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If you had asked Zac Easter, he would have told you he loved football. The middle child of three boys, he and his brothers all played football. The smallest of the brothers, he was also the fiercest and played as a linebacker on the high school football team. He was so intimidating, even bigger teammates shied away from tangling with him in practice. He would have said that football is a really fun sport. Ask any player or former player, and they will also likely extol football’s many virtues. While there are many benefits that come with playing any sport, football's benefits seem to be countless. Football can improve aerobic capacity, cardiovascular health, body fat and improve muscle tone. You can learn how to work as a team and how to share. Anyone can play football, and you can play anywhere. Players usually tend to burn more calories during the game when compared to their regular workout sessions. Playing football increases the strength of the body's skeletal frame and increases your endurance. “The combination of running, walking, sprinting and kicking can bring benefits including increased stamina, improved cardiovascular health, reduced body fat, improved muscle strength and tone, increased bone strength and improved coordination.”
Beyond the exercise and health benefits, most players will tell you that playing football taught them discipline, toughness, and even life lessons. A pediatric doctor explained that football teaches kids discipline and how to be good at sports. “You learn time management, you learn discipline. You learn how to deal with losses and disappointments. And those types of things are really critical to youngsters as they get older and have to apply that to real-life situations.” It builds strategic thinking skills and can help players develop leadership qualities. Playing football can also increase a student's grades, as they work harder on their schoolwork to stay academically eligible to play their sport. “Participation in high school sports actually has been shown to deliver consistently higher grades.” Additionally, students who participate in high school sports are 15% more likely to attend college than students who don’t play a sport. Most players will also tell you that camaraderie is a big positive with football and that football builds friendships that often last well beyond the season. Belonging to a group, or rather having a sense of belonging that is fostered by being in a group, can be very good for a kid. Self-esteem is higher in kids who feel accepted and a part of something. Teamwork is also developed by playing football, and the ability to work in a team with common goals and direction is a skill that will benefit kids long after they’ve stopped playing on the field. For all of these good reasons, most people would think of football as a very positive sport. It certainly can be. However, football is not without risks.
One major risk of playing football is getting a concussion. Concussions are temporary unconsciousness or confusion caused by a blow to the head and can cause very severe damage to the brain. They are usually temporary but can include headaches and problems with concentration, memory, balance, and coordination. In his football career, Zac Easter had three diagnosed concussions related to football. His family believes he had others as well that just weren’t diagnosed. Concussions can be a serious problem. Over the last decade, the number of kids suffering concussions caused by playing high school football has been increasing. “High school football is consistently shown in studies to be the sport with the greatest proportion of concussions (47.1%) and the highest concussion rate (6.4 concussions per 10,000 athletic exposures).” Football is the number one sport you are most likely to get a concussion from while playing. This is not because of any new rule or anything like that. It has more to do with the competitive nature of football. Winning is obviously better than losing, and when you play really well with your team and win, it feels amazing. Because of this, sometimes kids will play harder, and even risk their own health and safety, for the win. “CDC reports show that the amount of reported concussions has doubled in the last 10 years.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that emergency room visits for concussions in kids ages 8 to 13 years old have doubled, and concussions have risen 200 percent among teens ages 14 to 19 in the last decade.” When you consider that the average football player gets six hits to the head during practice and 14 hits during games, these statistics are not surprising. “Burkhart noted that athletes aged 14, 15, and 16 years were at a greater risk for concussion compared to players aged 17 and 18 years.” This is particularly concerning when you consider that these are the typical ages when kids begin playing football in high school.
A concussion alone should be enough of a concern to make people give some hard thought to playing football, but when you consider the link between concussions and suicide, it can be surprising that anyone would consider taking up the sport. A 2020 analysis revealed “
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