Would you let your son play football?
Each week’s game was a project that involved planning, preparation, cooperation, and commitment to execute.
No to football
Would I let my son play football? No.
A few years ago I had a patient who won a full ride football scholarship to a division 3 college. He wasn’t National Football League material and knew it. He was a brilliant student who majored in engineering and wanted a free education. After a big time concussion in practice his freshman year, he’s had to drop out of college. He can’t do the work anymore.
I’ve been at pediatrics for 35 years and when I ask kids (in front of their parents) why they want to change from soccer to American football, they say it’s because they like the 49ers or Raiders (I practice in the periphery of the San Francisco Bay Area). When I ask them alone, the answer is different –“because I want to hit someone.”
I have a couple of Dads who are coaches and both suggested the answer is to eliminate helmets and protective padding. They think it would make the kids more careful. I worry more about steroids. When you were playing, how many 300 plus pounds opponents did you face? I think the high schools need to do random drug testing.
Some of the local Pop Warner leagues are having trouble getting liability insurance. I suspect that’ll spread to the schools soon as well. In a state such as California, I suspect that schools will drop football as well for insurance reasons soon.
It’s too bad; I’ve enjoyed watching football. But then, when younger, I used to watch and root for Mohammad Ali. Look what’s happened to him. I don’t believe it’s all Parkinson’s disease.
Steve Jacobs M.D.
Modesto, Calif.
Dr. Wilkoff responds: There weren’t any 300 pounders when I played because they couldn’t make the team. There are some pretty hefty guys on our high school team here in Brunswick, but they are more like Pillsbury Doughboys and aren’t going to do much harm. I agree that eliminating helmets and pads makes a lot of sense. Which would make it rugby, a much more interesting game that requires more conditioning.
The bulk of the e-mails I have received about the column have supported football. As I think more about, I think a solution – but not one that will fly – is to eliminate football beyond high school or maybe even middle school when it begins to get ugly and dangerous. Young boys do like to hit, tussle, and knock each other around, and seldom do much harm, with or without equipment.
No to football – again
Nearly everyone in our University of California, Los Angeles, pediatric faculty won’t allow their child to play Pop Warner football. It is just too dangerous.
I fortunately was too thin to play football, but agree completely that athletics were a good influence growing up in a fatherless home in Madison, Wisc. I played tennis and basketball instead.
The American Academy of Pediatrics should take a stand. No kids should play football.
As someone said, everyone in 1936 knew who the heavy weight boxing champion was – now no one knows. My alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, gave up boxing after someone died after a blow to the head.
How many cord transections, concussions, and sudden deaths can we tolerate?
Richard Stiehm, M.D.
Distinguished Research Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus
University of California, Los Angeles
Dr. Wilkoff responds: I agree that very few people know the names of professional fighters today, but many people (none of them with whom you and I are likely on a first name basis) know the names of successful mixed-martial arts/cage fighters. Now that is a brutal sport. The fact that it is popular should remind us that the desire to watch and participate in those activities runs pretty deep in us – which of course doesn’t make it right.
In response to your question of how many cord transections, concussions, and sudden deaths will we tolerate, I would be interested in your response. If the number is zero, then we have to broaden the discussion to a consideration of what activities we should allow children (particularly boys) to pursue to be physically active and receive the enjoyment that (for lack of a better term) rough housing provides. Zero tolerance can be a double-edged sword.
[Dr. Stiehm responds: Yes to soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, where the object is not to hurt the opponent – unlike boxing and tackle football.
