No More FB from the Mean Mom

Parents Forum
101

<p>Both of my sons play football. The oldest is a just turned 16 year old back up safety on the varsity high school team. He started and finished two games this year but otherwise has played in junk time at the end of games. The youngest is a 12 year old who plays in Pop Warner. </p>

<p>I have loved football since I was young. </p>

<p>I grew up eating, sleeping and talking about football with my friends. It is in my blood. I played sandlot footbal with my friends virtually every day, rain or shine, but wasn’t big or fast enough to play on the school teams. I never intended on getting either of my kids into football but it happened anyway – another kid in our neighborhood told them about youth football and it was over after that. I let them try it. I don’t regret it. It has been a blast but I swear to God I can’t wait for it to be over. </p>

<p>Unacceptable risk. </p>

<p>That is all you need to know. </p>

<p>It is not a question of “if” your son will get hurt it is a question of “when” and how badly. </p>

<p>My younger son’s injuries have been minor. Oh, that’s if you consider getting one’s “bell rung” minor. He has also hurt his back and ankles and shoulder and a few other body parts I don’t even count. The coaches of his team last year were masocists who would, mostly for their own pleasure, force the kids to line up, I kid you not, 30 yards away from each other and smash into each other while they stood around hooting and hollering like cave men. Unbelievable. It was all I could do not to pull him off the field but he survived. </p>

<p>That particular drill had nothing to do with improving football skills, mind you, they just thought it did. </p>

<p>My oldest boy hurt his knee toward the end of last year and missed the last three games. He was JV last year and played both ways offense and defense so he never left the field. It wasn’t a bad injury but he couldn’t do a deep knee bend for three solid weeks. However, he didn’t need surgury. This year he hurt his shoulder, again right at the end of the year, and again it isn’t bad and he might even play this week. Its a severe sprain or a stinger or whatever you want to call it. </p>

<p>So far no concussions. </p>

<p>No spinal cord injuries. </p>

<p>No paralysis. No wheelchairs for life. </p>

<p>I am holding my breath every week. I do not worry about the young one. he plays against kids that are no bigger than 125 lbs. They aren’t big enough to really hurt each other. My oldest son, on the other hand, plays with freaks of nature. This is Florida which produces lots of college and NFL players. He plays in the 6A classification. There is no place to hide. These are big fast dangerous kids out to kill each other in the name of glory and sport. </p>

<p>I can’t wait until they get out of high school. We are going to call it a draw and move on to other activities.</p>

102

<p>ACCecil – I know exactly what you mean – holding your breath until the season is over, hoping you don’t get the call that one of your kids got hurt at practice or a game. And living where you live makes it tougher – they see and hear about FL kids getting the big scholarships, getting picked in the draft. Hard to say no to that. </p>

<p>What we need for our boys is a FB alternative – something macho, team-centered, with strength training and discipline – but without the huge inherent risk.</p>

103

<p>When I saw FB in the thread title, I thought it was Facebook!</p>

<p>I am a mother of girls so football never came up fopr us. But I have to say, I have always wondered why parents, coaches, and everyone elsle go along with a sport that has such clear risks of head & spinal cord injuries—when there are other equally competitive, athletic team sports available. </p>

<p>We watch rugby on TV every now & then & those players are doing plenty of what football players do, but not even wearing helmets. There is much less hard body contact.</p>

<p>Then I turn on the baseball pennant games and we watch a sport in which deliberate touching of another player, except to tag with a ball, is severely penalized. I know, baseball is not like football, but when is the last time you saw a paralyzed baseball player being carried off the field? And there are situations in which a ballplayer could be head-injured, spiked, receive a 95 mph fastball to the head, etc—but the penalties for doing these things on purpose are high, and enforced. Maybe football should take a page from the MLB book.</p>

104

<p>Class of 2015 & Parents:</p>

<p>I think at about 150 lbs and over is when the risk becomes unacceptable. Below 150 lbs, roughly ages 13-14, the kids can play but they usually don’t have enough weigth and speed to create collisions powerful enough to do anything serious. There are exceptions, of course, but the risks are manageable at below these weights in my very unscientific opinion.</p>

