The Wrld Page

Akst: High-school football has some risks

Football season is starting, and my sons are entering high school. Since one of them is nicknamed Moose, there would seem to be a match here.

Of our twin boys, this one has always been the bruiser. He took up most of the space in utero, and by eighth grade was 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds. He enjoyed several years of flag football, he’s fast and he’s physical.

This summer he attended a local weight-training program run by the high school football coach, who took one look and launched a recruitment blitz.

It’s a good program, and the Moose was suitably intrigued. That made two of us. I was too skinny for high school football but played anyway. The only tool I had was a good arm, which was promptly broken in a preseason game in my junior year, ending a pathetic career that never should have begun. But the Moose is solidly built, and visions of my favorite ungulate galloping toward the end zone made my heart race. Through him, I thought, I could achieve a measure of gridiron redemption.

So there was every reason to sign him up for high school football. Yet we never seriously considered it.

And I wonder if other parents — there are more than a million high school football players nationwide — have carefully weighed the risks and rewards in light of recent science.

High school football is dangerous, of course, with a significant injury rate. But I don’t worry about my son hobbling around on a broken ankle for a few weeks.

For a moose, on the other hand, he’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders. And the state of the science on head injuries — inadequate though it may be — was enough to make this decision a no-brainer in our house.

Many players don’t have a clear idea of what a concussion is, but anonymous surveys that simply ask about their symptoms suggest half of all high school players sustain at least one. A third had two. And recent research suggests that repeated head blows

Comment on "Akst: High-school football has some risks"