Is it safe for a high school student to play football? Concussions have become a major concern when it comes to football. 33% of concussions occur at practice and one in five high school athletes will unfortunately sustain a sports concussion during the season. Does this mean that parents shouldn't allow their son to play football in high school? Although many parents decide not to let their child play football due to injury concern, the Improvement in equipment, better coaching, and penalties all help to make the game of football safe.
The Improvement in equipment has greatly decreased the cause of brain injury in high school sports. Now, in 2017, we have equipment far superior to even ten years ago. Also, now have a better medical understanding
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Refs throw flags when a player hits another player In the helmet or when a block is below the knees. These penalties help to keep players playing the correct way and not throwing cheap hits. If a player gets one of these personal fouls, the team he plays on that the flag was against either loses 15 yards or gives the opponent and extra 15 free yards depending on who's on offense. Coaches get aggravated when a player commits one of these penalties so the guilty player usually gets taken out of the game for some time. Penalties make cheap shots and head to head contact less frequent because of the blow the team takes to their chance of scoring points or defending. No player wants to hurt their chance of winning.
In conclusion, if a player plays the game of football right with the help of his coaching staff, the risk of getting injured is greatly decreased. Along with good coaching, the Improvement in equipment and the penalties for Head to Head contact and blocks below the knees all make football a safer sport to play. Without these three things, football would be a ruthless sport with almost a guarantee of getting injured. These three things make football a much safer sport to play and it gives one physical activity, bonding with teammates, memories and just plain old
American football has been around since the early 1900's. The players tackle each other until one is on the ground. Football has always been a full-contact sport. Throughout the years injuries have stayed part of the game and the NFL has taken their time to increase player safety. The NFL should increase player safety because of the injuries have occurred. Some of the injuries may be lifetime injuries. Serious brain injuries have been linked to football as, well as heart issues and other permanent heath problems.
Football is one of America’s favorite sports. It originated from soccer and rugby. This kind of sport is very competitive. The main point of the game is to score points by carrying the ball from a starting point to a 100-yard long by 53-yard wide field into a marked zone. Each team has a Y-shaped structured called the field goal the players. The game is divided into timing sections ranging from 12 to 15 minutes quarters. Often times, the players become violent during the game. This happens when they have to tackle each other for the ball. During this tackling period, players injured, but like anything in life it possesses risks known to the athletes before signing a contract with the NFL’s (National Football League) owner.
Concussions are a rising issue in the daily life of many athletes in the sports of hockey, soccer, football, and skateboarding. Every 21 seconds, someone in this country encounters a brain injury. Concussions are brain injuries caused by jolts or hard hits around the head. When the tissue of the brain slams against the strong, thick skull in your head, a concussion is very common. This leads to either swelling of the brain, “torn blood vessels, or injury to the nerves.” (Haas) Eventually, the result will be immediate, delayed, or even permanent loss of your own brain. In the next four paragraphs, I will describe to you how a concussion is important to you and others, what the world can do to stop this issue, and what you can do to prevent
It wasn’t until Dr. McKee and other researchers presented evidence of CTE in football players during a congressional hearing with the U.S. House of Representatives, in 2009, that the NFL changed its approach to addressing these findings. Later that year, during an interview with The New York Times, NFL Spokesman Greg Aiello stated “it’s quite obvious from the medical research that’s been done that concussion can lead to long-term problems.” This was one of the first times the league admitted that concussions and brain injuries had long-term impact on players. Admitting that there was a problem was one of the first steps in overhauling their approach to CTE’s impact on football players. Towards the end of that year, there was a shake up
The quarterback drops back into the pocket and begins looking down field towards his receivers. One of the defensive linemen breaks through the offensive line and the quarterback quickly throws the ball away, but not before he is slung to the ground. As the quarterback lands on the ground, his head cracks back and hits the turf with tremendous force; and despite wearing a protective football helmet, the quarterback suffers a severe concussion. Concussions happen weekly in the NFL to players of all positions due to the tremendous force these players are hit with weekly and need to be noted more carefully. The short and long term effects of multiple concussions can be devastating to the human mind. Not only does the brain suffer long term
What is a concussion? How does it happen? How long does it last? How is it treated? What are the symptoms?
