they're all dying @ 60 bro

false.

yes. as the players who die become less obscure/more recent, you shall see.

I played HS football and wrestling and played basketball in college. I felt like wrestling and basketball offered the same benefits you listed from football.

we've probably learned more in the last 10 years about concussions that we have previously known ever before. Our ability to analyze the brain has grown tremendously with newer and newer technologies.

How did you wrestle in high school and jump to basketball in college? If you were a wrestler in high school you couldn't be on the basketball team because the seasons coincide. How could you get on a college bball team without high school bball experience?

Intramurals?

Good topic

The human body and in particular the brain is not made to take the constant beating it does during a football game. I imagine pretty much everyone agrees with that.

The issue for me is how long does it take to actually sustain serious permanent damage? Do we really have 50 years old that only played 3 years of pop warner that are confined to a wheelchair drooling on themselves? How much football does the average person actually play? Most people are done with football by the time HS is over with and to be honest most are probably done freshman or sophomore year. So I would guess in most cases the people that are affected by head injuries are the people who made it to the NFL or College level. Even if you could guarantee a 21 year old that his brain will be mush by 60 if he continues to play I don't think you are going to get many of them to pass up the opportunity to make big money in the NFL.

So I think the thought of football dying in America is overblown. Yes its not good for you health and every hit you take on the football field is likely pushing you closer to brain damage. Since the vast majority of people that play football will never see the worst case scenario I just don't see some crusade to end football happening.

Umm yeah that doesn't change that it already existed in the first place.

This debate is tough for me because I have suffered from concussions in my life, but I love football more than almost anything else in my life.

The biggest problem I see is the coaching. I coach a high school team in Toronto (OC, Oline and special teams). I go out of my way to teach the kids how to hit properly, how to take a hit, the symptoms of a concussion and the consequences of lying about it. I have also spoken to a doctor at the local ER about the team, and we have a deal that the students cannot take the field until he clears them.

The problem is the head coach. If a kid shows even the slightest indication of having his "bell rung" I pull him from the game and tell him he's on ice until he sees the doctor at the hospital. The head coach is a wannabe Lombardi who will ask the kid if he's OK, and if the kid says yes, he throws him back in there.

As the adults on the sidelines, it is up to us to tell the kids they are done. I educate them on concussions, but in the end, they want to play, so I make the decision for them.

I have no problem icing a kid for the season, or the rest of high school, if I feel it is best for his long term health. Unfortunately, it seems like I am in the minority in the High School sports community where I live. Most coaches are also teachers, so they will tell you that the kids' safety is the number one priority, but their actions don't back that up.

I fear that this brand of irresponsible coaching will eventually lead to an all out ban of a game that I love. I am guilty of being overly sentimental about football. I truly believe that I would have been a scumbag if it wasn't for the fact that my school had a football team.

On the other hand, I wonder if maybe I would not have been better off now as a scumbag who did not have 7 diagnosed concussions (mostly from football, but some from other sports) and multiple "bell ringings". I fear that I will start suffering from dementia at a very young age. My wife is convinced that I have already started showing symptoms, but thankfully, my doctor disagrees.

Ultimately I guess that what I really wish is that we knew as much about concussions twenty five years ago as we do now. My coaches were good, caring men, who would not have put me back into the game if they knew about how serious concussions were. They had an excuse for doing what they did, but coaches now do not. Maybe it will take a coach to get charged with manslaughter next time a player dies from a second concussion in a week.

Sorry that my thoughts are scattered in this post. Concussions and football have both played a large role in my life, and I have too many thoughts to put them down properly.

Exactly Golden_Rhino. The biggest safeguard against getting these concussions is teaching proper fundamentals in youth football and at all levels really. Not only do they have to be taught how to play the game correctly. But, ultimately it is the players responsibility especially when you get into the college and pro levels. Safer helmets are on the way i'm sure that progress has already began. Concussion rules are set in place which is a must.

