Should My Son Play Football?

A lady stopped me this week and asked me "should I let me son play football?"  She went on to add "with all the injuries and concussions, I just don't know if I should let him."  Her son is really, really wanting to play football.  Flag football just isn't enough.  He wants to play "real" football.

Now, I happen to think that flag football is a great game and a great place for kids to start. It teaches fundamentals and gets kids out and moving in an activity that is downright fun.  I know.  I had two grandsons that just completed their second season.

But this little guy wants to put on the uniform and tackle somebody.  I faced a similar dilemma when my own son was growing up.  He had played T-ball and soccer but he wanted to play football.

I really wanted to hold him out until Middle School.  It wasn't that I didn't like the game available to 9 and 10 year olds, it was more about what I thought might be in store for him.  You see, he was always a big kid.  And football was a big part of our family's life and history.

I sort of knew he would play football (he did).  My hesitation to let him play wasn't about injuries but about burnout.  I was afraid that if he started so young, by the time he got to high school, he would be tired of playing football.  My game.  The game I loved.  The game that had given me so much.

So when he turned 9, I agreed to let him play.  From that point on until an injury ended his college career, he played the game that I loved.  Did he burnout?

Huh-uh.  Didn't happen.  He loved the game.  And despite a career cut short by a catastrophic injury, he still loves the game.  I asked him one time, the way his last season ended, if he would still play football.  He would prefer that it not have ended the way it did (a badly broken leg) but he has no regrets.

And I happen to believe that the good man that he has become is in no small part due to his experiences in football.  He took away all the things that team sports offer you.  He learned from the physical demands of the game.

 He was around some great men in the game.  David Ellis.  Tommy Bowden.  Tim Hammontree.  Men who demanded more of him.  Men who were more concerned with who he was as a young man than who he was as a football player.

But let me get back to this lady's question.  Would I be concerned about my grandsons playing football?  Sure.  Injuries can be devastating.  Concussions are serious business.  I've dealt with them way too much this fall.

I also know that we are much better at dealing with injuries and concussions.  Not that many years ago, if you "got your bell rung," once you seemed OK and knew where you were, back in the game you would go. 

Not now.  No way.  You are done until we can prove that you are OK.  I believe that in the long run, the way we do things now is going to result in far fewer incidences of the terrible and long term manifestations of injury.  I believe that modern sports medicine is going to mean that you recover more fully when those injuries occur. 

I believe that in a lot of aspects, football is safer.  We have athletic trainers and trained professionals at many of those games and available to most everybody.  Smarter decisions are being made.

But would I still worry if one of those grandsons plays football? Yes.  For sure.  I can't lie.  But I won't stand in the way.  How could I deny them the opportunities that I have had?  That my son has had? 

Take Care of Your Skin

I already know what my wife is going to say when she reads this.  "It's time for you to write about something besides yourself."

Just last week, I wrote about the strength training and fitness program that works for me in "Enough is Enough."  Not long ago, I bragged about my grandchildren, which are the best ever (just like yours).

But today really isn't about me.  It's about you.  It's about cancer and taking care of yourself and living long and well.  And this isn't about older people either.  It's about everybody.  More on that later.

So here's the story.  I went to the dermatologist this week.  I try and go every year.  I had a couple of places that needed to come off.  I also scheduled this blue light thing where more accurate mapping and diagnosis can be made.

I'm out in the sun a lot.  I keep a pretty good tan year round.  This time of year, I'm outside from 3 until dark-thirty all week, covering football practice.  Toss in time on the bicycle, yardwork/farmwork, and all the other outdoor stuff I do...well, you can see that I get a lot of sun exposure.

I use sunscreen all the time.  Check the desk in my training room in the MHS football stadium.  I guarantee you will find several different sunscreen containers.  During all this outdoor stuff, you will usually see a hat on my head.  I also like to wear a bandana around my neck.

Skin cancer is bad.  Melanoma is aggressive and can be fatal.  Other types of skin cancers that are untreated can become Melanoma.    It is likely that a lot of other cancers started with skin cancer and then moved elsewhere. 

Identified early and treated, most skin cancer is completely treatable.  Early identification means regular visits to the dermatologist.  I signed up quickly for that blue light thing because I have a lot of moles and dark places and because mapping of those things is a pretty inexact science.

But a whole lot better idea is prevention.  Protect your skin and it is far less likely that you will develop skin cancer.   Prevention starts at birth.  There is no age too young to be concerned about skin health.  There is no such thing as a healthy tan.  It's just unavoidable with a lot of people.  People who work outside.  People who play outside. 

And goodness gracious, don't you burn!   The trauma to your skin from that can and will come back to haunt you years later.  Just don't let it happen.

Wear sunscreen when you're outdoors.  Always.  Winter and summer.  Winter sun reflecting off of snow is just about as bad as summer sun reflecting off the beach. 

Wear a hat.  Cover yourself up.   Especially protect areas that seem to get more exposure, like your nose, the tops of your ears, and (especially for the follicly-challenged) the top of your head.

The old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is so true when it comes protecting your skin.  And be sure and make that annual visit to your dermatologist. 

