Would you let your kid play U.S. football?

[tripplej]

The washingtonpost reports the below ...

"Researchers studying the link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy found that 99 percent of the brains donated by families of former NFL players showed signs of the neurodegenerative disease, according to a new study published Tuesday."

In addition, for those of you who saw the 2015 movie "concussion" where the central story was in regards to research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) brain degeneration suffered by professional football players, are you willing to let your kids play football?

I talked to a few parents and most argue it is not worth the risk and are not willing to let their kids play?

What are your thoughts?

 

[Todd Anderson]

No...if I had a son, he wouldn't play football.

Baseball...LAX... you name it. But no football (probably no Ice Hockey). It's too risky... especially football, where the evidence is mounting (with CTE, etc).

Pretty telling that there are some High School's that can't field a football team.

You know, the brain injury aspect has really begun to affect my enjoyment of watching football. I used to love the big hit...now, makes me cringe.

 

[tripplej]

Yeah, just about most parents I know due to the prevalence of brain damage statistics they don't want to take the risk.
Of course there are other parents who think the risk is minimal and will allow their kids to play but most are kind of hesitant.

 

[Sonnie]

I think that is what's wrong with me... I played football back in the late 70's and we just didn't care. All smash-mouth crazy nuts we were.

Well... maybe the things afterwards did not help matters either.

I would let him play... the percentages are less than getting killed in a car wreck, so you better not let him drive either.

 

[tripplej]

I guess it is all relative.. What is in your control and what isn't. Life is full of risks. If you leave your house today you have risk. lol.

 

[Tonto]

I played in high school and really had a lot of fun with my friends. That said, it's a tough call. I think the next move should be going back to leather helmets. Back in the day, these kind of head injuries didn't happen. They don't happen in rugby either. And we all know that's a rough sport.

 

[tripplej]

Tonto, never thought about the helmet. Maybe that is a simple change that can be implemented. Of course testing would be needed but that is at least one step toward resolving the issue.

 

[tesseract]

In the 6th grade, I briefly (we moved a lot) attended a school in Alma, KS that did not have a football team due to a terrible accident that had happened.

Instead, there was volleyball, even for the boys. I joined the team and learned how to play, glad I did, too. I did play football at another school in Jr. High, though. Never saw another boys VB team again.

 

[tripplej]

My parents didn't allow me to play football since they were afraid of me getting hurt. I did play sports but it was more individual sports - track (2 miles) and cross country (3 miles)..

I never seen a school that had a boys volleyball team..