Appomattox holds meeting on head injuries
- Thread starter mikesalem
- Start date
It is good to see high school programs acknowledge this issue. Hopefully it means they are taking measures in their training and techniques to reduce the risk of sustaining concussions.
I do wish that football wasn't the sole target of this problem in the media. They use it because of its popularity in this country.
Very few parents are afraid of letting their daughters participate in sports even though some studies show the average female athlete in most sports is more likely to suffer a concussion, or at least be diagnosed, than the average football player.
http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2017/03/concussions.html
The recent study going around the media cycle about CTE does not tell anyone that most, if not all, of the brains donated for research are from athletes who were suspected of having the problem. Many of these NFL and college players were from the 70s, 80s, and 90s when steroids and hard party drugs were prevalent, possibly affecting brain chemistry, and not tested for, and concussion awareness was non existent.
I would suspect if it was a blind sample of modern players results would be much different, because of awareness and including those that don't believe they have a problem. Can't test for CTE without a deceased brain, unfortunately.
Sports, and life in general, are dangerous. We won't be able to eliminate concussions and CTE, but every reasonable step should be taken. Just don't go wrapping everyone and everything in bubble wrap for the rest of their lives.
I very much agree with you orange. Absolutely, the athletic community needs to continue to take all reasonable measures to protect our kids. But scare tactics based on information that is incomplete, or outright biased to support a point of view, is counterproductive to the cause.
There are as many head injuries in soccer as football but you don't see the outrage over that...
I'm not sure I would describe it as "outrage". Perhaps football is just an easier athletic event to focus on because the game is predicated upon controlled violence.
I will admit, with the growing body of evidence that "headers" in soccer are a major risk factor, there seems to be little to no movement to take action to mitigate this risk.
I never got a concussion playing football, but I did have a shoulder injury during a game that kept me out the rest of the season. Playing soccer (goalie) I had my ankle sprained, my stomach punched several times, and I broke my wrist. Oh, and I also got kicked right in the forehead going for a ball by a girl. Her nickname was "Killer", but her name was Beth and she was a serious hottie back in the day!