Hill 1

Jaret Hill

Connie Douglas

ENG 112-01

Round Table Essay

27 March 2017

Creating A Safer Game

With every issue, there are different voices with different opinions and solutions.

Diversity of these points of views can either be very productive or destructive depending on the

situation. Being able to identify the voices that are part of serious issues is the first step in

finding a good solution. In the world of sports, collision sports like football to be specific, there

are several issues that are being addressed. The most concerned issue though would have to be

the ongoing issue of concussions and head injuries in general. Concussions are the most talked

about issue facing football today. Obviously with a large issue; such as, concussions, the football

community are always looking for a solution to reduce and eliminate these injuries from the

game.

In the United States, youth athletes account for nearly seventy percent of all players on all

levels. Therefore, concussions to youth players has become a serious problem. Ricky Wong, the

author of, Frequency, magnitude, and distribution of head impacts in Pop Warner football: The

cumulative burden describes the dangers of football to young children. Wongs article talked

about an experiment that was conducted to analyze the injuries sustained to youth players. In the

experiment, a Pop Warner team was hooked up with devices that would measure hits to the head
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over a 6-week period. The results showed nearly five hundred hits in total for the whole team.

This is an alarming number, especially for a youth team. The data found in this experiment has

been used throughout football leagues. One of the most occurring changes to the leagues are

restrictions on contact at practices.

The main argument is what should be done to create a safer game for all players involved.

There have been several different conclusions and solutions, some more effective than others.

Although with all these solutions, there has not been one that has been put in place for all levels.

There have been rules and regulations placed through all levels of competition that penalize a

team for uncalled for hits. One of the most serious calls that could be made in a game is the

targeting call. This is when a player from one team intentionally strikes an opposing player using

the crown (top) of their helmet to strike their helmet. These hits are the most unsafe and uncalled

for hits in the game. Targeting can have extreme consequences not only for the person getting hit

but also for the player colliding the other player.

The biggest voice throughout this whole argument would be the players themselves. This

voice would include all players on all levels of football. Without the players, there would not be

a sport to play. This issue starts with the players and should end with the players. Football is

supposed to be game to be enjoyed by the player, and safety is a huge aspect of keeping the sport

fun. Once people start to feel unsafe and unprotected, they will not want to be associated with the

sport. Safety needs to be the main priority for anyone associated with the sport. The players put

their bodies on the line and need the proper care to ensure they will be fine when everything is

all over.

Football is a game that requires the players to be alert always, not only to make a play for

their team but for their safety. The objective in football is to get the most points and to do
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anything inside the rules to get those points. Collisions and injuries are always going to be a part

of the game, there just needs to be a way to reduce them. Steven Broglio wrote an article called,

Football Players' Head-Impact Exposure After Limiting of Full-Contact Practices, and in the

article he talks about the difference made after a team limited full-contact practices. The

experiment was conducted over two years and showed great numbers. In the first year, there was

15,398 collisions recorded with full contact practices compared to the second year with only

8,269 collisions without full contact practices. The dropped the amount of collisions by nearly

forty-two percent.

The players were asked how they felt the experiment went and they all had similar tone.

The majority said that they could feel a difference in their bodies, saying they felt more rested

and able to perform better on game nights. The data from this experiment also showed that there

was 6 concussions total in the first year and only one in the second year. The data proves that

without the full-contact practices, there was less chance a player would receive a major injury

and overall less fatigued throughout the season. Overall, the players would feel that the best

solution to the issue is to either limit the contact during practices or to eliminate contact all

together.

The second voice of this issue would be the parents. This voice is focused more on the

youth players, but is a strong voice throughout all levels of football. Football is a sport that

children will begin to play from very early ages and begin to create a relationship with the game.

As parents, it is natural to want the best for the children and the biggest thing every parent wants

to ensure is their childs safety. There is not one parent that would place their children in harms

way intentionally. It is statistically shown that most children who play football at any level had a

parent who played sports as well. There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to football and that
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may scare a lot of parents. When the conversation of concussions is thrown into the mix, nobody

can really blame a parent for becoming paranoid and want to take their child from the sport.

Therefore, the parents have a very significant voice in this discussion.

Even though, there had been some significant changes made in modern day football to

create a safer game, many parents still speculate. In 2013, a study was shown there was a nine

percent decrease in youth football turnout from 2010-2012. This was because the parents did not

feel that their children would be safe in playing a sport; such as, football. Many parents see the

game as violent and barbaric and do not want their children to have any part of it. Of course,

there are the parents who allow their children to play and encourage it, but they also want the

game to be safer. Going back to the article from Ricky Wong, the team that the experiment was

conducted on has created changes in the league. The data was looked upon and forced all

coaches in that league to show the proper way to tackle to all players before any kind of contact

was allowed.

