Respectfully, did you ever play tackle football? I ask because it's easy to look at something you're not familiar with & not see the value.

I played football in high school & college. Did I get hurt? Yes. But I also got hurt in other sports. My worst injury by far was in baseball (it required ~22 stitches & I couldn't see out of one eye for a while).

With every activity there's a tradeoff with risk.

Let's say we take tackle football off the table. We ban it from high schools, justifying it based on a study showing it produced 3.96 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions & 8.22 concussions per 10,000 (the highest for both).[1]

Okay, but then do we also ban woman's soccer?

It's the second highest, at 2.65 injuries per 1,000 practices or competitions and 6.11 concussions per 10,000.

Or why let our children take any risk?

As a parent, I know I can't shelter my children. They have to take some risk. I let my children ride a bike, knowing full well there is a non-zero chance he could get by a car. We live in a big city & I let my pre-teen walk to meet a friend at a local burger joint for lunch, knowing full well there are bad people in the world who might do something untoward to him.

As for CTE specifically, I am very concerned about in the NFL. I have mixed feelings if I'm complicit in things by watching. As a diehard Bears fan, I found Dave Duerson's story heartbreaking. I'm supportive of the guardian helmets and hope the league starts to mandate them.

But the athletes in the NFL are not like amateurs. They are far bigger, far stronger, far faster. You can't take the CTE data from professional & extrapolate it to high school, etc.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11113040

Yes, we take tackle football off the table for HS athletes and below. And then replace it with flag football. It's cheaper for the school, safer for the kids and has the benefit of being more coed friendly (a necessity for small schools that struggle to find enough players).

Soccer is addressing the concussion issue by banning headers. I think the current rule is no headers for U12s and below. That will probably be adjusted upwards to U14s at some point.

> Respectfully, did you ever play tackle football?

I did for eight years, from 5th grade through 12th grade. There was a lot of value in learning aspects of teamwork, comradery, and working towards a common goal. However, given the hard data we have on the potential dangers, I am not letting either of my sons play. There are plenty of other ways (and sports) to get those lessons with much lower risks to their developing brains.

I think we can all agree that injuries to the brain are especially worrisome for children, especially when compared to common baseball injuries (hamstring, elbow, rotator cuff, etc.)

I was a kid with a father deeply invested in football who wanted me to play. I never really felt I had the option to quit until the day he told me it was okay my junior year of high school. I was a child and though I never experienced an injury, tackle practice often pitted me against older, much larger kids. I took a lot of big hits that I just walked off but left me shaken.

I fear I have some mild anger problems. I can't tell you if any of it is even related to football, but if I could go back and stop myself from playing football in middle and high school, I would in a heartbeat. I hated the sport and felt trapped. I imagine I'm not the only kid with a similar story. And just because I never had an official injury doesn't mean the sport had no effect on my developing brain.

Kids don't always have the autonomy to make decisions for themselves; we don't let them use cigarettes or alcohol, get tattoos, etc. The sport has the ability to leave lasting damage on those playing it unlike other sports because impacts are intrinsic to the game as it's currently played. Other sports like soccer can and have banned headers.

I think it's reprehensible to continue allowing children to continue playing contact football.

Do you think overall injury rates tell the whole picture when some of them are CTE? It would be more convincing if you were showing data about CTE.

I'd rather my child accept a high risk of sprain, than even a low change of CTE.

I know a ex-professional football player that doesn't let his children play football.

The injury data for football you cite are not relevant because they do not include CTE related findings. CTE itself can be caused even if no recorded injuries take place, it is the repeated pounding to the head that doesn't necessarily have to cause a concussion.

I played tackle football, and while I agree my worst acute injuries were in other sports, you do just get a lot of head jarring hits in football. It's the nature of the game. You get these hits when everything goes right. That's what people are talking about with tackle football.

Respectfully, did you ever play tackle football?

I did, and I agree with the comment you responded to.

Pretty much all my worst injuries are related to football, sprains, hip issues, knee issues, and a concussion that took me out of a game in college.

Or why let our children take any risk?

Why let our children take all risks?

My friend played varsity in HS and swears he'd never let his kids play it. He's a hardcore runner and endurance athlete today (did his first 100 miler) today.

> Okay, but then do we also ban woman's soccer?

It's fairly likely they'll change the rules to reduce injuries. In the US, they already banned kids under 10 from deliberately heading, with some practice rules after that.

And ultimately, changing the rules is sort of like a ban. You can't (competitively) play the original sport.

> Or why let our children take any risk?

My daughter does Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu since a few years already now: her uncle is a black belt. She skateboards too. Those aren't "safe" sports. BTW she already dislocated someone else's arm (nothing serious but the other person wanted to "see if BJJ works": she got her answer).

And yet there are sports I won't let her do, like proximity flying or basejumping for example.

Saying: "All sports have risks, so all sports are equally risky" is a logical fallacy.