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?