Trenni Kusnierek On Youth Tackle Football

Banning Tackle Football — FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2015, file photo, youth football players leave the field after playing during halftime of an NFL preseason football game between the Buffalo Bills and the Carolina Panthers in Orchard Park, N.Y. In the raging debate over the link between hard football hits and brain injuries, a slew of states have passed laws requiring players with concussions to sit out of games and get medical evaluations, but apparently only in one state, New York, has a lawmaker proposed taking the ultimate step, banning tackle football. (AP Photo/Bill Wippert, File)

Zoe Mathews is a producer for Boston Public Radio and the producer of The Scrum podcast.

October 15, 2019

Updated August 07, 2023

In a new public service announcement, kids appear to be enjoying a football game until one boy gets knocked to the ground. The commercial takes an ominous turn.

"Tackle football is like smoking," a youthful voice-over says, as a smiling woman lights a cigarette for a pre-teen football player. "The younger I start, the longer I'm exposed to danger."

The PSA was sponsored by the Concussion Legacy Foundation, which contends that children who start playing tackle football at the age of five have 10 times the risk of developing the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy compared to those who wait until they are 14.

NBC Sports Anchor and Reporter Trenni Kusnierek joined Boston Public Radio to discuss the controversy surrounding the PSA, and why she supports it.

"I don't think anyone's saying, 'Let's not play football.' What the Concussion Institute is asking is, 'Let's be a little more thoughtful when we start," said Kusnierek. "The Concussion Institute and researchers have plainly stated it's not the concussions that are the issue, it's the repetitive head trauma."