Enough is Enough

I may be something of an anomaly.  OK...I guess I am for sure.  I get credit for a lot of things that I'm not but I am doggedly persistent in the pursuit of good health.   

I got an interesting  question this week.  It wasn't a rhetorical question either.  A fellow stopped me in our gym and asked me "when is enough enough?"

In the context of strength training, when do you quit adding weight?  When do you stop aspiring to lift more and more weight?   Do you exercise 3 days a week?  5 days a week?

When is enough (weight, exercise, dieting, healthy living...and on and on) enough?  I'll go ahead and tell you now that for me it is 7 days a week.  The pursuit of good health doesn't take a rest day.

I eat smart.  I ride my bike.  I do yoga.   I do strength training for my health and my performance (more on that in a minute).  I lift weights because as we age, we lose muscle mass rapidly unless we do something about it.

I still live an active lifestyle.  I hike, ride, paddle, and work on my small farm.  I work long hours and chase grandchildren around.   I don't see myself slowing down any time soon.  The rocking chair is definitely not calling my name.

I am determined to stay active.  65?  Yep, that's my next one.  Medicare eligible.  Doesn't mean a thing.  75?  Surely I'll still be riding my bike, maybe even whipping around these hills on my mountain bike.

I want to be one of those old guys that are described as "robust," defying their age.  I hope to prove that age is still just a number.  So I do a lot of stuff now that helps me reach that goal.   And I've been doing that stuff for most of my life.

So back to lifting weights.  Twice a week, as regular as rain, I'm in the gym.  My particular choice of strength training is CrossFit, mostly because it works for me.  It is also incredibly efficient so it fits my busy lifestyle.  But CrossFit is just a form of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) that has lots of names and faces. It works for me. 

I do lifts now that at 40 I never thought I would do again.  Like deadlifts.  And squats.  Lots of pushups and pullups.  And that's where this thing started.  I simply do not aspire to lift heavier and heavier weights.  On days that I'm feeling really good, I might add 10 or 20 pounds but my weight amounts stay essentially the same. 

I'm not interested in building muscle mass.  Because of my time on the bicycle, I have to be real concerned with strength-to-weight ratio.  These little 120 pounders can zoom up hills while I drag 60 more pounds up the same hills, usually far behind.  And there is no doubt that the fitness level that I get from CrossFit training helps me perform on the bike. 

I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.  Bigger biceps won't do a thing for me.  It's not exactly a "maintenance" program.  As I said before, age brings muscle loss.  And yes, maybe you have to fight harder to keep what you have.  But I'm a firm believer that persistence is the key.

You can't see-saw up and down, exercising regularly for a few months then taking a few months off.  That doesn't work for anything--exercise, diet, health habits.  Not if you want to live long and stay healthy. 

As for me, I want to be healthy, happy, and riding my bicycle well into my 90's.  Stay tuned.

Thank you, Mrs. Upton

More bad news this week.  I received word that Mrs. Geraldine Upton was gone.  I've written about Mrs. Upton here a couple of times through these many years.   I actually sort of wrote the same story twice.

I was a big fan of Mrs. Upton--I considered her a friend and a guide.  I appreciated Mrs. Upton not only for what she meant to the many, many students that she impacted in her role as teacher and guidance counselor but for the impact she had on me.

She changed my attitude on race relations and role models.  To put it most simply, she taught me the importance of being able to find a place where you weren't always in the minority.  Whether it be your church, your school, your friends, your neighbors, anywhere--she taught me that everyone needs to have a place where they look around and see people that are more like them.

Now this can be about how you think, how you look, what your interests are...many different things.  Minorities can be found in lots of different places.

Maybe it's how someone dresses or the purple in their hair or simply that they talk with an accent not found much around here. 

Take the kid (or the adult) that is into computer games.  If that is all that they are interested in, on some level that has to be OK.   But others might see them as different and as such they become a bit of a minority.  If they have a place to go where others have the same interests, they often find a home.

Who knows, they may go on to invent all sorts of things and become a billionaire and all. 

Now before you jump on me for minimizing the concept of being a minority, let me tell you that I know with absolute certainty that racial minorities are the most discriminated against segment of our population.  And that inequities and prejudice are still around us.

But what Mrs. Upton taught me was that we need to put ourselves in the shoes of others, to see the world from someone else's perspective.  Too often, when you look around and everyone around you is different from you, you feel you have nowhere to go.

A community, a group where you aren't in the minority becomes a safe haven, a comfort zone if you will.  I'm certainly not advocating  that anyone isolate themselves in that zone.  We have to live in the real world.  We have to deal with the world on its terms.  But isn't it nice to be home every once in a while?

The other thing Mrs. Upton taught me was the importance of role models.  Everyone needs someone to look up to, someone to admire and emulate.  Not long ago I talked about looking next door for your heroes.  Same thing for your role models.

But when those role models don't exist, what do you do?   We all have a responsibility to be THAT role model, to be THAT person.   You never know who might be looking at you wishing "I want to be just like him."

Know what it is like to live in a world where everyone seems different from you.  And BE the role model that you might not have had. 

Thank you Mrs. Upton.