{"id":1988,"date":"2009-09-21T20:14:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T20:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/owenstrachan.com\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2009-09-21T20:14:55","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T20:14:55","slug":"the-morality-of-football-children-and-concussions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thoughtlife\/2009\/09\/the-morality-of-football-children-and-concussions\/","title":{"rendered":"The Morality of Football: Children and Concussions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"youthfootball\"After a brief blogging hiatus\u2013aided significantly by a defective modem and mind-numbing customer service\u2013this blog roars back to life.\u00a0 Look out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve blogged about this before<\/a>, but it\u2019s come up again.\u00a0 The NYT <\/em>has a blog discussion called \u201cWhen It\u2019s More Than a Headache\u201d<\/a> going on right now about concussions in youth football. (Photo: Shawn Poynter\/NYT) It includes the following sobering word from a New York City doctor named Jordan Metzl:<\/p>\n

I was in my office last week when David, a 17-year-old high school football player, came in with his parents. David is a senior and has above average speed and receiving skills. He\u2019s hoping to play college football next fall. The complication: he has had three concussions including one last year that kept him out of school for a week.<\/p>\n

Despite widespread and ever increasing information that is available on adolescent concussion, there still is remarkably little information that a physician can give an athlete like David. Why are some athletes prone to suffering concussions? What makes their symptoms persist? Aside from stopping contact sports, what can be done to prevent these injuries?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are scary words<\/a>. We\u2019re right in the swing of fall sports now.\u00a0 I enjoy football as much as anyone out there.\u00a0 There is something unique to football\u2013it\u2019s a delicate balance of grind and grace, of tactics and explosive innovation.\u00a0 It is also, however, violent.<\/p>\n

Before you jump to defend football by responding that there\u2019s great good to go with the violence, just chew on this stat: \u201cHigh school athletes sustained 137,000 concussions in the 2007-8 school year, according to a study from Nationwide Children\u2019s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s just the number of reported<\/em> concussions from high school sports, the greatest offender of which is football (by far).\u00a0 Then consider the fact that football can damage people for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a massive therefore<\/em> to suggest here.\u00a0 Decisions about youth sports are gray areas, to be sure.\u00a0 Many young men play football without sustaining concussions.\u00a0 Others get \u201cdinged up\u201d but are fine.\u00a0 Still others, however, may be damaging their bodies and their brains<\/em> for the rest of their lives.\u00a0 That is a big price to potentially pay, no matter what one\u2019s goals are.<\/p>\n

I suppose that the conclusion I hope readers, and especially Christian readers, would reach is this: we should think hard about youth sports.\u00a0 We should very carefully consider whether our boys should play football and other high-contact sports.\u00a0 We should think even harder about whether our girls should play these kind of sports<\/a> (girls in high-contact sports sustain up to five times the number of serious injuries, like ACL tears, that boys do\u2013are we so certain about the physical sameness of the genders?).<\/p>\n

Parents are faced with these realities.\u00a0 We should not simply rubber-stamp what the culture thinks and does.\u00a0 We have to take everything captive for Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).\u00a0 We should not assume that our children will just \u201cbe fine.\u201d\u00a0 They may be fine, but they may also undergo great harm in sports.\u00a0 That\u2019s a risk that we and they may take, but they should not do so because of the desire for fame, riches, self-greatness, parent-pleasing, or other sinful motives.<\/p>\n

And this applies to our viewing and support of sports as well.\u00a0 Should we watch and support sports as violent as professional football?\u00a0 Many of us will continue to wrestle with these difficult issues\u2013but even wrestling with them will be a kind of victory in itself.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a brief blogging hiatus\u2013aided significantly by a defective modem and mind-numbing customer service\u2013this blog roars back to life.\u00a0 Look out. I\u2019ve blogged about this before, but it\u2019s come up again.\u00a0 The NYT has a blog discussion called \u201cWhen It\u2019s More Than a Headache\u201d going on right now about concussions in youth football. (Photo: Shawn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[307],"tags":[930,931,3060,3135,13318],"class_list":["post-1988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-concussions","tag-concussions-in-youth-sports","tag-when-its-more-than-a-headache","tag-youth-football","tag-youth-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Morality of Football: Children and Concussions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After a brief blogging hiatus--aided significantly by a defective modem and mind-numbing customer service--this blog roars back to life.\u00a0 Look out. 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