High School Football Equals Child Abuse ?? ?? ??

[Omega]

I report, you decide.

For your consideration, the following article from Sports Illustrated:

SCOOBY AXSON
Tuesday August 8th, 2017
The doctor credited with discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) likens children playing football to abuse and says there is nothing anyone can do to make the game safer.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, whose life was dramatized in the movie "Concussion" starring Will Smith, says the recent study from Boston confirms what can happen with repeated blows to the head.

The study published in the The Journal of the American Medical Association found that 110 of 111 former NFL players who had their brains donated for examination suffered from CTE.

Omalu, whose memoir “Truth Doesn’t Have a Side” will be released on Tuesday, also believes no person under 18 should be playing football.

“Someday there will be a district attorney who will prosecute for child abuse [on the football field], and it will succeed,” Omalu said during a New York Press Club talk. “It is the definition of child abuse.”

“If you play football, and if your child plays football, there is a 100 percent risk exposure. There is nothing like making football safer. That’s a misnomer.”

The National Football League was sued by more than 4,000 players who claimed the league hid known concussion risks, leading to high rates of dementia, depression and even suicides.

“There is nothing the league can do. The league is a corporation,” Omalu said. “What do corporations do? Make money. They’re not there to provide health care or perform research. That is not what they’re there to do. They’re selling product.

“If they feel the need to make any changes, they’re making calculated changes that will enhance their bottom line.”

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/08/08/benne ... e-football

[Tartanblue]

If football is child abuse, then so is boxing, as well as baseball and basketball....a player can get hit in the head/face with a baseball which if hard enough can cause instant death. A basketball player could hit their head taking a charge or going up for a dunk/layup with being fouled and landing the wrong way.

[king kong]

There are inherent risks with a lot of things in life, especially for young people, teenagers especially. We hand 16 year olds the keys to cars all the time. Our brains, especially the part that helps make good judgement, are the
last to fully form!

Is allowing kids to drive before 18 child abuse?
Teen Drivers, Cell Phones, and Texting
32.8% of high school students nationwide have texted or e-mailed while driving.
12% of distracted drivers involved in fatal car accidents were teens ages 15 to 19.
Talking on a cell phone can double the likelihood of an accident and can slow a young driver's reaction time to that of a 70-year-old.
Drivers under the age of 20 make up the largest percentage of distracted drivers.
56% of teens admit to talking on cell phones while driving.
13% of teens admit to texting while driving.
34% of teens age 16 and 17 admit that they send and respond to text messages while driving.
48% of kids ages 12 to 17 report being in a car when the driver was texting.
Underage Drinking & Driving Statistics
About 1/4 of fatal teen car accidents involve underage drinking and driving. (MADD)
About 5.8% of 16- and 17-year-olds and 15.1% of 18- to 20-year-olds reported driving under the influence of alcohol in the past year. (MADD)
About 8.2% of high school students reported driving a car or other vehicle one or more times when they had been drinking alcohol.
13.5% of 12th graders reported driving after drinking.
Kids who start drinking young are 7x more likely to be in an alcohol-related crash. (MADD)
33% of the young drivers ages 15 to 20 who were killed in crashes had a BAC of .01 or higher and 28% had a BAC of .08 or higher (the legal limit for drivers over age 21).
Nearly 60% of young drivers involved in fatal drinking and driving crashes didn't use a seat belt.
70 % of young drivers who died in underage drinking and driving accidents didn't use a seat belt.
27% of the young male drivers involved in fatal crashes had been drinking at the time of the crash, compared with 15% of the young female drivers involved in fatal crashes.

[farmer]

Many kids think school work is child abuse also. Kids should never work on a farm. The chance to get a splinter on some jobs is just to much to chance.
Just like anything evaluate the situation. Besides global warmer or North Korea will be killing us soon enough.

[noreply66]

Giving your kid a phone these days is child abuse. Just look what has happened to kids all over from having phones. Car wrecks, killing themselves, on and on. More kids are hurt in some way by having phones than kids playing sports. Hurt ...heck... even more deaths.

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

I hain't even commentin.

[Watson40]

Well then more kids need to put down the Xbox controller and go get abused.

[noreply66]

Well then more kids need to put down the Xbox controller and go get abused.

They better because their parents are abusing them with letting them get fat. Plus it is not paying attention to them. These hand games are just mechanical baby sitters while the parents sit around and pig their faces while watching TV. My stepson and his wife are no longer to have their phones out while here [unless they get a phone call.] They would come to visit and allowed their kid to be watched by us while they would just play games. The guy wouldn't even talk to his mother unless she ask him something.

