This is the second in a multi-part series of blogs I am
writing about player safety in youth sports, specifically football. With the recent increase in awareness of
concussions, parents seem to be more concerned – some to the point of being
paranoid - than ever about player safety.
However, there are injuries other than concussions that can also be
quite serious.
Understand: There is
risk of injury in any sport and if there are ways to reduce the risks, then we
owe it to our kids to do so. What do I
fear more than a hard hit in youth football?
A line drive to the head in baseball or a head-to-head collision in basketball. In football, the participants are wearing as
much protective gear as possible.
Defenders in baseball are wearing baseball caps and gloves. Players are wearing only their jerseys and
shorts in basketball. What if all
infielders were required to wear helmets with protective facemasks in
baseball? The helmets wouldn’t need to
be the same style or weight as football helmets and I can’t see that it would
really impair the game. Same for
basketball – what about bicycle style helmets for hoops?
In 2007, the Mayo Clinic did a study on the risk of injury
in youth activities and found that injuries are uncommon in youth
football. Highlights of the study note
that:
* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 12 percent fewer
injuries per capita than organized soccer in the same age range.
* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 50 percent fewer
injuries per capita than bicycle riding in the same age range.
* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 74 percent fewer
injuries per capita than skateboarding in the same age group.
* Injuries in youth football are normally mild, and older players have a
higher injury rate than younger players.
* The Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma in New York
completed an injury survey in 71 towns covering over 5,000 players in 1998. The
injury experience of 5,128 boys (8 to 15 years of age, weight 22.5 to 67.5 kg
[50 to 150 lb]) participating in youth football revealed an overall rate of
significant injury of 5%, with 61% classified as moderate and 38.9% as major
injuries. That's about 1.33 per team per year. No catastrophic injuries
occurred, and it was rare for a permanent disability to result from any injury.
The stigma that football has for being a sport with high
injury rates has to do with the fact that there are collisions on every
play. While it is true that these collisions
increase the risk of injury, what often gets overlooked is the amount of
protective equipment the players are wearing.
They do not have this amount of protective equipment in other sports. Football is the most popular sport in America
and as such, gets the most negativity when it comes to youth player
safety.
I’ve heard numerous parents state that their child will not
play football, but instead will play soccer because it is safer. However, recent articles indicate
otherwise. Soccer has a concussion
crisis of its own brewing. http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/cost-header
Other serious injuries can also occur in this “safer”
sport. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2666924/Thomas-Muller-ready-guide-Germany-Group-G-receiving-five-stitches-following-head-injury-Ghana-draw.html
The bottom line is that anytime competitive sports are
played, injuries are a risk. They always
have been and always will be. But in my
opinion, the reward is much greater than the risk.
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