That said though, helmet to helmet contact can't be avoided entirely. So everyone needs to know the risks that are involved when they get into Football. It's a dangerous and violent game.. always has been. Risks are high. Personally imo, I think anyone that has had multiple concussions and serious trauma to the head should not being playing football. There is a time to hang it up, and not everyone can play the same length of time.

As for yourself Golden_Rhino I hope that these prior concussions don't change your quality of life. And, that you keep coaching and loving the game and teaching these kids the right way to play.

Rhino I feel your conflict. I accept that concussions are a real threat to players - my particular concern is for youth players. It isn't common but youth players do suffer concussions. I saw one suspected concussion at a youth game last year out of 35 or so games. I saw two in high school out of 20 games (yeah lol sample size). In the 30 years I've been involved I know of one child that died although I didn't see the game or the hit. That was in a varsity high school game and the player killed lowered his head to hit a running back, suffered an anuerism the next day and died.

I also refuse to accept that the only way to prevent head injuries is to stop kids from playing in the first instance. I'll keep going out there every weekend in the fall, I'll be pulling kids who show signs of concussions and I'll keep up with the debate and evidence. The kids deserve it.

Concussions at the youth level are usually helmet vs ground

eh, i dont the "not many ppl are doing it" argument is very ethical. guess i could make a bad analogy here but ill hold up.

I played in a super competitive basketball area and got cut in HS. My first HS featured quite a few future DI guys. Ones you might've heard of were James White(drafted by San Antonio Spurs) and Isaiah Swann(played at Florida St). My senior year I switched schools, but my new school was 2nd in the entire state that year(losing to future NY Knick Michael Sweetney in the Maryland State Finals).

I went to a DII school right outside NY city and walked on to the basketball team.

I have no clue what you're saying in this post. Your first comment was that we always knew the risks. I then pointed out that we actually had nowhere near the knowledge of the risks as we do now. If you're now saying that those risks always existed then I agree, but that is a non-sequitur from our original discussion.

I'm not quite sure how practical this is. Having your bell rung is not an uncommon experience among people making tackles. I'd be worried you're gonna run out of players.

In the USA, I'm not sure if all these high school kids can afford trips to the doctor. Or maybe the team pays for it or the doctor sees them for free or something.

I wonder if it'd be possible to describe what it's like to "have your bell rung". It's an experience that those of us that played football are very aware of but probably sounds strange to people that didn't itt. Maybe I'll try to describe it myself when I have the leisure. Google was no help.

I've had 1 concussion in my life, from basketball. I've had my "bell rung" 2 or 3 other times from basketball. Only played from 4th-9th grade.

I had my bell rung 1 time in baseball, playing from ages 4-18. I was like 6 and i ran back on an infield fly and the 3rd basemen and I pumped heads.

Bell Rung for me meant that everything was foggy and I might not hear the way I normally do for a few seconds. All sounds were sort of blocked out for a 3-5 second period then I came back.

With my concussion, strangely I don't think I expierenced the loss of sound like getting my bell rung. I did feel really drowsy and felt like I had to puke after the game on the ride home.

Yes, i'm saying regardless of the natural advances in science in this area and the media exposure it is receiving. These risks have always existed. Football has always been a life threatening sport, and as a player you should know the risks everytime you step on the field. Maybe you didn't quite know in as much detail just how bad concussions were as you do now. Just like we won't know as much as we will 10 years from now... but I guaran-god-damn-tee you knew concussions weren't good for you. And, if you didn't someone should have told you. And, i'm not just talking the risks of concussions... i'm talking the risks of playing Football in general. You better know everytime you step on the field your putting your life on the line. This is why proper coaching is so important, and the teaching of fundamentally sound technique.

10 years from now they'll have even more research done, but this changes nothing without changing the way the game is played and how we deal with concussions. Both of which we are already seeing in the NFL and at the lower levels.

Alright, who am I kidding, I have the time. Having my bell rung:

It's 4th and goal for the other team. Even though I don't normally play defense I'm in there as an extra lineman on the goal-line D. I get off on the snap, fighting my blocker to a stalemate. The other team is running a HB power through the hole to my right. The fullback passes through. I see the halfback coming and do the only thing I can to stop him; I half-lean, half-fall sideways into the hole to block it. The halfback has his shoulders lowered the power through the line. The crown of his helmet hits me squarely right between the eyes. I have no forward momentum and the rules of football say the guy that gets hit hurts much more than the guy that hits. My bell is rung.