<p>So, for parents reading this thread, maybe a fair rule is you can play up until you get to the 9th grade, which is freshman in high school down here. </p>

<p>The problem with that rule is by then they have tasted the forbidden fruit. How can you take it back once they tasted it? I’d be interested in other parents opinions on that. Some parents, probably the smarter ones, said no from the beginning and that sure as heck makes sense. Others tried and pray a lot which is basically what I am stuck with doing. </p>

<p>The upside is that me and my sons are like brothers. Football has bonded us in a way that maybe only military service could have. We have so many memories and seriously it is all we talk about just about. I never said we were smart. We are a little backwards in these parts.</p>

105

<p>

My mother’s older brother was killed at 16 when he was hit in the head by a baseball in a hs game. That was around 1941, so I’m sure they weren’t wearing helmets at all, but it’s cases like his that led to better safety precautions.</p>

106

<p>Accecil-
Your description of the coaches in your story sounds like something that I unfortunately have personal experience with, a coach whose idea of tackling drills was giving a kid a ball, telling them to run with it, and having a kid much taller and bigger (5", 50 pounds at least, plus much older) tackle the kid
said kid ended up in pain, couldn’t lift his arm, and the coach yelled at him for fumbling
turned out the kid had a high arm 90% fracture, while the coach ridiculed the kid for being a whiner. </p>

<p>There is a culture around football and football coaches, sadly, that is less then positive, there is far too much of a culture of ‘toughing up’, of “this is what men do” and so forth, and it is idiotic. What really amazes me is hearing the mothers of kids on the high school football team telling their kid to tough it up, etc, when they are hurt
when I see stuff like that, it makes me wonder how many people in this world live in a fantasy world instead of the real one.</p>

<p>One of my observations about high school level football is there really isn’t any kind of real training and certification for coaches (I am leaving out background checks), there is no certification program, that I am aware of required,basically football coaches are either phys ed teachers who played the game, or regular teachers who likewise played the game. How much awareness do they have about injuries? How many of them can tell the difference between getting knocked woozy and a genuine concussion? How many of them really know how to teach tackling and such? Or are aware of the risks of doing things like piling into a line with your head down? Worse, many of these coaches played/learned under the macho, you are a whiner if you don’t play hurt, ‘ringing their bell’, kill them kind of mentality. You can see the attitude, a guy on the Steelers was just hit with fines for dirty hits, and he said he wouldn’t apologize, that his job was to hurt opposing players and get them out of the game. That kind of mentality is present at the high school level, and some friends of mine whose kids play pee wee football even tell me more then a few coaches are doing that.</p>

<p>I am like you, I played the game, we played sandlot games that were pretty rough, we loved roughhousing and mudbowls and snow bowls and piling on, not always smart, and to this day I still love it. What those who pooh pooh this are missing is if this keeps up, if because of equipment that hasn’t caught up with size and speed, with coaches who think getting hurt or hurting others is part of the game, that at some point it will be banned, as has happened in some places. I believe NYC at one point banned HS football, back in the dark ages of the La Guardia administration, and it could happen again if this keeps up. </p>

<p>It is funny, someone compared football to rugby, but there is a big difference in the sports, something they are leaving out. yeah, they play rugby without padding or protection, but rugby players also are not as big as the monsters who play football, and it is a different sport in many ways. I can almost guarantee you without looking that while people get hurt playing rugby, I would be willing to bet that comparable stats on injury show a lot less cases of severe injuries then in football based on comparable samples, and that few rugby players end up in their 40’s with their brains turned to schmush
</p>

107

<p>I’m sure the mean parents will find this opinion article from NYT interesting.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24jackson.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24jackson.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

108

<p>I feel like I owe all of the caring people who posted on this thread an update. After the concussion, S did not play the rest of the season. He wore his jersey and cheered his team on from the sidelines. In the Spring, he tried out for the Varsity baseball team and was one of 4 freshman who made it. </p>

