Is Little League Football Safe for Young Boys?

Is Little League Football Safe For Young Boys?

In sports everyone who commits to playing for an organized team knows that there is a large risk involved by the time you are stepping onto the field. One of the most common sports that young athletes are sometimes being injured in is the sport of football. In a given year, 20 percent of children that participate in high impact sports, such as football become injured (Garrett, 39). Some of these injuries can be serious and cause long term affects. Because of these injuries most parents would agree not to allow their young boys to play the sport of football.

With little leagues starting out at the age of 5, most parents get their kids in protective gear before they reach Kindergarten. The helmets, shoulder pads, mouthpieces, and other protective equipment used during the game are great for minimizing the scraps, bruises and missing teeth, but are not helping out by preventing the more serious injuries caused by tackle football.

Tackle football by its very nature is a physically demanding and violent sport. No matter what position your child ends up playing, he will be hitting and will get hit. The hard plastic shell that players wear to protect their heads can be quite damaging when they strike another player or when falling to the ground. When this happens, this sudden movement can cause bruising and dramatic swelling to the brain. This leads to a concussion. Repeated concussions can result in having brain disease later in life. Research indicates that the younger someone begins playing football, the more prone they are to concussions because their bodies and brains are not fully formed (Bissinger, Hallenbeck, 30). A recent study by the Virginia Tech Institutional Review Board stated, "that youth players experienced a substantially higher percentage of impacts to the side of the helmet compared to those players that are in high school and college" (Daniel, Rowson, and Duma, 976-981). Youth players have the tendency to fall to the side while being tackled and the helmets they wear are very similar in size and mass to adult football helmets. With that being said, the neck muscles of younger players are undeveloped in comparison to those players that are older.

Concussions are not the only serious injury that can have long-term effects. Most injuries to kids usually involve fractured bones. And these can be more serious because children are still growing. Fractures that occur at the growth plates can result in permanent damage, including bones that stop growing and that grow asymmetrically.

Clearly, football has a serious problem here. If the protective equipment cannot protect these young players from being injured, then we need to change the rules on how football is played. There is no fix unless we eliminate blocking and tackling and go to flag football.