Even though parents will always be skeptical about a sport; such as, football, many will

allow their children to play. The main objective for these young kids is to have fun and be safe.

From the collective data from Wongs and others, many parents feel the best thing for safety in

football is education. Educating the players on the right way to tackle can help decrease the

number of serious injuries such as concussions. Concussions tend to happen when a player is not

using the right techniques when tackling. Overall, the parents viewpoint is that the best way to

prevent concussions and other injuries is teaching players early on the correct techniques and

procedures.

The last and very important voice would be the scientific community. The scientific

community has a become a huge part of this discussion. Over the last decade, there has been a
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huge spike in scientific interest in the sport world and what exactly create a concussion and other

head injuries. There have been multiple studies done to break down the science of this issue and

has been an extremely beneficial part of the issue. Many football organizations, including the

National Football League (NFL), have even made new rules and regulations that have gone off

the new data collected from various scientific sources. This community has and will continue to

be a giant voice in this very serious discussion.

Scientists have proven that repeated hits to the head can have serious consequences. Not

only could a player receive a concussion, but a collection of concussions could cause Chronic

Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found

mostly in athletes, with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions

as well as repetitive hits to the head. Frederick Mueller who is the author of, "Catastrophic Head

Injuries in High School and Collegiate Sports talks about the injuries sustained from athletes

during high school and college. Janet Simon wrote an article titled, Current Health-Related

Quality of Life in Former National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Collision Athletes

Compared With Contact and Limited-Contact Athletes looks at the effects of former players,

well after the time they played. In Simons article, she talks about an interesting experiment that

grabs data from former Division 1 athletes.

Division One is the highest level of competition at the collegiate level. In the experiment,

374 different former athletes, all around the ages between forty through sixty-five, were placed

in three different groups based on the sport they played. The three groups were collision, contact,

and limited-contact. The collision group being the athletes who played the most physical sports;

such as, football. Contact being sports with not as much physicality as collision but more than

limited-collision. Each athlete was tested in eight different dimensions and split into two
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variables, the mental component and the physical component. The eight dimensions were:

physical function, role physical, bodily pain scale, general health, mental health, role emotional,

social function, and vitality scales. All the results were significantly lower than the average

person in that age group that did not play sports. Also, the collision group had the lowest scores

of the other two.

This data shows that not only can collision sports such as football can affect an athlete

while they are playing, but also later in life. Collegiate football is considered a great opportunity

but can come with the obvious chance of consequences. With the data pulled from that

experiment and others like it, a conclusion can be made being that collision sports are not the

greatest option. Many scientists who are in this field feel that there are ways to reduce the

chance of concussions but, there will always be some. The scientific community agrees that

football is something that can be unsafe and not advised. Overall, the community feels that the

best solution for anyone wanting to play football is to realize the chance of injury. Also, that there

needs to be a solution made soon that will reduce the chance of concussions significantly

across all levels of play.

These viewpoints have great points in creating a safer game. Each group wants to see a

change in the football world that can assure safety for the players. The players feel that the best

solution would be less contact in practices. The parents feel that the best solution is to have

better education from the coaches to teach the players early on the correct way to play safely.

The science community feels that people should not even play unless they acknowledge the

chance of injury. Each group expresses the concern for safety and has the players best interest

in mind. Overall, throughout all my research my solution resides with the players. The best

solution possible is to have limited contact in practices. There will always be an argument on
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how to deal with this issue. The main objective now is emplacing the right rules and regulations

so we can begin to create a safer game.

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Work Cited

Broglio, Steven P,PhD., A.T.C., et al. "Football Players' Head-Impact Exposure After Limiting of

Full-Contact Practices." Journal of Athletic Training, vol. 51, no. 7, 2016, pp. 511-

518 Psychology Database, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?

url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1825186739?

accountid=10008.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-51.7.04.

Mueller, Frederick O. "Catastrophic Head Injuries in High School and Collegiate

Sports." Journal of Athletic Training, vol. 36, no. 3, 2001, pp. 312-315 Psychology

Database, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?

url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/206644243?accountid=10008.

Simon, Janet E,PhD., A.T.C., and Docherty, Carrie L, PhD,A.T.C., F.N.A.T.A. "Current Health-

Related Quality of Life in Former National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I

Collision Athletes Compared with Contact and Limited-Contact Athletes." Journal of

Athletic Training, vol. 51, no. 3, 2016., pp. 205-212 Psychology

Database, http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?

url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1783698889?

accountid=10008.doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-51.4.05.

Wong, Ricky H., Andrew K. Wong, and Julian E. Bailes. "Frequency, Magnitude, and

Distribution of Head Impacts in Pop Warner Football: The Cumulative Burden." Clinical

neurology and neurosurgery, vol. 118, 2014, pp. 1-4, Psychology Database,

http://ezproxy.cpcc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1644767368?

accountid=10008, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clineuro.2013.11.036.
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