[berettafan]

Read a story about an 11yo who suffered a serious brain injury playing football. Football family. The kid was gonna be a star, etc etc. Now he can only handle 1 hr a day of school, has outbursts of rage and other very sad and apparently long lasting issues.

The standard response is all sports/outdoor activities have risk but look at how small a % are truly injured. after two years of football my conclusion is the general attitude amongst football dads/coaches is that women need to shut up and let the boys become men on the field. they played football, their daddy played football and so on.

I happen to think physical contact like football is likely effective in giving kids the confidence to not be afraid of the class bully. They get punched, kicked and thrown around.

Anyways here's the thought that hit me regarding the likelihood of injury:

Maybe 20% of the kids on the field are actually playing football. The rest are just going through the motions for a variety of reasons (scared, weak, just want the jersey, just want to be around friends, whatever). It's these 20% and the kids opposite them who are really in danger of hard impacts.

This would seem to take the 'look how few are seriously injured' and counter it with 'if your kid plays hard like he's supposed to the likelihood of serious injury is probably much higher'.

Whaddya think?