Concussions are life changing events that can, and do, cause permanent brain damage. I can relate from personal experience that a concussion can change a person. My good friend Steven while playing Pop-Warner Football at the age of 11 suffered from a severe concussion. At the time, 13 years ago, in the summer of 2000 concussion awareness and detection technology was in its infancy. The very next day I could tell a major change in personality, mood and temperament among other traits.
As a spectator and avid fan of professional football I watch all the games during the season and post-season. Ben Roethelisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers has bounced back from numerous concussions suffered in multiple years ket qua bong da in the NFL. He currently plays at a very high level and shows little or no after-effects from his multiple concussions. Roethlisberger is just one case in the NFL there are many others that are very disheartening. Players being failed in physicals due to effects from concussions that occurred in college and even high-school is a worry of parents.
Pop-Warner Football is where kids need to learn the fundamentals of football, how to tackle properly and play hard without risking your body. Concussions can happen anytime, not just from helmet-to-helmet contact, but also contact with the ground or another player’s knee or shoulder. There is no way to limit the danger of being out on the football field. Even with the rules that are being implemented in the NFL that try to limit blind collisions and hits on defenseless players. It is very hard to change players habits that they have been taught since starting the sport around the age of 8, so new rules are very slow to make any real changes in the way the games are played. The key is to teach the new players of the game how to properly and safely play while also keeping the game’s excitement level up and its appearance of a “man’s” game.
The college game is making large strides to bring technology onto the football field. Many schools have already implemented G-force measuring nodes inside players practice helmets to monitor how many hits they take and what forces the brain is being exposed to. In practice, doctors can monitor players, real-time, get information as soon as a player is hit and know if it is possibly threatening to the player and/or his brain.
This technology sounds ideal to implement into the NFL, but the NFLPA has shot it down on more than one occasion citing no comment. A player privately commented that he would “have a hard time letting a computer decide if he can play”. This technology can and will soon be ushered into all levels of football from kids to the NFL.
This will not stop parents from believing that football is much too dangerous for their child. And yes football is dangerous and not for everyone. But players that are trained properly and know how to play the game safely can greatly reduce the chance of a serious brain injury occurring on the football field.