While football has a long and storied tradition in the United States, some medical professionals are urging families to consider the risks the game can pose, particularly to young players.
“You’ve got to start to understand for high school kids and pee-wee kids, there’s a ton of injuries out there that can be disabling, that can be chronic, and they don’t just have to do with your head. They can have to do with your joints and other parts of your body," said medical ethicist Art Caplan on Boston Public Radio Wednesday. “Here’s the only way to make football safer — play less of it.”
Caplan’s conviction is substantiated by the legacies of players who were forced to hang up their cleats early after suffering career-ending injuries before the age of 25.
As with any contact sport, players understand that they there is a high risk of suffering an injury, and it is now common knowledge that playing enough football over the course of years can slowly result in long-term brain damage.
Less often discussed, however, is the possibility that an adolescent player could suffer a fatal injury, as was the case for Mississippi high school junior Jeremiah Williams who fractured two vertebrae in his neck on November 2 and died a week later. In an essay published on the website STAT this week, Caplan stressed that while a small minority of football-related injuries result in fatalities, the 13 youth deaths that occured from playing the game in 2017 underscores the danger tackle football poses to young people.
“Deaths, of course, represent the worst possible outcome of youth football. Far more common, however, are injuries that take players out of games, end their seasons, or leave them with lifelong disabilities,” Caplan wrote in the article.
Caplan said he is not on a crusade to bar young players from playing football altogether. A former player and a fan himself, Caplan said he understands the appeal of the sport, but he recommends that parents enroll their children in flag football until at least college. He points out that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady didn’t play football until he was in high school.
“I will be watching some football on Thanksgiving. I’m not anti-[football],” Caplan said.
As evidence mounts about the long-term damage football can have on players, a growing chorus of doctors and experts are recommending parents think twice before enrolling their children in Pop Warner football. The issue of player safety has become so prevalent that even the NFL and NCAA have taken measures to make the game safer; in 2018 the NFL instituted a new “helmet rule” to discourage rough hits, and the NCAA has also taken measures to discourage players from making head-first collisions.
This new emphasis on player safety may be influencing football's popularity. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), 2017 saw 20,000 fewer high school students enrolling in football programs than in 2016. But even with this downward trend, participation in boys' football was still nearly double that of baseball and basketball.