Being on my school’s diving team has had its ups and downs but one the biggest setbacks I went through while on the team was my freshman year when I got a concussion. I was doing a simple reverse dive I under rotated enough that when I hit the water, it pushed my head into my knee. I am unsure whether or not I blacked out but all I remembered was climbing out of the pool dizzy and confused. I went to a doctor and found out I had a concussion. Having a concussion was a big setback in itself, but what made it the worst was that the conference meet was coming up in about a week. I had to rest for the remainder of the week and was cleared to practice again the next Monday. Because of the whole situation I felt like quitting all together. I only had three days of practice before the conference meet and had nothing prepared. I did not think it would be possible for me to practice all eleven of my dives that I needed to do at the meet in time. Then I remembered my goal for the season: to earn my varsity letter. I had not achieved my goal yet and the conference meet was my last chance to do so. I was not about to
Concussions, injuries, and suffering- those are what always happen in football games. Football is the most popular sport in America, people like the sound of “uh....” when football players hit each other. In the documentary “League of Denial: NFL’s Concussion Crisis” by Frontline, the connection between playing football and brain injuries is analyzed. Steve Almond’s, “Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto” shows how football impacts his life and how evil the NFL is. Also other books that say the same things are “Ban College Football” by Intelligence2 Debates. They want to show how much impact human beings can receive when they play football and how football’s safety rules change to protect their players. Most of the time, resources always talk about CTE -Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy- an injury that can result in a memory loss. The illness comes from brain trauma that is caused by violent concussions and makes the tau protein, which actually is not supposed to be in the brain, stay inside the brain and kill all the neurons. The documentary by Frontline focuses on how many people are being affected by this problem and how the NFL reacts to all the allegations
Background Information: Over the years, there has been a lot of controversy in the sport of football, about whether the league truly cares about concussions players are suffering. Research over the past decade, has shown that many former football players have suffered from extensive CTE, due to brain injuries not being properly treated. Since this has become such a fear for athletes and fans playing the sport, the league has made small rule changes to help prevent less helmet-to-helmet contact. On top of that, athletes who violate the rules will be fined and possibly suspended depending on the severity of the incident. As of late though, many athletes and fans have begun to think that the league doesn’t truly care about concussions. This is due to how the schedule has changed to make football players prepare to play a game on a short week, multiple times throughout a season. Also, as athletes continue to beg for there to be a shorter preseason to lessen the amount of hits taken, the league
Recent research found that when children who play football and other contact sports suffer repeated jolts to the head, it can cause lasting damage to the developing brain. That can be true even when kids do not suffer any concussions. This was startling news, given that Pee Wee and Pop Warner players sustain from 240 to 585 head hits per season between ages 9 and 12, a critical period of brain development. As a result, some prominent voices have urged parents not to let their kids play the game, among them neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, whose discovery of the progressive brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in former NFL players is depicted in the film Concussion. Omalu contends that children under 18 should not be allowed to risk their future by playing football. "Our children are minors who have not reached the age of consent," he says. A growing number of athletes now agree, including the hard-nosed former NFL tight end and coach
Overall, this article explores the connection between youth concussions and long term degeneration of cognition and motor skills. Athletes who were concussed as late-teens have a high rate of Alzheimer’s and cognition impairments, as early as 30 years after the concussion. Two groups were compared, one who had sustained concussions at this late teen stage, and those who had never been concussed. Various neurological tests were conducted such as the Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Rey-Osterreith Complex Rigure Test, along with a test for motor skills. The MMSE test found no substantial differences between the two groups. However, the concussed group scored lower on the RCFT test, and a lower response time in the motor skills test. They
Throughout the history of sports concussions have been a problem, however it has only been recently that the dangers of concussions have been brought to light. Concussions have a serious effect on the brain both short term and long term.
NFL players vs concussion should we stop football because of concussion or should we let the players make their own decisions? A concussion is a temporary unconsciousness caused by a blow to the head. The term is also used loosely to describe the aftereffects, such as confusion or temporary incapacity. Many players who stuffer a concussion have memory loss, and some have personally. Even committed suicide like Junior Seau he was a NFL player who suffer many concussions, by playing football. There are many cases of the NFL getting sued by former players who suffer from the traumatic brain injury like how is the NFL preventing concussion in the games. Dr. Bennet Omalu stated that there are no equipment that can prevent such injuries.
Sports are known to be competitive when it comes to winning against your opponents. The Superbowl, the Olympics, and the World Cup are very popular among different age groups in our society today. Just seeing your favorite team playing gets your adrenaline going, your heart beating faster, and sitting at the edge of our seats with one question in our mind: will they win? In the end, we could erupt with cheers, or give a cold glare. Feelings are mutual but what we should keep in consideration is the health of the athletes.
Playing football is not like playing other sports. Athletes in all kinds of sports risk injuring themselves, but in football, a lot of the risk comes from other athletes. While there are many ways to be injured playing football, one of the worst is head-to-head targeting. This has been a problem in football since the beginning of the game, especially, when equipment was not very protective. Over the past eight years, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented rules and penalties specifically designed to protect players and to hopefully reduce the number of bad head injuries (Marshall). The NCAA is doing the right thing by protecting players from severe injury by calling and enforcing targeting penalties.