There, I said it.

Some sort of blasphemy here in the United States, I’m sure.

I’m not a fan of either college or professional football, and never have been.  I grew up in an area that did not in any way revolve around football the way many towns do, so perhaps geography plays a large part.

I don’t care so much about adult football players, they are of course adults, and can choose to do what they wish.  It’s all the young football players out there, getting repetitive brain injuries that really get my goat.

I cannot understand for the life of me why parents willingly sign their children up for this violent sport.  And the banners around town can say “touch” football all they want, everybody knows they still tackle each other.  Indeed, are encouraged to tackle each other.

I will never forget in kindergarten when a classmate of my son’s was absent for almost a week.  When he came back to school, I asked his mom if he was OK.  She told me a harrowing tale of how he sustained a neck injury in football practice (he was 5!) that could have led to him being paralyzed if he hadn’t received immediate medical attention.  And yet, he still was back to playing as soon as the doctor signed him off!

I understand that in any sport, there are physical risks that come with the territory.  But in football, it just seems like you are asking to be injured, and it’s abnormal if you have never been.

My husband played football all through high school, and he has absolutely forbidden our son to play football until he is at least of high school age.  Which pretty much means he won’t ever be on a football team, because most people don’t just walk onto the football field without ever playing and make the team.

I’m totally fine with that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2012 at 2:26 am by Glinda and is filed under Boys Will Be Boys, Kid news, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.