<p>I never came out and said “you are never playing football again” because I just knew that wasn’t what he would respond to. I was very encouraging of all things baseball, and I told him he could really stand out in that sport. I did mention that kids who get hurt in fall sports can’t play at their best level in the spring
</p>

<p>Before school ended, he said he wouldn’t be playing football in the fall. A local boy scout was collecting used sports equipment, and I asked S if I could donate his helmet and pads. He said yes. I found him a fall baseball league that offers exposure to college coaches, and he starts in a few weeks. I am so relieved. Not to say he can’t get hurt in baseball, but I don’t have to worry as much as if he was playing football.</p>

<p>Thanks again for all who posted.</p>

109

<p>Thanks for the update, Classof2015. I am a neuroscientist, and I am paranoid about head injuries. I think as we gather more of the data, we’re going to learn that repeated head trauma significantly impacts the brain (might end up playing a role in depression, alzheimers, memory loss, stroke, . . . . ) later in life. And my impulse is that the trauma that occurs earlier is going to be even more significant. </p>

<p>I’ve been battling this issue with my own son (who is much younger) and have drawn a firm line against football. But somehow, we’ve stumbled into hockey. He’s young enough now that head trauma isn’t a <em>point</em> of the sport (i.e. no checking), but as he grows older, I’m going to have some mean mama moments of my own. It’s heartening to hear your redirection is working with your son. </p>

<p>I also think, and this is part of my point of posting, that there’s room for a mom revolution here – that if moms like us start putting our collective feet down, that the rules are going to have to change in the sports. I’m not saying we can change NFL football, but, maybe we can change the local version, the suburban version. And, eventually, either the rules will have to change, or football & hockey will become like boxing – a sport engaged in by “others” and only watched by the rest. I like hockey (the skating, the puck, the speed) and I hope that by the time my son is older, the rules will allow me to say yes, instead of being the mean mom.</p>

110

<p>

</p>

<p>I thought of this too. If the doctor won’t forbid it, socially it would be better if it was forbidden by the father, not his mom.</p>

<p>Also, you might suggest basketball. I think that has as much social status as football in high school, without the injuries. </p>

<p>Ultimately, I think it is worth it to forbid him from football. I am a big football fan and might have wanted to play had I not been involved in another sport that conflicted with it, but more and more research is coming out showing how it damages the brain. And it’s not an all-or-nothing thing either like with spine injuries. You could incur damage and not realize it until you get older. </p>

<p>Even if your kid didn’t have a concussion, I wouldn’t let them play.</p>

111

<p>Take a look at this website detailing the dangers of concussions by a former Harvard football player:
[CHRIS</a> NOWINSKI HOME](<a href=“http://www.chrisnowinski.com/]CHRIS”>http://www.chrisnowinski.com/)</p>

112

<p>

</p>

<p>I might agree with this, but I think brain injuries are especially scary.</p>

113

<p>Brain injuries are scary. You only have one brain. It’s not like they can go in an replace the portion that’s damaged.</p>

<p>Every parent has to make their own decision about what’s right for their child. I agree – they shouldn’t be brought up in a bubble, but you can also avoid known risks, especially if they are just as happy with another sport they excel in. </p>

<p>I thought about the social/peer exclusion thing. This might have been a factor in middle school, but S is pretty solidly in the popular crowd (for better or worse) and his being on Varsity baseball only helped him. I don’t think he’ll be ostracized for giving up football. Another boy who was also popular and an excellent athlete had a concussion playing football, so now he plays soccer. I haven’t heard that he lost friends because of it.</p>

<p>Concussions and their long term damage are definitely in the news. I think it’s something every parent should be aware of and then make an informed decision.</p>

114

<p>DS played hockey starting from age 6 or so. Once they started full checking around age 12, I started getting quite nervous. After a couple of years of this, he decided he didn’t like getting thrown around (he’s small), and it was clear that he would make his living by his brain and not his brawn, he decided to quit.</p>

<p>Per his request, he took up fencing and now is a happy varsity fencer at his college after being recruited to the same. And BTW, he’s no major athlete.</p>