the brain keeps moving.
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@Andy Crashes are not at all rare in NASCAR.
This is an excellent article. Patrick is right on. Television content is expanding. So is streaming. Gaming, internet addiction and the ever present iPads draw young men away from football and other sports as well. I look forward to reading your future articles.
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Key fact is that the younger generation is shifting its priorities and one of them is after school activities. My nieces and nephews are on their iPads non-stop. Watching other kids play video games is a thriving sport (who knew), and football is no longer the 'IT' sport anymore for them. Things evolve...
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High school football stadiums fro $70 million? Is this how we get better health care, retirement security and nutrition to those in need?
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@Ed
What about the supposed reason for high schools? Education!
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McKinney, Texas, had to outdo Allen ($60m), y'see.
But the new stadium's opening had to be postponed because of cracks. Just like Allen's. How's that for a metaphor?
https://www.keranews.org/post/slated-open-fall-mckinney-isds-70-million-football-stadium-has-cracks
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NFL Films founded in 1963 by Ed and Steve Sabol was instrumental in the popularity football enjoys today. Innovative multiple camera angles and super slow motion photography coupled with dramatic music helped romanticize the game.
Only time will tell if the current campaign #FootballMatters can recapture the nostalgia of a bygone era.
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And in Rome, gladiatorial combat - to the death - was attended by enthusiastic, approving, passionate crowds. We have progressed. Football results in fewer fatalities.
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I may watch part of a game now and then, but with age comes the wisdom that football nowadays is all about money - keeping the NFL owners at the top of a taller and taller pyramid off dollars. They change rules every year, usually to draw in more dollars by making the game more attractive.
That has become the norm; unfortunately it is our American definition of "sport".
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@Chris , I agree - for the reasons you mention plus the constant stoppage play for ads, I consider the NFL to be unwatchable. But I love the sport, so I follow college football, including small college, non-scholarship football.
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I think the picture "Varsity football practice. Maiden High School. Oct. 31, 2019" says it all. The pitch markings are for Association Football (soccer)!
It would also be interesting to compare the injury statistics for Rugby Football, which a physical tackling game played in the rest of the world, as this would show whether the football kit, including the helmet and shoulder pads, is the cause of head, shoulder and neck injuries. In Rugby Football it is against the rules to tackle above the shoulders with most tackles on the legs and torso.
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@aelstor, the fact that the gridiron football team practices on Maiden's soccer field (a separate facility west of Brown Stadium) might actually suggest that football retains power and precedence. My guess is that the lines were painted in Brown Stadium for an upcoming game and the team took over the soccer field so as to preserve its own field.
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@aelstor Would like to see the Rugby Injury Data
Here's a modest proposal: It seems the biggest reason students are no longer playing football is concern about head injuries. There have been efforts to address this issue with so-called "concussion protocols" and working with the design of helmets. But if repeated head trauma is the concern wouldn't the smartest thing to do is simply limit the number of snaps per game a player can play? Playing 30 plays is certainly better than 50. Granted an injury can happen at any time but fewer plays means less trauma. Complicated? A bit, but with tablets and computers officials keeping track of players it could be worked out. You also introduce a whole new strategy to the game. If your best players have played their snaps you have to let others in the game which makes coaching more challenging and allows other players, perhaps not as stellar, to see action. If you know you have a legitimate shot to play and are not going to sit on the bench like Rudy all season and the game is made a bit safer, maybe more kids decide to give football a try. It also creates more interest for the fans and evens the playing field a bit for lesser steams. Coaching becomes more of a chess match as in soccer when coaches have limited subs and must decide when to play them. Again, just a modest proposal.
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@Bruce
How about we supports sports that aren't essentially built around head injury? You know, like Baseball.
1
@Doc Certainly there are less dangerous sports (although a 90 mph fastball heading for your head and chest can do its share of damage as well). I doubt football, given its immense popularity - and immense revenue - is going to go away any time soon. I think the challenge is finding ways to make it safer. Limiting snaps might be one but as other respondents to this story have suggested changing the rules to more like rugby or some such might also make sense. There has been a lot of talk about designing better helmets but I think that misses the point. There need to be more fundamental changes in how the game is played.
Seems like the foundation has a strong plan for messaging and not much for solving the problem. I'd like to see a detailed study that compares what compels us to love this sport vs what makes it so dangerous.
If it's the violence we love, perhaps we can lose the helmets ... more broken noses, less concussions. If it's the athleticism, then something might replace tackling.
Football has been a part of my life's story, both as a fan and as a high school player. I have great passion for it. But, the problem is not football's messaging, It's the growing awareness of the danger. If football won't look directly at the problem and solve it, this sport will die.
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My son played middle school and freshman year played high school football. I made him stop after he had three concussions. The third concussion landed him in the ER unable to speak or walk. I thought he would never walk or talk again. I was so scared. After several hours, he came around but he suffered a year and a half of short term memory loss and severe migraines. His school work suffered tremendously and his social life changed. He was no longer on the team so no longer received the special treatment high school football players receive. One coach even called him a wimp in front of his friends at lunch one day! The pressure from the adults at the school to play again was insane and so so wrong. I love team sports. I played a sport every season and dedicated my high school years to my basketball team. But when a sport becomes more important than academics and health, we have a problem in our society. My son suffered tremendously yet all he received from the coaches he looked up to was name calling.
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@Caroline Thank you for sharing your story. We need to hear from more parents and children rather than from Kraft and Goodell.
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Thank you, Caroline.
Those school coaches simply lack humanity.
I'm sorry your son had to put up with such inhumanity.
Best wishes to you and your son.
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@Caroline I used to work in a Division III college where one of the football coaches denigrated players who said they had to go and do academic work as "gay". Once that got out, he was sacked; but he'd been tolerated so long as this was not known outside the dressing room.
Football is saturated with toxic attitudes.
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To make football safer adopt rugby tackle laws that require the tackler to wrap the ball carrier and make high tackles
Illegal. Those simple changes will eliminate a large amount of head to Head contact and dangerous tackles.
Solving the boredom of slow play will be a tougher challenge.
15