I have been highlighting for some time the danger of brain injury that is posed by American football, evidence for which keeps increasing. My preference would be for schools and universities to not offer football as an extracurricular activity. If adults choose to risk their long-term brain health by playing football, we cannot stop them, anymore than we can stop them from doing other dangerous things. But there is no reason why educational institutions should be encouraging it.
I really had no hope that my proposal would go anywhere in this football-crazy country (see the extent of fan devotion in this article) but I was pleased to learn that there have been efforts in some state legislatures to pass laws that ban children under 12 years of age from playing it, although none have passed it. California is the latest to try and fail.
Gov. Gavin Newsom extinguished an effort to ban youth tackle football in California on Tuesday, vowing to veto a measure that was gaining support among Democrats but emerging as a new front in the culture wars.
Newsom, in a statement shared exclusively with POLITICO, said he would not sign proposed first-in-the-nation legislation to ban the sport for children 12 and under because of concerns about head injuries.
…Newsom’s decision to weigh in on the pending legislation speaks to its potential response as a culture war issue. Critics, including Democrats in the state, had moved to characterize the proposal as unnecessary government overreach and another example of politicians thinking they know better than parents.
Supporters lined up to speak to its necessity, saying that the earlier kids start getting hit in the head, the greater the likelihood that they develop a chronic brain disorder, called CTE, later in life.
…Newsom in 2022 vetoed another bill by McCarty that would have established a committee to study CTE in youth football, citing the need for the California Youth Football Act to have more time to take effect.
At least five other states have tried and failed to pass youth tackle bans, including New York, where one lawmaker has been proposing a ban for the last decade.
Although these efforts have failed, the fact that it is even being discussed at these levels is encouraging. Rather than banning football altogether for children, which would be hard to enforce and would arouse fierce opposition from so-called parental rights groups, eliminating it from schools and universities would remove much of the glamour associated with it. But football-supporting alumni of schools and universities tend to have the loudest voices, so getting that done may be even more difficult.
But not impossible. There are quite a few colleges that have eliminated football. Most did so before the risks of brain injury became well-known so some may have done it for financial or other reasons rather than health. It appears that although the elimination at Northeastern University was devastating for the players, it worked well for the university.
It seems to be hardly missed. Applications have more than doubled. Research funding has nearly tripled. In just about all the sort of obvious ways, Northeastern has had a great 10 years since it dropped football. Now, I don’t think anybody there really says it’s because we dropped football. But it’s interesting that it has certainly not held them back.
Unfortunately, other colleges are adding it. The schools that are adding football tend to be those that are in Division III where athletic scholarships, which are a huge financial drain, are prohibited. These schools add football so as to increase male applications.
There are a lot of young men out there who are finishing up their high school football careers and don’t want to stop playing. They’re not good enough to go play Division I, but they are good enough to contribute on the Division III level. And here’s a chance for them to keep playing.
…And, because there’s no athletic scholarships, because the coaches are not coaches, maybe, that have built up the experience where they’re gonna earn a salary of, you know, several hundred thousand dollars or millions, you don’t need eight trainers, you don’t need chartered jets to get you around to games, and so the costs are very low. It’s a revenue boost for these schools.
This happened a few years ago in the Cleveland area where there was a tiny Catholic girls college called Notre Dame College of Ohio. In an effort to increase enrollment, they went co-ed in 2001 and added football to attract male students. I thought it was absurd at the time but apparently it makes financial sense for small colleges to do so. Their enrollment doubled from 1,000 to 2,000 within ten years.
Given what we now know, such a ban sounds eminently sensible.
To those who object I would say that fame and fortune are fleeting, but brain damage is forever.
European football aka soccer mainly result in bruises on limbs and the torso but rarely cause lasting harm.
If we are talking about preventing harm, alter the rules for boxing so the boxers no longer may wear thick gloves. This will result in occasional broken hands but no broken heads.
Yes, there will be an incentive for players to not punch as hard.
Yes the audience may be displeased. But -as a writer in New Scientist remarked- cock fighting was once popular too. Just because a thing is popular does not mean it should be permitted.
birger @2: No, soccer is turning out to be problematic as well, mainly from heading the ball.
