6 kids have died in recent less than 3 weeks.
Also, far be it for me to defend tackle football’s safety however the article goes on to say 4 of these 6 kid’s deaths are heat related.
Then goes on to mention 11 other children dying between 2018-2022… Again of heat stroke.
Then theres this anecdote:
“I personally had an experience where I was at an SEC football camp and asked a trainer for heat guard – something my Alabama high school coaches and eventually my college program stressed when playing in hot or humid conditions. I was denied the salt tablets even after telling them I was cramping and didn’t feel good. Within the hour, I had blacked out and fallen on concrete.”
This isnt really a story about CTE or football at all, it’s a story about rampant criminal negligence by deliriously ignorant teachers and schools (and perhaps a soupçon of climate change).
So why doesn’t the author blame the schools in charge even once? They were responsibile for these children at the time! This piece bothers me…
If it was CTEs, I’d be more on board with this, but you’re 100 right. Who the fuck denies someone salt tablets?
one was a 13-year-old eighth-grade student
Read that one. Its the most recent one. " After colliding with other players, Cohen got back up, took a few steps, then lost consciousness. He was rushed to the hospital suffering from brain bleeding and swelling. His oxygen level was low while he was in the ambulance, his father said.
The next day, Cohen died, just three days after the first day of school."
In America, children are encouraged to fight to the death in gladiatorial games while their parents look on and cheer.
I’m going to say that isn’t the full story. It’s most likely ‘second impact syndrome’, and the crowd was not observant enough to notice the kid would’ve already had a big collision before that one.
The brain can take a hard football sized knock, it’ll just swell a little and you’ll have a concussion. If you get hit once it’s already swelled, pop, that’s a bleed.
If proper safety was being taught he would’ve been pulled from the pitch after the first hit.
Proper safety would be not having kids put in situations (like a sport where they get tackled by other 200 pound children) where their brain could start swelling as a result.
"After colliding with other players, Cohen got back up, took a few steps, then lost consciousness. He was rushed to the hospital suffering from brain bleeding and swelling. His oxygen level was low while he was in the ambulance, his father said.
The next day, Cohen died, just three days after the first day of school."
The first four of these recent deaths were due to apparently heat-related causes and the latest two due to head trauma. Five of the athletes were high schoolers, the eldest only 16, and one was a 13-year-old eighth-grade student.
Congratulations, this is almost any sport now! And its only going to get worse with climate change. The only sport I can think of that wouldnt be as effected is swimming
Passing out from heat exhaustion incurs a 40% chance of death for children, those who survive had almost immediate professional help
It will be harder to ignore climate change like so many desperately want to when treats are affected
https://www.omius.io/ it exists
This could be a real article today except that it acknowledged climate change lol
Hockey is also safe from heat exhaustion, at least until the power grid starts failing.
like soccer is fairly dangerous, you can easily fuck up your legs both short and long term but the only deaths associated with it really are due to heart problems which can happen in any sport
the heat thing is curious, they have ad breaks, don’t they have water breaks?
No, drinking water makes you soft.
This is not a joke, this is a strongly held belief in the football coach community.
They will literally do multiple practices per day, multiple hours per practice, no water allowed, every single day during peak summer heat. This is NOT an exaggeration. Sports coaches in the US are BROKEN
High school football doesn’t have ‘ad breaks’, what are you on about? Also, I would bet most of that is during practice, because most highschool coaches are unqualified good ol’ boy morons that don’t really give a shit about your health. Football as a sport is fucking cool as hell, but the amateur and minor league are just rife with exploitation and dumbfuckery because it is seen as a ‘meathead sport’.
american football has a more serious issue because of all the helmets and gear they wear, overheating is more common. water breaks and so on help but ultimately kids are kids and will forget to do stuff in the moment, theyre also more likely to take a game way too seriously because their parents are excited
i used to go to summer camps as a kid and every year a kid would pass out from heat exhaustion while hiking or something, one died
Mmm. I actually think there is a long way to go with mitigation before the game should be abolished. I think that hypothetically there would be a way to play it with rigorous safety standards, and probably some changed rules, while maintaining a level of contact. I think it’s worth testing.
That said, American Football is a uniquely violent and idiotic sport. It’s got some similarity to Rugby League, in that it’s rules have been made in order to maximise entertainment value (and ads). There’s a collision, a reset, and then two teams sprint into collision with a run-up.
The difference between even Rugby League and AF is that in Rugby League, a player will spend 60-80 minutes in play, jogging and sprinting, attacking and defending. This limits the size of players. You’ve got to be big but you’ve also got to be fit and mobile. In American Football, each play is essentially a full sprint speed collision, with everyone putting in 120% effort for less than a minute. As a result, player mass and collision speed is just ridiculous.
There’s also direct head collisions that are completely within the rules of the game. Big plastic helmets don’t do anything but stop your skin from splitting. Most of the energy is in collision is still transferred through to your skull. You’re probably getting a micro concussion with almost every single hit.
I think that hypothetically there would be a way to play it with rigorous safety standards, and probably some changed rules, while maintaining a level of contact.
Last I heard studies were starting to show that even the relatively static line contact, not even high speed tackling or the like, was causing measurable brain damage just because it’s a lot of repeated hits and a lot of force.
And of course the effect is much worse on teens because the damage actively fucks up their neurological development in ways that cause impulse control problems, increased aggression, etc similar to lead poisoning. Kind of puts into context all the stereotypes about former high school football players, if it’s just been generation after generation of “for at least a sizeable chunk of them this is as bad as lead poisoning” brain damage.
Yup, repeated ‘sub-concussive’ hits are shown to be dangerous and a possible contributor to CTE. In Rugby they’ve tried to mitigate that with rules on hours of contact in training per week, among other new safety systems. The problem is in the meantime you’ve got to potentially sacrifice a few generations to see the data, especially since CTE often presents in later life. The other complicating factor is that players are all so much bigger and faster these days, due to over-professionalisation and elite sport science, so safety that might’ve been applicable to guys in the 90’s might not even be effective now.
Yeah. If you think of the actual collision zone too - the front of the skull. The frontal lobe regulates a lot of impulsivity and aggression. That said though, I think it’s more cultural than biological in teen behaviour. The macho and drinking culture of the sports combines very badly.
In rugby the tackling technique doesnt seem as wreckless. In american football guys are straight up throwing themselves at you. Imagine if even with pads rugby players threw themselves at each other like that for 80 minutes with the nonstop nature of the sport. You’re asking for horrible injuries.
Rugby league is pretty reckless but there’s no head collision and a rule against high tackles.
Rugby Union is a lot stricter with tackle technique and head injury - they’re trialling collision recorders, where if a player is recorded colliding too hard, they’re automatically sent off for a head check. It’s come leaps and bounds recently. The 90’s and early 2000’s were a terrible time to be a professional rugby player.
I guess that’s the other thing though - rugby’s non stop nature means a lot more total collisions per game, and therefore per career. With science coming out emphasising the role of ‘sub-concussive’ hits in CTE, who knows what’s in store for this generation of players, especially considering their increased size and speed compared to pre super professionalism.
One suggestion I’ve heard is legalizing many forward passes. This would spread out the field and the game would be less about colliding and more about blocking passing lanes. It would end up playing like fast paced ultimate Frisbee more than anything else.
Jesus the school year just started
