<p>Stats,</p>
<p>I agree that there are 2 different types of cognitive degeneration that go with the 2 types of head trauma (sudden violent vs. cumulative mild), but I don’t think there is enough data on the techniques used in modern (last 10 years where head contact became forbidden) football line play to say that it imparts enough trauma to have that long term effect. If you are playing line today (either side), you should be coached to keep your head up so as not to lead with your crown or forehead. It does affect the center of gravity negatively in terms of holding your position, but it also gives a better field of vision to the lineman to better protect himself and choose a better point of attack/defense. Hockey players are also now coached to keep their head up which also should help statistically long term. </p>
<p>Brain trauma between 2 colliding bodies is a multi-variable function. Body mass and velocity at time of impact are 2 important issues, but how the bodies initially contact (head vs. other points) has far more to do with the amount of trauma than the body mass and velocity of the bodies. If mass and speed were the major drivers, sumo wrestlers would be well know for head injuries, but since the deceleration of their brain inside their skull after body contact is not sudden (because their heads never meet) concussive injury is not a real concern in their sport. If proper line techniques are used in football, the vast majority of contact and force imparted should be taken by body parts other than the head on most plays. Yes, linemen go down and end up in vulnerable positions where their head gets contacted by knees, elbows, etc. but that is no different than other players in the game who get tackled or ar tackling others.</p>
<p>I am concerned about head injury, as I do have a hockey player. She has had a mild concussion, and it was from a player who charged in after the whistle and kicked her helmet while she was down with a covered puck. I blame the refs because they were allowing a lot of contact after the whistle during the entire game without calling a penalty. Fortunately, it did not have long term affects (they moniotored her for 2 weeks even though it was the end of the season and no practices/contests were scheduled after that day). She’s also taken a lot of slapshots of the helmet (sometimes makes her momentairly deaf from the noise of the flat edge hitting certain spots) over the years including from ex-professionals. One shot shattered a helmet. Will it have a long-term affect on her. Nobody knows for certain, but comparing what she does with what others have dealt with, I would say her exposure/risk is significantly less than people from previous generations. </p>
<p>But goaltending is not even the biggest risk to her going forward. She now is in college (playing hockey) and is in Army ROTC. While women are not assigned to infantry divisions, they are often on the front lines in other capacities and as we know these days the front line is everywhere in theater.</p>
<p>It is what she wants to do and as a parent, who am I to tell my now adult child that she shouldn’t be a soldier because many of them get injured (or worse)? Point is that our kids take risks, often for good or at least acceptable reasons. Our jobs as parents is to understand the risks and help them to understand them and mitigate them as much as they can.</p>
<p>I have encouraged goaliegirl to take managed risks from the time she was a toddler. She had a personality that enabled her to learn to overcome fear (the first time I sat her on a tree branch to take a picture she cried. A week later, she was asking to be put in the tree.</p>
<p>She won’t be taking physical risks forever (although I gues GH Bush still jumps out of perfectly good airplanes on his birthday), but I hope that the mindset to seek out taking controlled (defined by the confines of an accepted activity) risks will serve her well in whatever career and/or family situation she chooses for herself. For her, this lesson comes in the physical activities. Others learn to manage other risks through other mediums (theater for overcoming social fear comes to mind here).</p>
<p>I respect athletic directors at schools who try to set up leagues to set up those controlled risks where students can learn to manage physical fear through sport competition. They do have the job of putting their students into situations where there is a calculated amount of risk of injury and preparing them to deal with that risk in a manner that will allow them to transfer lessons learned to life.</p>
<p>If SG’s team is that physically overchallenged that they are highly likely to incur injuries that are both severe and lasting in effect, they have a duty to avoid putting them in that position. I don’t think LA suddenly grew a bunch of 300 lb linemen as from OPS’ posting, there had been discussions going on both between the teams and within the league for some time as this is a developing inequity.</p>
<p>My point here is if this was obviously dangerous, the game should never have been scheduled. Scheduling such a contest and cancelling at the last minute can have the bad side affect of defeating the confidence of the players on the forfeiting team and causing the players on LA to have an false over-confidence from the surrender message sent in a forfeit (and forfeit is what they see it as). Game should never have been scheduled if they knew this was the case during the summer. This is an adult failure to manage athletic programs.</p>
<p>I hope it as ops thinks that it shall pass, but I have my doubts as to whether such an outcome will ever be fogotten. I know ISL has rules about sportsmanship at athletic events, but I’m sure there are kids who just can’t resist the urge to make subtle taunts about the event towards SG athletes/students. The sad part is that the SG athletes/students did nothing wrong here and must bear the stare of others due to this poorly handled situation. Not exactly the exercise in character building SG’s administration wanted their kids to experience.</p>
) comes into Williston next Saturday extremely well prepared to take it all.</p>