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Banning tackle football for children under 14

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New York Assemblyman Michael Benedetto wants to ban tackle football for kids

http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/ny-assemblyman-michael-benedetto-wants-to-ban-tackle-football-1.13063770

I should state that Benedetto has introduced and reintroduced this bill in past years. Whilst it is probable that this would occur in NY before any other state it is unlikely to pass this year.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - Growing evidence of a link between football hits and brain injuries has led all 50 states to pass laws aimed at protecting young people from concussions, but a New York lawmaker wants to go even further — banning tackle football.

"Football is the only major sport where on every single play, the objective is to violently hit the competition," said Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, whose measure would bar youth football leagues from allowing anyone 13 or younger to tackle.

Even as the nation gears up to watch the Super Bowl, participation in youth tackle football leagues has dropped nearly 20 percent since 2009.

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It seems a draconian measure for high school or above however will it be good for the under 14 crowd?

This would hurt all high school and even to some extent college football. Perhaps not SJSU however.

Read the article and speak your mind.

 

 

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Absolutely ridiculous.  It's been proven that there are just as many concussions in soccer as there are on football, so why doesn't this moron ban soccer while we're at it?? Pretty soon,  no one will be allowed to play any sports because they're all to dangerous,  and parents will be required to bubble wrap their kids before letting them leave the house.

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Many top College coaches from the old school, like lavell edwards of BYU, and others have said they would not let their kids play tackle football until high school. But rather prefer flag football for youngsters for a variety of reasons.l  He was such a damm liberal

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2 hours ago, RambleOn said:

Absolutely ridiculous.  It's been proven that there are just as many concussions in soccer as there are on football, so why doesn't this moron ban soccer while we're at it?? Pretty soon,  no one will be allowed to play any sports because they're all to dangerous,  and parents will be required to bubble wrap their kids before letting them leave the house.

Maybe you'd like to post some proof. Here's what I found:

Concussion Rates per Sport

The below numbers indicate the amount of sports concussions taking place per 100,000 athletic exposures. An athletic exposure is defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.

  • Football: 64 -76.8
  • Boys' ice hockey: 54
  • Girl's soccer: 33
  • Boys' lacrosse: 40 - 46.6
  • Girls' lacrosse: 31 - 35
  • Boys' soccer: 19 - 19.2
  • Boys' wrestling: 22 - 23.9
  • Girls' basketball: 18.6 - 21
  • Girls' softball: 16 - 16.3
  • Boys' basketball: 16 - 21.2
  • Girls' field hockey: 22 - 24.9
  • Cheerleading: 11.5 to 14
  • Girls' volleyball: 6 - 8.6
  • Boys' baseball: Between 4.6 - 5
  • Girls' gymnastics: 7

http://www.headcasecompany.com/concussion_info/stats_on_concussions_sports

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Instead of tackle, why not just mandate no pads, limited substitution, and leather helmets until high school? Then kids come in with proper rugby style tackling form

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1 hour ago, happycamper said:

Instead of tackle, why not just mandate no pads, limited substitution, and leather helmets until high school? Then kids come in with proper rugby style tackling form

Except it's a myth that no pad football is safer. It's not.

https://www.google.com/amp/deadspin.com/did-football-cause-20-deaths-in-1905-re-investigating-1506758181/amp?client=ms-android-verizon

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6 minutes ago, PTR said:

Let's ban rugby while we are at it... wonder why the Aussies aren't up in arms about concussions?  I'm guessing its because Rugby isn't the mega-billion dollar business that the NFL is.  Its hard to draw blood from a turnip.

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14 years old seems like an arbitrary number. 8th and 9th grade (9th grade teams/JV etc.)is where football starts to get faster and more physical. It's where you develop tackling techniques, get used to the speed of kickoffs and punts, playbooks get more advanced, kids learn how to pull and block low and where conditioning starts to resemble that of higher levels of football. You're going to have a whole bunch of inexperienced and out of shape 15 year olds getting blown up by 17 and 18 year old upperclassmen because they have  no real game or practice experience.

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2 hours ago, renoskier said:

Maybe you'd like to post some proof. Here's what I found:

Concussion Rates per Sport

The below numbers indicate the amount of sports concussions taking place per 100,000 athletic exposures. An athletic exposure is defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.

