I have been railing about the serious dangers to participants in American football, especially with the rise in evidence of CTE, the long-term brain injury that results from repeated collisions that can cause concussions. It is thought that the repeated accumulation of concussions, even small ones during practices, is what leads to later serious cognitive decline in players. I feel the evidence is already compelling enough that I no longer watch games and also think that schools and colleges should no longer offer this as a sports option to their students. It is an activity that should be left for adults to choose to participate in, though they should be made aware of the risks.
Americans tend to view rugby as pretty much the same as American football, except without the protective helmets and body padding and hence think that it must be much more dangerous. I used to tell them that it was not so, that there were differences that made rugby safer. One is that there is evidence that the protective gear actually gives players a false sense of safety and encourages them to do dangerous things that they would not do without it. Another is that in rugby, it is only the player who has the ball that can be tackled, thus any given player faces far fewer collisions per game. A third is that any collision that results in contact with a player’s head results in an immediate yellow card that requires the offender to be off the field for ten minutes, to sit in a chair that is quaintly called a ‘sin bin’. If, during that time, an off-field review shows no mitigating factors, it is upgraded to a red card and the player cannot return to the game.
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