Prepubescent CTEs vs A Tradition of Competitive Sports.
“We wouldn’t want to view our children as weak, so we’ll give then brain damage instead”
— generations brain damaged with lead
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The fact that this even is being debated, makes my blood boil. You of course have the usual head trauma but also at that age, it can cause heart arrhythmia
While I think there is no reason for them to be playing tackle football and support the ban, “kids can get hurt” is an argument that is often used to discourage things that are actually beneficial to children. Like restricting free play, because of something like some kid might get a bump because another kid is going up the slide the wrong. Free play is good. Risk is good. Even getting a bit hurt can be good because you learn from it.
Like the classic example is allowing a kid to play with matches unattended is a bad idea because they can get burned. But teaching a child how to build a fire is a good, even though they can get burned, because they are learning something useful.
So it’s good there is a robust debate about it and where that line should be.
The difference is this for official competition. There’s a big difference between a casual game in the yard and constantly playing full contact every day for competition.
Sure, I understand that there is a difference, which is why I support the ban. I just think it’s good that there is a healthy debate on where to draw the line; I’m glad we don’t just all say “you’re right” when someone screams “but what about the children!?”
Encouraging kids to dive at each other head first at full speed is way beyond that line.
When the risk is being actively encouraged, that’s a problem.
I encourage my kids to take risks all the time, I think it’s extremely important to have them learning things in life that are inherently risky, especially if they are very necessary (knife skills always comes to mind, because my mother in law freaks out when I let the kids use the sharp knives to cut their own food. Lol). And if I’m there to guide them on how to mitigate the risk, all the better.
I live in a football-mad state and I can’t remember the last time I saw kids playing full contact football. Flag football seems to have completely replaced it at the recreational level.
I don’t have kids so this is barely even an anecdote. I just live near a park with tons of fields and flag football seems as popular as baseball/softball/soccer. By high school, tackle football is still a huge deal but at the youth level, it seems like Pop Warner got replaced by flag football.
CTE had been recently correlated with schizophrenia onset. Yippee.
just one of the many reasons I love FIRST league.
That, and who doesn’t like robots? (FIRST is a robotic competition starting in elementary school with… lego robots… and getting much more complicated in highschool…)
Edit: This is highschool, but you can see what these kids are doing. each year they have slightly different tasks that you have to design around completing.
FRC is awesome, but physical sports are still important to young children and teenagers for physical health.
physical activity is important… heavily organized sports, not so much. there is a difference and a distinction there. Especially for younger kids, you don’t even need organized sport- simply getting out and playing is enough.
Sure that’s not how you create pro-NFL stars these days, but do we really need more?
One could similarly dismiss FIRST by saying that kids don’t need organization, they just need to play with Legos.
I’m not defending tackle football for kids, but you learn important things from organized sports just as you do from other organized competitions, plus you have the benefit of also getting exercise.
Poo-poohing sports seems like a big mistake to me. And before this is construed the wrong way, my younger son actually does FIRST. He just also plays organized sports.
I disagree
Well why don’t we all wear bras and drink each other’s cum!
Seriously though, good idea. They should do similar with rugby over here. They made me do that as a pre-pube and I fucking hated it; kids were always getting themselves minced. And that’s without pads and helmets and shit.
I agree. Your body only has so many hits.
you kinda sound like my dad. “That switch only has so many flips…”, “that button only has so many presses!” … for some reason “i only have so many steps” doesn’t seem like it would have gone over well when he asked me to take out the trash.
(You’re not wrong, though.)
Sports!
Solid album, but not Hueys finest
Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consimante professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He’s been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far much more bitter, cynical sense of humour.
Baseball, basketball, weiner dog, short shorts, cigarette, surf board, ping pong, rugby ball, weiner dog, skiing, down on the beach… SPOOOORTS!!!
