JJ SAYS: Time to take hard look at football

Gronkowski hit again brings up the question of safety.|

I’m sure to be misunderstood with this week’s column, but I feel it needs to be said.

It is time to take a hard look at youth tackle football. There, I’ve said it, and I can already hear the tar bubbling and see the feathers being plucked as my sports friends prepare for my fate. But, hear me out before you customize my tar and feather attire.

First of all, let me emphasize for the umpteenth time how much I love football. I think it is the most exciting prep sport, and I think it is one of the best ways to teach life lessons like determination, loyalty, camaraderie, teamwork, courage and so much more.

I’m also a great believer in youth sports. Yes, kids should have fun playing sports, and do quite nicely forming their own teams and playing pick-up games. But, I would have given my prize Mickey Mantle card for a chance to play organized baseball with a real uniform on a groomed diamond instead of in a T-shirt at Cow Pasture Stadium with its scrap tin backstop and cardboard bases.

And goodness knows, me and my playmates could have benefited from the knowledgeable coaching that kids in all sports receive to day.

Kids in all sports in Petaluma, and that includes football, receive the best coaching in the North Bay.

I am also very proud of the Petaluma Panthers Jr. Pee Wee team, and what those kids accomplished by not only getting to the National Championship playoffs, but also winning a game. It was an amazing accomplishment.

Still, I worry for the safety of the kids. Every effort is made to protect the young players, including, in the Panthers’ case, the use of helmets laced with electronic sensors that let coaches and medical staff monitor the number and severity of hits to the helmet. The young players are taught the proper way to tackle to avoid helmet-to-helmet contact.

But no amount of training and no protection can protect a player from the kind of blow the Patriots’ Rob Gronkowski took in the AFC championship game.

Of course, the youth players aren’t as big and don’t hit nearly as hard as NFL players, but everything is relative. The young guys play hard, as well they should, and football is a contact game. There are a multitude of medical studies that indicate that repetitive hits to the head that can be lessened, but not avoided, in contact football, can lead to brain damage.

We also need to take a look at youth soccer. Dr. David Sisler, the longtime sideline doctor for Petaluma High School football, was the first to point out to me the potential dangers of youngsters using their heads to advance the ball. He is a strong advocate for youth soccer players wearing helmets. He makes sense.

Kids can be, and are, injured in all sports. The physical nature of games are what make them attractive to youngsters, but they should be as safe as practically possible.

I’m not suggesting we eliminate youth football, but I am suggesting we take a long, hard look at the sport and evaluate its appropriateness in light of what we are learning about the dangers of repetitive blows to the head.

I just can’t get get rid of the vision of the train wreck that was the bash that Gronkowski took last Sunday.

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@argus-courier.com)

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