Last Updated on January 30, 2024 by BVN
S.E. Williams
It was a proud moment for Jayden Daniels, his family, other loved ones, members of the inland community and supporters across the country when it was announced on December 9, 2023, that he had won the coveted Heisman Trophy. By all accounts, Daniels is definitely a hometown hero, a role model for aspiring scholar-athletes, and an all-around good guy. His accomplishments are laudable.
And yet, even as I joined the community in celebrating his success and took pride in his generous comments about the Inland Empire, there remained a niggling in the back of my mind related to the controversy simmering over the safety of this sport.
As a football fan and supporter of youth sports I first read about the issue of CTE and the work of Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2005. Omalu is the pathologist who was first to publish evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, a progressive degenerative disease typically found in athletes, especially football players, and others. It affects people who have suffered repeated concussions and traumatic brain injuries.
I tuned in because my son grew up playing Pop Warner football as did both my grandsons, all three went on to play in high school. Could it affect them, I wondered?
But in all honesty, I didn’t dwell on it until the NFL began to take CTE seriously. In 2009, the league started preventing players who were knocked unconscious, from returning to a game or practice. And meanwhile, the list of professional players impacted by CTE grew, garnering more public attention.
Since then measures have been taken to mitigate risks at all levels of play from Pop Warner to the national league. But news of the risks for brain injuries intensified last year.
In February 2023, U.S. News and World Report ran an article highlighting an announcement by Boston University CTE Center that “they have now diagnosed CTE in the brains of 345 of 376 (91.7%) of NFL players studied.” Such prevalence of the condition in players was staggering to me.
For many young athletes especially in the Black community, even though the odds of making it to a professional team are against them, their dreams of making it to the top don’t wane. And, it seems, neither do the risks of CTE
Looking at the melanin of NFL players I’m sure many young Black athletes think the odds of playing football at that level are pretty good. Afterall, in 2022, over 56% of players within the NFL were Black and more than 50% of players chosen in the 2023 NFL draft were Black, including 90 percent of the first round draft picks. Are Black players getting that much better or are white athletes weighing the dangers of CTE and moving away from the sport.
“I will not sign legislation that bans youth tackle football. My Administration will work with the Legislature and the bill’s author to strengthen safety in youth football — while ensuring parents have the freedom to decide which sports are most appropriate for their children.”
CA Governor Gavin Newsom
In addition, a 2023 report by Utah State University found “Black football players are more likely to end up in positions carrying a higher risk of career-ending injuries and long-term neurological damage.” The study relied on data of more than 20,000 NFL players from 1960 to 2020.
From another perspective, according to the analytics company, Statista, the number of college players that actually make it to the NFL, at 1.6%, is astonishingly low. This means the other 98.4% of young players will never realize their dreams in this regard while it appears the risks they take as it relates to CTE are great.
For so many of these aspiring players, those dreams start early and often carry through their college careers.
The annual numbers in this regard are pretty astounding. According to Pop Warner there are over 400,000 boys and girls, ages 5-16, participating in their programs across the country. Add to that the 1.04 Million high school football players and then another 81,000 who play at the college level and it totals nearly 1.5 million kids, youth and young adults involved in the sport of non professional tackle football each year.
The question we need to ask ourselves is whether the sport of tackle football is worth the risk of CTE in the long run for our children when the great majority will never have professional careers in the NFL when there are so many other sports they can play.
Last year, Boston University CTE Center revealed how the hits players take on the field as they pursue their dreams of one day attaining fame, fortune and glory have a greater impact on their brains than previously recognized. Researchers found “repetitive blows to the head” could lead to less white matter in the brain.
This, according to the study, suggests the potential for “poor impulse control, cognitive difficulties and other thinking-related problems” regardless of whether the individual has CTE. These findings, published in Brain Communications, stressed how children, who start playing tackle football at an early age or play it for more than 11 years, are at greater risk for these problems.
The study further warned there exists a greater risk for brain damage later in life for those who start playing tackle football as children.
This begs an additional question. Is the sport of tackle football worth the risk of reduced white matter in the brains of our children and the possibility of brain damage later in their lives?
As might be expected controversy is raging regarding a way forward.
Legislation introduced in February 2023, by California Assemblymember Kevin McCarty and amended in committee on January 11, 2024, AB-734, would outlaw tackle football statewide for those under 12 years of age. This is McCarty’s second attempt to act on this issue. He introduced a similar bill that failed in 2018.
The bill is being met with strong pushback beginning with that of CA Governor Gavin Newsom. In a statement earlier this month he declared, “I will not sign legislation that bans youth tackle football.” According to Newsom, a ban is not the answer and favors a safety centered approach to mitigate the problem.
Previous legislation signed by Newsom and became effective in 2021, limits teams to just two full-contact practices per week for no longer than 30 during regular season. It also requires those who coach tackle football to be trained on concussions and head injuries. We should keep in mind many of these individuals are volunteer coaches, not neurologists, and then ask ourselves, Is this enough?
Newsom is not the only one who believes this legislation is the proverbial bridge too far. Other opponents claim it infringes on parental rights by taking away their ability to decide their children’s activities; that it would put youth tackle football players in the state behind those in other states; restrict access for some children to a source of exercise; and eliminate what some view as an “important” after-school activity.
Despite these protests, data shows participation in high school tackle football had declined in California, showing a precipitous drop of more than 18% between 2015 and 2022, falling from a high of 103,725 players to 84,626 players, according to the California Interscholastic Federation’s participation survey. There was however, an uptick in 2023, a moderate increase of 5% to 89,178 players.
California, is always heralded as a progressive state that prides itself on being the first on many important issues from saving the environment to offering health insurance for undocumented residents to outlawing food additives that lead to diseases including cancer, to name a few.
To date, not a single state in the nation has banned tackle football for children despite research that is warning us of the potential damage and impact it may have on their brains. Is it because the impact on the children is something that will not manifest until well into their future when no one will remember or link it back to the hits they took on the Pop Warner football field when they were 8 or 9 years old?
We are adults, and children count on us to make reasonable and prudent decisions on their behalf. These decisions should not be based on what is popular but on what is in the best interests of the children. Then again, child safety has never been a strong suit for this nation. It was just a couple of years ago that we watched as children were put in cages; many stood silent as kids in Flint, Michigan suffered severe health complications from toxic water; and, we lacked national will to pass gun control legislation even after witnessing the slaughter of 20 elementary school children in CT and more recently, in Uvalde, TX.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.