If feels like my helmet is vibrating furiously. Or maybe there are bees inside my helmet. Or maybe the bees are inside my head. My head feels like it's under great pressure, like you feel at altitude when your ears need to pop but several orders of magnitude worse. My jaw hurts. I'm fully aware of everything going on around me but regard it the same way I would if I'd injured my shoulder or knee; I don't care, my concern is with my injury which just happens to be my head in this case.

The buzzing stops. Players are pulled off of me from the pile. We stopped them. My teammates want to celebrate my great play. I don't celebrate as I'm not coming off a goal-line stand, I'm coming off that unpleasant experience. They probably figure I hurt something but don't know if I had my bell rung or if I got my wind knocked out or bruised a thigh. I take my spot in the now offensive huddle.

"232 trap, 232 trap on two, on two! Ready, BREAK!"

I roll my eyes realizing that because we're backed way up on our own 2 that coach Peters is gonna just run three up the gut and then punt. The guy's such an idiot.

I live in Canada, so trips to the doctor are free (I know universal health care isn't free, but you get what I mean).

The bell rung thing is a matter of discretion. A lot of players will have their bell rung during a game. It is up to me to decide if it's the blow to the head variety, or the you took a hard hit and had the wind knocked out of you and as a result you are a little dizzy variety. I will be wrong sometimes, but I will always look at it from a health standpoint and not a football standpoint. If I'm not sure, I pull him.

Most of my understanding of diagnosing concussions comes from personal experience. I would love it if coaches were made to have some kind of certification in diagnosing concussions. If not the coaches, who can get overly focused on winning, maybe have the refs decide if a kid should sit out or not.

I understand that I can be overly cautious when it comes to player health. I am sure that my team would have won a few more games over the years if I had left kids in who, in hindsight, turned out to be game ready.

If we lose a few extra games, so be it. I will always put player (kids) health over wins. If I was coaching in the pros, or possibly even college, I might have a different view of it.

I get that winning is important. I hate to lose. I lose my temper when we lose. I don't buy into the "we're all winners as long as we try" philosophy. If a kid tells me that his twisted ankle hurts, I'll tell him to cowboy up and play football. Ultimately though, I don't ever want to run into a former player and find out that he can't provide for his family because of constant migraines, or find out that one of my players suffered from depression so badly that he committed suicide.

Playing on a twisted ankle and learning to suck it up builds character. Playing with a concussion builds a lifetime of suffering, and can possibly lead to death.

I likely broke my highschool record for HBP's in the head. Was nuts. I'm pretty sure the helmets we use are a lot more protective than the (old) ones used by mlb...those just look so thin and light it's absurd. But yeah, only once did I ever have a headache after one of those and I obv took myself out of the game and ate from the bucket of SEEDS.

I also had a pretty freaky play where I was sprinting in from the outfield to catch a blooper and I slid/2nd baseman kneed me straight in the head. My head snapped back pretty hard, probably wasn't knocked out, just kinda laid there until the entire team came over, someone told me i looked liek ****, i told them to go **** themself, everyone laughed at me not being dead. walked off fine, meggggggga huge welt, but no serious headaches and definitely no concussions.

I've also been in plenty of dumb falls snowboarding, other baseball colllisions, all the standard dumbass stuff you do as an active kid. no concussions. have a pretty hard head i guess, but man a concussion is a serious injury just in terms of the force needed to cause one. I truthfully can't remember anyone getting one in baseball in the 12 years i played...though one time when i was 11ish on a tournament team a kid got hit in the face by a fly ball so maybe him, but no one else.



edit: one time a pitcher took a liner off his head and cried in the dugout with an icebag, so probably him.

I was standing on third and took a line drive off the melon. That one knocked me out.

damn even tommy lasorda gets out of the way from those

But not Mike Coolbaugh, RIP