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/nobby-stiles-family-among-group-taking-legal-action-over-brain-injury-claims-2022-11-11/
Thirty footballers or their families are involved in the suit, including that of 1966 World Cup England player Nobby Stiles. Jeff Astle was another famous player who ended up with brain injuries.
… chartered jets to get you around to games…
Chintzy small-time operations. The University of Florida Gators football team has its own wholly-owned jet!
Rob Grigjanis @ 3
Damn! And in that case I suppose even a helmet would not prevent a dangerous shock to hit the brain…
Growing up in the northwest of England, more or less equidistant from Manchester and Liverpool, we had a phrase to describe the usually large, quite stupid boys who, as well as being educationally subnormal, had the lack of self-preservation necessary to be good at football (actual football, not the girls’ rugby game the US refers to as football): and that term was “head the ball”. As in “oh yeah, he’s alright Barnesy… bit of an ‘ed-the-ball, like, but alright”. Not sure how you’d measure brain damage in those lads.
Gosh, don’t say that education is systematically failing one gender to the point that not enough are going on to higher ed! Oh, it’s males. Never mind, nobody gives a shit about them.
Same goes for children. Only difference is they won’t be supervised while playing.
(Not all playing is official)
Let them sue the schools for injuries. Done.
To those who object I would say that fame and fortune are fleeting, but brain damage is forever.
Aye, and as one with brain injury let me say cash in while you can. It’s not easy to cope long-term with injuries that can change your ability to function. You may not just have cognitive changes, you may have career, training, and capability changes to deal with.
@5 birgerjohansson
That depends on the design of the helmet. No modern helmet would help, that’s for sure. But I can imagine a design that is supported principally by the shoulders, and not the head, so that any force is translated to the torso.
As for the practise of American football and its dangers to, well, everybody who plays it, I have mixed feelings. The fact is that thousands of people, often from extremely poor backgrounds, use their abilities in popular sports to access higher education that would otherwise be out of reach. Most of them never turn professional, but they are still able to use those degrees for social mobility, which is ultimately a good thing. That said, there are other ways to engender social mobility via education, and frankly, sacrificing a few people’s long-term health to the gods of gridiron so that the system becomes just a little bit less shitty would not be my preferred option. I often wonder what America would look like if the perversion of the human spirit known as late-stage capitalism hadn’t become the de facto religion for hundreds of millions of people. But in a system where people are only valuable insofar as they can create wealth for the monied class, risking your health for the opportunity to access a life you would be denied otherwise could very well be a rational choice.
That depends on the design of the helmet.
Ah, the resident misogynist is whining again.
College is for education. It’s a travesty that men are such fragile snowflakes that their every whim must be catered to or they wither up at die. WAAAAAH! College doesn’t offer my favorite sport, so I refuse to go! WAAAAH!
For the past 200 years when men were the sex that went to university, they managed to learn. It’s only in the past 30 or so years that they became so weak and needy that they need someone to hold their trembling hands and wipe their tears from their eyes and assure them that they are really and truly the masters of the universe.
But I can imagine a design that is supported principally by the shoulders, and not the head, so that any force is translated to the torso.
If you can imagine it, then please go ahead and at least make some crude drawings to illustrate how that would work. A helmet can (in theory at least) be mounted and anchored on one’s shoulders, and thus translate the force of a head-on collision to the shoulders; but there would have to be some sort of shock-absorber mechanism to keep the helmet from pressing on the head. (And how would the shoulder-bones handle that?) And that particular feature would only help in head-used-as-battering-ram collisions. You’d need something else to translate the force in collisions/blows from other directions. For example, if two players slam into each other face-to-face (the force being almost perpendicular to the line between head and torso), how would that force be translated to any other part of the body?
Heh. I refer you to my #11, which does exactly that.
(That was the joke!)
What a crybaby #12
To whom are you referring?
[to #6, chigau]
Ah.
Thanks, John.
I was not aware that sonofrojblake was “the resident misogynist”.
[meta]
Well, he’s not, in my personal estimation. But multiple commenters have alleged that in the past, and this particular nym is clearly bespoke. The flow is familiar, but I shan’t speculate further.
I wouldn’t necessarily call sonofrojblake’s comment misogynistic; just lazy, whiny and stupid. I’ve disagreed with him before, but he has done better than this.