CTE and youth football in America: What does the future hold?

A recent Boston University study found 87 of 91 former NFL players to have suffered from a progressively degenerative brain disease prior to their deaths. This disease, otherwise known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), is caused by repetitive brain trauma from collisions of the nature football players are exposed to on a weekly basis. These latest findings are causing individuals to re-evaluate not only NFL safety policies, but re-evaluate the future of youth football in America.

A poll conducted by ESPN’s “Sportsnation” found that, out of 70,000 responders, 31 percent did not want their children playing contact football. This response is congruent with Pop Warner, the nation’s largest youth football organization, seeing a ten percent decline in player participation from 2010–2012.

“Definitely with all the new information coming out about CTE it’s cause for concern for parents,” Wesley Woodyard, an active linebacker for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, told ESPN’s Jim Trotter in an April interview. “We’re taking the right strides as far as keeping the game safe — safety is definitely going to always be No. 1. If my son wants to play, it will be his decision. But I’m definitely going to make sure he doesn’t play until he’s, maybe, 12 years old. I started at 6, and I’m definitely not going to allow him to play at that age.”

Another Boston University study, aimed at exploring the relationship between the starting age of players and future cognitive impairment, seems to agree with Woodyard’s personal take regarding at what age he should allow his son to play.

Separating 42 former NFL players in to two groups (played prior to age 12 and began play at or after age 12), the study found the under 12 group performed significantly worse “on all measures” of the three clinical tests provided. “There is an association between participation in tackle football prior to age 12 and greater later-life cognitive impairment measured using objective neuropsychological tests,” the study concluded.

Another number of note is the 240 head impacts per season that youth players between the ages of 9 and 12 incur on average, with that number climbing as high as 585.

These statistics and studies have lead to a growing group of individuals who support flag football for preteen athletes.

“It’s one of the ways to learn the fundamentals and technique of playing contact football and doing everything right without the contact,” Jordy Nelson, a Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers, told ESPN’s Jim Trotter in the same April article. “You teach kids to break down, keep your head up, be on balance. Try to get them to pull a flag from someone’s hip, it’s something that is going to take being in full control of your body…instead of just being the bigger kid who can fly around and blow somebody up because you’re bigger and faster than they are.”

Local Reno coaches and parents shared their opinions on the state of youth football, and its future in America, as well.

Tim Brantner, a former coach at both Sparks High School and Spanish Springs High School, and a current youth football head coach, offered his thoughts on the statistics previously mentioned.

“Flag football will be more of a demand than youth football, I would say, in the next ten to fifteen years. It’s sad to me,” Brantner said. “All teams and coaches should go through, should see these numbers.”

When asked for a solution to the mounting statistics, Brantner was quick to mention the need for a governing body in every youth league that would be required to randomly attend practices, making sure coaches are following the governing rules and taking the necessary precautions to keep kids safe.

“[Players] should be limited to how much contact they’re allowed to have in practice…There isn’t any reason you can’t teach a kid how to tackle against a bag as opposed to tackling Johnny across from you,” according to Brantner. “You have to be able to tackle somebody in football, but so what if they’re not successful when they’re 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 at tackling them in a game, as long as they’re learning the proper technique.”

As concern for player safety rises, parents are giving their two cents on their concerns and some possible solutions to concussion and injury prevention.

“I really don’t believe that the leagues are doing enough [to make youth football safe]…I know our league makes our coaches attend training, but I don’t know how in depth their training is concerning concussions and serious strains, sprains and muscle pulls.” said Justin Chapel, a parent whose son played football through Sierra Youth Football League last season. “I would like to see a trained professional…a trainer, EMT or other medical professional to be on hand to help determine if a concussion or other injury is serious enough to pull the kid from a game or even practice.”

“At the start of the season, the kids can take a test that measures the kids mental capacities, which can be matched with another test taken at the time the kid takes a big hit to determine the level of the injury,” Chapel responded when asked for any other possible answers that could improve player safety.

One program that has taken initiative when it comes to player safety is Heads Up Football through USA Football, a non-profit organization that is self-described as “football’s national governing body.” The program educates coaches on how to recognize, and respond to, a concussion, how to properly fit equipment, correct tackling technique and other safety components of the sport.

Many youth leagues, including Sierra Youth Football League, have made it a requirement to become Heads Up certified in order to coach, but not all of the responsibility should fall on the coaches.

This was the take from local youth football coach Greg Watson when presented with the statistics listed above. He believes that the responsibility ultimately falls to the coaching staffs, but that parents and players alike need to be educated on the risks of the sport before engaging in it.

“It’s like counting the cost. Not only should the parents know it, I believe the kids should know it, and the reason why is because you have these kids that are going into football uneducated and ignorant to the sport, and the impact that it has on the body,” Watson said in response to the statistics presented to him. “I think you get kids that fall in love with the sport before understanding the sport. So, the more educated everyone is, the better the health of the game and then we can have the game that everybody loves around a lot longer.”

As much as football is firmly engrained as the most popular sport in the United States, science supports the idea that perhaps humans are not meant to play football at all.

“The brain sits in fluid. It hits the skull on impact. There is no buffer between the two. Woodpeckers have a buffer. Rams have a buffer. The human brain does not have one. So you can put a helmet on that’s a foot thick, but with impact, the brain is going to hit the skull and that’s the injury,” Jeanne Marie Laskas told CBS in late 2015.

Laskas, author of the book “Concussion” that detailed the discovery of CTE by pathologist Bennet Omalu, gave one solution to the problem. “Take the head out of the game,” she said.

Bennet Omalu discovered CTE on the morning of September 28, 2002, when he performed an autopsy on the body of Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and arguably the greatest to ever play his position.

Omalu, a man who has been thrust in to the limelight in recent years, has used his platform to share his opinions on the matter of concussions and the safety of the sport of football. In a Co-Op piece that he penned for the New York Times in December of 2015 entitled, “Don’t Let Kids Play Football,” the Nigerian-born forensic pathologist left parents, coaches, fans, players and those alike with his take on the matter, and a thought to ponder.

“We should at least wait for our children to grow up, be provided with the information and education on the risk of play, and let them make their own decisions,” Omalu said. “As a society, the question we have to answer is, when we knowingly and willfully allow a child to play high-impact contact sports, are we endangering that child?”

When it comes to the ultimate fate of youth football in America, multiple options and movements are being brought to the forefront of the discussion, but the only certainty at this point is uncertainty itself.