[Watson40]

Well then more kids need to put down the Xbox controller and go get abused.

They better because their parents are abusing them with letting them get fat. Plus it is not paying attention to them. These hand games are just mechanical baby sitters while the parents sit around and pig their faces while watching TV. My stepson and his wife are no longer to have their phones out while here [unless they get a phone call.] They would come to visit and allowed their kid to be watched by us while they would just play games. The guy wouldn't even talk to his mother unless she ask him something.

Oh my. I understand though. See it all the time.

[wagner97]

Insane rantings from the Ivory Tower of Academia again (and I should know since I'm a college professor).

There is a very small, but vocal, segment of society that will not be satisfied until all competition is ended, and all boys are castrated at birth.

[Bleeding Red]

What's next? Kids can't climb trees or ride bikes? Not that many kids do that fun stuff anymore anyways......

Ridiculous. Parents and kids know the dangers of ANY competitive sport. The fun and discipline outweigh the things that could happen.

Ridiculous.

[sapientia et veritas]

They need to compare that to dissected brains of players who quit playing in high school and those whose last playing was college. Basic physics is that an NFL magnitude blow to the head has much greater force than a high school one, and that an NFL player has experienced a higher quantity of blows. Looking at the report:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/ ... story.html

The high school sample size is too small to have any meaning, and there are no qualifiers to it. Were the kids 4-year starters? Are these kids playing in elite leagues loaded with future D1 players, or small and medium-town kids learning about teamwork, fitness, proper strength training, dedication, and hard work playing a comparatively low impact sport for fun?

[moonshine]

NUTS!

[Truth&fiction]

There will always be risk . Can more be done to assure safety ? Probably so . The speed of the game and the size of players has really improved so how do you protect your kids . Some would say that if you forbid your kid to play that it's being over protective . As a parent I would leave it up to the kid but explain the situation . I know a really good basketball player that does not play BB because of multiple (3) head injuries 2 sustained in Football and 1 in BB. He is now not allowed to play contact sports (FB or BB) and each winter sits in the Student Section and cheers on his friends. So Heck if you do and Heck if you don't. I'm hoping for an injury free season to all !

[1987chieftains]

Here are 2 articles that show Basketball beating Football for the most sports injuries by 4,000. I've ran acrossed a few that have Basketball or Wresling being the worst depending on the year the studies were done.

https://www.safekids.org/sites/default/ ... b_2015.pdf

https://coachad.com/articles/which-spor ... -athletes/

[Truth&fiction]

Here are 2 articles that show Basketball beating Football for the most sports injuries by 4,000. I've ran acrossed a few that have Basketball or Wresling being the worst depending on the year the studies were done.

https://www.safekids.org/sites/default/ ... b_2015.pdf

https://coachad.com/articles/which-spor ... -athletes/

I agree 100 percent . In Basketball you have zero protection and sometimes the most damage is after the whistle . I only gave one example but another point is that most teams play 10 or 11 Football games and in Basketball you play 23 or 24 a season . Injuries can come in assorted ways . You can not protect yourself from everything and you can not live in fear . Just like I was getting ready to go to the grocery but thought better of it for fear of getting a flat tire.

[thebarlowbandit]

Get real! When one of theses studies include the X factor of all the steroids and growth hormones that these athletes ingested and study some drug free athletes then ill take notice to the findings. The former NFL players in that study were all users of serious performance enhancers. Also figure into the equation that NFL players do not wear the best equipment for personal performance reasons (always looking for the lightest, not safest). Just look at baseball, the guys who we know to be CTE or victims of brain cancer were all roid or HGH users.

[noreply66]

Cheer leaders have the most injuries of any sport. So if they are going to cut out sport due to injuries will this be where they start?

[645945]

It was work the farm all fall or go out and have fun playing football. my kids have the same choice any guess what they are doing.

[fortdawg]

I was reminded of the old adage, "When all you have is a hammer---every problem looks like a nail" as I read this doctor's article.

The guy hasn't seen his name in lights or on the marquee for a while and he comes out with this thesis so he is relevant.

His claim to fame is brain damage and he sees it everywhere. If we follow his advice... kids will sit comfortably on the couch and be safe from any harm.

What he doesn't consider is that there is more than one kind of harm. Inactivity can be as bad as what he fears.