Life Behind the Curve

Last night, I watched Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel about head injuries in football and I just need to go off for a minute.

For those of you not following this issue closely, here’s the quick rundown on why you may care: hits to the head in football, even football played by cute little five-year olds, may exacerbate or be responsible for a host of very serious medical problems. There are two potential sources – not necessarily mutually exclusive – of these problems: 1.) Multiple concussions, especially concussions that aren’t allowed to heal properly; and 2.) Repetitive brain injuries from hundreds and thousands of not particularly hard hits to the head.

To date, the focus of this debate has been on former NFL players some of whom, along with their doctors, have come to suspect that concussions played a role in everything from severe depression and chronic headaches to dementia and early onset Alzheimer’s. I call it a debate because, until recently, it was the position of the NFL’s leading expert on this matter that these doctors and players were wrong. To their credit, the NFL has since begun taking steps to change their policies and educate the public about head injuries.

BUT, and here’s where my rant comes in, we are all fooling ourselves if we, as parents, believe that injuries to the head are only a problem when caused by a profession-on-professional hit. Players at all levels, all the way down to kindergarten – kids who are still required to be in booster seats when driving in a car – are knocking heads with other kids over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Why am I picking on parents? Well, for a few reasons. We throw our kids into sports thinking they have to get in early to be good, or we want to let them do what their friends are doing, yet we don’t know the basics about how to protect them. We’re talking about a period of time when their brains are rapidly developing. Yet the most important time for kids to learn the fundamentals of how to hit is early in their football careers, well before they’re being taught by professional coaches supported by a staff of trainers and doctors. More often than not, young children are being coached by one of us, a volunteer parent coach.

I’m not knocking volunteer coaches, but I have seen and heard of too many amped up men, some former high school football players, others who have never played the game, who get all riled up when an 11-year-old lands a hard hit on an opposing player. As the kid runs back over to the sideline he is patted on the helmet and told, “Good job.” This? Is not a good thing.

I’ve had other mothers say to me, “Well, that’s just the sport,” or “Your kid can get hurt playing soccer too.” All totally true. Heck, I broke my shin playing soccer and I was wearing shin guards. And yet it still doesn’t absolve us from doing what we can to protect our children. (Not to mention the fact that a broken shin, to me, is nowhere near brain damage in terms of injury severity…and a broken shin HURTS!)

So what’s a parent to do? Here are a few tips:

• Think before putting your child in a tackle football league. Don’t just do it to keep up with the Joneses. Why are you doing this? What is your motivation? Are you keeping your child’s best interest in mind? (I know these are tough questions, but they’re important.)
• Don’t assume that size matters. I’ve heard parents say that their kid is “big, so he’ll be ok,” or “too small to play.” Size is not always the issue. If repetitive hits to the head cause brain damage, that doesn’t necessarily mean those hits have to be hard or disproportionate to your child’s size. Two big children or two small children hitting one another in the head may be just as dangerous over the long run.
• If you’re not willing to give up your dream of your kid someday playing in the NFL, keep them in touch or flag football as long as possible. If, in fact, the cumulative effect of a lifetime of hits to the head is a cause of long-term health problems, postponing – and therefore reducing the total number – of hits to the head can’t hurt. Sure, there is still risk of other types of injuries in touch or flag football, but the risk of these hit-related injuries would go down dramatically.
• Before you sign your child up for tackle football, research the league’s policy on training coaches in the proper ways to hit and tackle. Find out what, if anything, they require with regards to medical professionals at practices and games. Do not sign your child up for a league that isn’t protecting his or her health and safety.
• Talk to the coach about his or her philosophy on teaching safe tackling. Drop by a practice or two to make sure you’re comfortable with the coach’s approach. Do not allow your kid to play for a coach that is more interested in hitting hard and/or often than teaching the fundamentals of the game and protecting your child.
• Make sure all equipment given to/purchased for your child fits well. Follow manufacturer instructions and try to purchase from a sporting goods or specialty store where they’ll do a fitting.
• If your child gets hit hard, insist that he or she sit out the rest of the game and be sure to get him or her seen by a medical professional.
• Educate yourself about proper diagnosis and treatment of concussions. Adhere to all of your doctor’s orders regarding recovery times.
• Be your child’s advocate. If you aren’t willing to do it, who will be? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be a wet blanket than be spoon-feeding my 50-year-old child in an Alzheimer’s care center.

* I am not a doctor and I’m definitely not hot enough to play one on TV. I am, however, the wife of a former Division I football player and mother, aunt and sister-in-law to a group of incredibly athletic boys whose safety I have a very vested interest in; and, yes, I am passionate (read: opinionated) about this issue.