America's favorite sport - football - is a contact game. It's also one of the few youth sports that employ protective equipment from head to toe to keep players safe.
More than 3 million American youngsters aged 6-14 play organized tackle football, making it one of the country's most widely played sports by kids. USA Football recently spoke with leading physicians about playing youth football.
According to a 25-year study by the University of North Carolina, the number of injuries sustained playing high school football is smaller than other sports, including gymnastics and ice hockey.
Dr. David Joyner, M.D., chairman of USA Football's Football and Wellness Committee, and Dr. John Lehtinen, a sports medicine physician who also serves on the committee, recently shared insight about questions parents frequently ask regarding football.
USAF: What would you tell parents who are uncertain if their child should play tackle football?
Dr. Joyner: Anything you do in life has risks. There are risks in after-school activities with lots of kids playing on the playground and kids get hurt just by playing. There aren't great statistics that support one way or the other, but there are several activities and sports that seem to be more hazardous. Football seems to be no more hazardous than these other types of activities. Anything you do in life has risks, and football certainly does, but it's not an outlier for kids at that age.
Dr. Lehtinen: I guess it really depends on the child's development and if they have been part of any other sports previously. Try to get a background on what they've been doing and that way you can assess their ability based on their skill level, maturity level and level of interest. It can also depend on if it's the mom and dad that want the child to play or if it's the child who wants to take on this additional activity. I would ask these questions to parents - what's the goal here? I'm more concerned that kids are involved in some type of physical activity, and whether it's organized or not is debatable, but as long as they're physically active, I'm happy having them do whatever physical activity they choose.
USAF: What are the greatest health benefits that youngsters gain by playing football?
Dr. Joyner: I think being active to start with is very important for our youth because our society is an under-exercised, over-eating population, so promoting physical activity is very positive. Secondly, kids learn teamwork, working together, collaboration skills, things that begin to hold up well later in life. A lot of successful people in the world, not that you have to be a CEO of a company to be successful, but many if not most played football and other sports.
You learn many things from coaches - proper technique and position - and hopefully they also learn about hydration and proper ways to take care of themselves. If they incorporate the values that USA Football is teaching, they'll do a good job. I think it's just getting them started. P.E. class in schools is really going down in most school districts and is a problem in other places in the world, so promoting athletic development and other physical skills is important.
USAF: How is football safer than other youth sports?
Dr. Joyner: If you look at statistics, football is not the highest injury sport, it's kind of in the middle of the pack. So football is not alone with injuries, but it's not at the top. Football is a collision sport, but if you look at overall injury rates for various sports, they're not that different.
Dr. Lehtinen: It's probably pretty hard to answer if you're talking about any contact-collision sport. Football is a contact-collision sport, but it's relatively safe. When kids are small, they bounce back quickly. So football would probably be in that same category. It's as safe as any other sport, I don't think I see any more injuries in youth football than I do from any other youth sport or activity - organized or unorganized.
USAF: Is football safe for kids?
Dr. Lehtinen: When you start getting into the specifics, then you get into what level of football it is, appropriate coaching and good techniques with tackling. Technique is so important because it can certainly prevent injuries. So that in my mind is always a big question mark. Parents have limited ability to teach the sport and the techniques and concepts safely.
For the most part, it's a relatively safe sport. Injuries can occur in any sport, depending on the age of the child, and if they're age-matched and ability-matched, you don't see a whole lot of injuries occurring by participating in football. I certainly would not discourage playing football because of a fear of injury occurring. As long as there's quality coaching there and equipment is properly fitted, that will help minimize injuries as well. So, 'Go for it,' is my bottom line. I tend to not be one of those that is going to discourage participating in sports if they have an interest in doing so.
USAF: If you have children, did you permit them to play football? Why or why not?
Dr. Joyner: Both of my boys played flag football when they were younger, and then they both played in high school and college. Both of them played at Penn State as well, and I played at Penn State from 1968-1972.
I made that decision, and my wife did, too. I wrestled and played football at Penn State, and I got injured more and worse in wrestling, actually. But even after all those things, I knew that it was worth the risk and as parents, you look back on all the things that you learn playing the game. I certainly look back at each individual decision, and I'm still very active despite injuries, so I wouldn't change anything because of the things I got out of playing football. It's all about the life lessons I learned that I thought were very, very valuable.
Maybe other people don't feel that way, but for me, I would rather have had the injuries that I had, and I only missed two quarters in high school and two quarters in college, so I didn't have any injuries that kept me from playing. But I look back and I wouldn't have had all the other benefits that came along with it, and you take risks every day.
Athletes that get hurt are de-conditioned and fatigued. You minimize risk by preparing properly and training properly. If you have sound techniques that are taught to you, most injuries are just pure accidents. But if you look at patterns, most head and neck injuries are from improper technique and most of the catastrophic injuries can be traced back to a breakdown in technique. Many of the other ones are fatigued athletes at the end of the game because that's when your risk goes up. Proper attention to your skill set and how you prepare and practice is critical - not just in football but any sport because that's how you minimize your risk.
USAF: In what ways can being active and playing football help youth in other aspects of their lives?
Dr. Joyner: You get the sense of accomplishment - whether you start or don't start - if you look at your progress, and you judge your success on your own improvement. You learn techniques, and it's a mastery of yourself. Through self-discipline, a mastery of yourself and playing for a team, you learn to put the team ahead of your individual person. [Penn State head coach] Joe Paterno said we need to be "we-and-us people and not I-and-me people." Football is a great team sport, and that's something I'll always remember.
Dr. Lehtinen: You learn to work in the capacity of a team, which is applicable when you go to work whatever you're doing for a living. You're learning to interact with people and you learn a lot of life lessons that football can bring and it teaches kids how to take direction and how to work hard. That's the problem - a lot of kids talk the talk, but you have to walk the walk to get better.
