Essay on Concussion in Children

According to a study from the University of Colorado about sports injuries, 60% of football players experience an injury in high school (Dawn). If this problem continues, the sport of football will die. Football is not suitable for kids because it causes brain injuries to the kids and that affects their education in the long run. Football players have helmets which cause them to lead in with their head to force a tackled or to avoid a tackle. The trauma that hits the brain when a young player gets tackled or tackles an opponent can cause them to have bad injuries. Football protocols for head injuries have not improved enough for it to be safe for kids because young players often do not report problems in order to keep playing. This can really affect the kid’s academics, as concussion symptoms include forgetfulness, drowsiness, and processing information.

According to a survey by Massachusetts youth, only ⅛ of the concussions that occur during a football game are reported by the students and this stat is only from the state of Massachusetts, so there will be a way bigger number of unreported concussions in the whole nation(Coatsworth). Once a child gets a concussion during a game, they usually don’t realize that they are hurt in that area of their body until later because of the adrenaline that they go through when they are playing a game like football. Concussions can cause a really bad disease called CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) that affects a lot of football players after their football career. We found out about this concussion disease in football because of one of the greatest linebackers in football history, Junior Seau. Seau was having trouble sleeping and had become emotionally detached with people he was close with before according to his ex-wife Gina Seau (Avila). Because of what happened to their father Seau’s kids are not gonna play football ever and they are totally against the sport and would like to use their talents somewhere else other than football (Avila). Seau had killed himself in 2012, he had ended his career in 2009 this means he had killed himself only three years after he ended his career. Seau knew something was up with his head and wanted to inform the world about it, so he had intentionally shot himself in the chest so that medical teams could examine his brain and see what exactly was wrong with. After Seau’s post mortem had come out the doctors said that Seau was suffering from a disease called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. This news really alerted the world into the seriousness of concussions and football as a community hit a serious bump (Avila). High schoolers go through a bunch of injuries when playing football in high school, this can cause them to miss valuable time in school. Football is a very popular sport across the United States and most high schools compete in competitions to see which team is the best, although it is very popular it is also very dangerous and contains a lot of risks when playing this sport.

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According to research by the University of Colorado Boys, high school football teams go through a lot of injuries, but more importantly, they say that children go through an injury at least one time in their high school football career (Dawn). Most injuries occur on the head or face of the player. The second most popular injury occurs on the leg or foot of the player, now this type of injury requires surgery and surgery would make it really hard for the player to come back into the sport and start playing again, and often players rush back in and get injured again at the same place 37 thousand of the injuries that happened in 2017 required surgery and 25% of those injuries had a reinjury in the same place, this proves that kids actually try to get back into action before they are actually ready for it (Dawn). In 2013 a promising five-star recruit running back and was ranked in the top ten of his class, his name was Thomas Tyler don’t remember him? That’s because he never played a down of college football. Thomas Tyler committed to the Oregon Ducks to play football at but his redshirt season got hurt on his shoulder, but Tyler rushed back on to the field and got hurt again a year later. Thomas Tyler retired after the second time and doesn't play anymore (Muldowney). This story shows us how football injuries can ruin someone's life as Thomas Tyler was a promising football player and probably had big dreams in the future for himself but football knocked him down and he was too eager to get back up and ruined his football career because of that.

We know about this story because this player had retired in the spotlight, but we don't know how many kids may have gone through the same thing but didn’t get media attention to acknowledge it. Football is a very popular sport across the nation and a lot of high schools have programs and kids look up to college and pro players when they are young. Even with all this going for the sport there is no question that is very dangerous for kids and it should be banned for children. Now, of course, you can’t just ban such a popular sport from thin air so now a solution that is practical would be to have another version which is not as violent as football. The solution is flag football, now old school football fans won't agree to this because it is not the “real deal”, but is it really worth hurting these kids for some entertainment, and flag football helps kids improve on their technical skills and reduces the chances of injury for the kids.

Children have fragile and growing bodies, so when a child gets hurt or breaks a bone, it heals fast but it also makes the muscle around the bone weak because kids don’t think about rehab. In a sport like American Football kids often get injured and don’t take care of their bodies as they should hence making their injury worse. One solution for this problem is to ban the game from being played in high school and put the sport with an alternative sport which is related to football, flag football is the best solution as players will be still working on the skills they need to be working on to be a successful player such as speed, agility, catching, throwing, and stamina. Another way to make the sport safer would be to add more padding this will help kids be safer when going a hundred percent all the time and contact on every play will reduce the risk of injury, extra padding should be used on the helmets, shoulder pads and there should be more padding on the ribs and knees, since all these parts a fragile to the human body (Bonjour). Coaches should also improve on their practice methods because 44% of kids get injured in practice (Dawn). Coaches should do fewer Oklahoma drills and real-life tackling drills because that encourages the players to hit their own teammates at hundred percent, this will do two things for the team, it will risk less chance of injuries for the season, and it will help players stay healthy for daily chores. Football is a very violent sport and even though it is very popular and fun to watch and play, it hurts children with their education and daily chores. Football should not be played by kids since it affects their brain in negative ways and it will affect them in the future since they are still in the developing age, and the hits that they get to head affect their mental and physical growth.