  • Football: 64 -76.8
  • Boys' ice hockey: 54
  • Girl's soccer: 33
  • Boys' lacrosse: 40 - 46.6
  • Girls' lacrosse: 31 - 35
  • Boys' soccer: 19 - 19.2
  • Boys' wrestling: 22 - 23.9
  • Girls' basketball: 18.6 - 21
  • Girls' softball: 16 - 16.3
  • Boys' basketball: 16 - 21.2
  • Girls' field hockey: 22 - 24.9
  • Cheerleading: 11.5 to 14
  • Girls' volleyball: 6 - 8.6
  • Boys' baseball: Between 4.6 - 5
  • Girls' gymnastics: 7

http://www.headcasecompany.com/concussion_info/stats_on_concussions_sports

Ok, so my assertion may have been a little off, but the overall point remains, kids can get concussions doing anything.  Why isn't the ice hockey community up in arms about concussions?  I'd venture to guess its because some lawyer somewhere determined it wasn't worth fighting because the end prize wasn't big enough.  The war against concussions is ultimately a war against the NFL, the largest sports industry in the United States.  There's a lot of meat on that bone.

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33 minutes ago, RambleOn said:

Ok, so my assertion may have been a little off, but the overall point remains, kids can get concussions doing anything.  Why isn't the ice hockey community up in arms about concussions?  I'd venture to guess its because some lawyer somewhere determined it wasn't worth fighting because the end prize wasn't big enough.  The war against concussions is ultimately a war against the NFL, the largest sports industry in the United States.  There's a lot of meat on that bone.

A little off?? Is that what you call it?

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I have an idea, lets give them all skirts, pom-poms, and hand out participation trophies.  Might as well ban hunting while you're at it. The feminization of America at its finest. 

We played tackle football without pads and we all survived. Also grew not wearing seatbelts, climbed trees, played king of the mountain, boxed without headgear. Guess what? We're all still here and doing fine. Playing scared is what gets you hurt.

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5 minutes ago, Lobo Amor said:

I have an idea, lets give them all skirts, pom-poms, and hand out participation trophies.  Might as well ban hunting while you're at it. The feminization of America at its finest. 

We played tackle football with pads and we all survived. Also grew not wearing seatbelts, climbed trees, played king of the mountain, boxed without headgear. Guess what? We're all still here and doing fine. Playing scared is what gets you hurt.

1 hundred million times this.

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6 minutes ago, Lobo Amor said:

I have an idea, lets give them all skirts, pom-poms, and hand out participation trophies.  Might as well ban hunting while you're at it. The feminization of America at its finest. 

We played tackle football with pads and we all survived. Also grew not wearing seatbelts, climbed trees, played king of the mountain, boxed without headgear. Guess what? We're all still here and doing fine. Playing scared is what gets you hurt.

I disagree. It's much better to feed your 14-year-old a steady dose of refined sugar and processed food, have them blow up to 250 pounds, and allow them to stay inside and play Black-Ops on an X-Box 14 hours a day in their spare time. 

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2 hours ago, RambleOn said:

Ok, so my assertion may have been a little off, but the overall point remains, kids can get concussions doing anything.  Why isn't the ice hockey community up in arms about concussions?  I'd venture to guess its because some lawyer somewhere determined it wasn't worth fighting because the end prize wasn't big enough.  The war against concussions is ultimately a war against the NFL, the largest sports industry in the United States.  There's a lot of meat on that bone.

Perhaps not that far off.  I do clearly remember a Mayo clinic study that reported no statistical difference in the likelihood of getting a concussion from HS football and HS soccer.  No, I don't have a link.  Just remember hearing it discussed.  My point is that I don't think the research that has been done can be considered very conclusive.  15 years ago we didn't really understand concussions, and today we still don't have a complete understanding IMO.

I do think banning 14 and below from playing tackle football is a little stupid.  I coached little league FB for about 6 years and never had a kid with a concussion.  I'm not aware of any concussions on any other teams in our leagues either.  There really isn't enough energy behind a blow to the head at that age for it to be considered any more dangerous than goofing around on playground equipment IMO.  I really haven't seen kids starting to get concussed until the HS level.  I'm sure it happens, but I haven't seen it.

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6 hours ago, Lobo Amor said:

I have an idea, lets give them all skirts, pom-poms, and hand out participation trophies.  Might as well ban hunting while you're at it. The feminization of America at its finest. 

We played tackle football without pads and we all survived. Also grew not wearing seatbelts, climbed trees, played king of the mountain, boxed without headgear. Guess what? We're all still here and doing fine. Playing scared is what gets you hurt.

"Grew up not wearing seat belts... We're still here"

 

What about the tens of thousands of your peers who died young because of the lack of seatbelts and safe car design features? "I didn't die" seems like a pretty weak argument for never trying to improve anything.

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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It seems that more and more families, like the two NLF'ers I mentioned earlier, are stopping their children from playing football-- especially those families that are better off financially and better educated.  The trend is that football is becoming more and more focused on the financially poorer elements of our society.  Personally, I believe this is a loss for us.  I would like to see football open to everyone.  If it means not allowing tackle football (flag football only) until kids are a bit older and better developed, that may be a small price to pay to maintain the sport as something to be enjoyed by all.

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8 hours ago, PTR said:

So football was dangerous before the forward pass?

Thanks for the update

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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