high school football and brain damage, and how to gracefully phase out under-age 18?

[Multicolored Lemur]

I love high school football.

I can still remember that Friday afternoon calling up my new friend Mike and asking about the ROTC ushering. I figured it was too late for this week, but I could start taking the steps for next week.

Instead Mike said, hey, we’ll pick you up about 6:20. It was 4 of us in total, plus Mike’s Mom who picked us all up and drove us to the high school.

Besides the ROTC, the football game had the band, cheerleaders, and drill team. It was quite the production. It had families with younger kids. But … not too many high school kids themselves unconnected with the production.

Often, there was a dance after home games.

Technically this was Junior ROTC, or JROTC, but we just called it ROTC.


PS This was way back in 1977. Yes, I’ve lived that many years!

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Possible Biomarker for Diagnosing CTE during Life | The Brink | Boston University

Ann McKee and MED colleagues identify another CTE biomarker that may potentially allow the disease to be diagnosed in the living. “It’s a step forward,” says McKee.

www.bu.edu

with staining added to the brain tissue

So far, this can only be determined after death in an autopsy which uses thin slices of brain tissue.

One study of NFL players estimated that 30% of players would experience CTE or early-onset dementia or something similar.

High school, this is going to be lower, but you are starting a diet of sub-concussive hits to the head plus the occasional concussion.

If the tech advances to show this starting to develop in a living person (maybe looking for a marker in the blood like this 2017 article is talking about), then maybe—

even the most sports gung-ho Mom and Dad will say, Son, that’s it. No more football. You’ll going to have to find another sport.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Everytime I see a head to head collision I cringe. I know the players are supposed to be protected by helmets but that loud noise that sounds like two cars hitting each other at high speeds can't be good for the body. I thought the NFL had a rule to avoid hits to the head, but I could be wrong. I know in the NBA, the common injury is leg, foot, ankle injuries. So there's a rule to not be in the way of a player's landing spot when they are in the air coming down after a shot attempt or a dunk.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I thought the NFL had a rule to avoid hits to the head,

You can’t strike a defenseless receiver in the head. This is usually a receiver who is leaping for the football.

When the quarterback drops back to attempt a pass, you can’t hit him with the crown of the helmet. Instead, you must practice “heads up” football, and you can tackle him with your face mask in him and making contact.

But . . .

The helmet is so big and heavy, it’s like a battle weapon. And offensive and defensive linemen use the helmet. In fact, offensive linemen are taught “three points of contact” and “put your hat on them.”

And running backs run hard and fast head first, and sometimes are expected to plunge into that line of scrimmage.

And with greater knowledge of nutrition and body-building + illegal steroids [or precursors] . . .

Athletes are bigger and faster than ever!

And simple laws of physics, force = mass x acceleration, more force rippling through the athletes’ bodies. And while helmets protect against skull fractures, they don’t protect against sudden stops in which the brain jars against the inside of the skull, for either a concussion or a sub-concussive blow.

Again, a big part of CTE is the large number of sub-concussive blows [length of career matters, as does age at which the player first begins the contact sport]

CTE = Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Maybe a high school could have 2 seasons of boys’ basketball and 2 seasons of boys’ baseball, as well as 2 seasons of girls’ basketball and 2 seasons of girls’ softball. That way, a really talented team could go “back to back” in one year.

Plus, you’re leveraging the beginning of the school year when everything is new and fresh and people are looking to get involved.