Kids Playing Football and Brain Injuries
– During this time of year, there is a lot of football on TV and in stadiums around the country. I actually enjoy watching a good game, but I cringe every time I see a hard hit on a player. Especially when that hit is on the player’s head. Especially when it’s kids playing football.
Having studied brain anatomy extensively in my training and teaching of Cranial-Sacral Therapy and other techniques, I know how fragile and essential brain tissue is. I’ve worked on football players, including NFL players, as well as other athletes and non-athletes with brain injuries.
When I was in high school, we had a great intramural wide receiver, who helped my team win our flag football championship one year. His father was a doctor, and he wouldn’t let his son play tackle football until he was at least 16. After that age, he joined the varsity team and helped them win a championship, too.
My experience with my son and football
I remembered this when my son came up to me in middle school and said he wanted to play football. I told him the story of my high school friend, and my son agreed to stay focused on soccer, little league, Boy Scouts, and Taekwondo instead of football.
I realize that advising people to not allow their children to play tackle football until they’re much older is sacrilegious in many parts of the country. However, That’s exactly what I do every chance I get. The brain is extraordinarily complex and fragile, and the skull and dural fascia can only protect it to a point.
I am deeply thankful that I didn’t allow my son to play football when he was young. He excelled at those other sports and activities, and he never asked about football again. With the recent research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and the tragic experiences of many young athletes, my gratitude for that decision increases every year.
Upcoming ROLT CE classes
I describe CTE and what’s happened to some young athletes below. Meanwhile, I want to let you know that the Ray of Light Training CE classes for early next year are on the website now, available for registration. The classes include Muscle Balancing and Joint Stabilization, Direct-Indirect Technique for Shoulder, Arm, Neck, Head, and TMJ, and Cranial-Sacral Therapy. Online Courses and DVDs are also available.
As always with my classes, the earlier you register the better your chance of getting into the class and the less you pay. Several MTs have already registered for those classes. Click on the link above to see more and to register. Or call me at 800-584-1562.
Results of CTE research
The recent research on CTE shows that it causes the degeneration and death of nerve cells in the brain. CTE gets worse over time, and the only way to definitively diagnosis CTE is after death during an autopsy of the brain.
Several NFL players have died extremely young, some due to suicide because of the intense head pain they experienced that was untreatable. Many of these players left messages specifically directing that their brains be donated to science to help understand the condition and help other athletes.
The research was so definitive that a lawsuit from 4500 former players forced the NFL to settle for $765 million in 2013 because of its “lackadaisical approach to concussions and head injuries”.
One NFL player/client told me that when he was in high school and college (at the University of Arkansas), more than once he was hit in the head and lay unconscious on the field. A coach asked him a quick question or two as he laid there and then told him to go back in the game, regardless of how he answered the questions.
Nowadays, teams are much more careful about head injuries. However, the long-term effects on the brain for those who play pee-wee football on up through high school and college can be much more severe than the relief of a short stay in the concussion protocols.
What young footballers and their parents have to say
The New York Times published an interactive article about the research on football players who died before 30 years old, many of them teenagers, including some who committed suicide and asked that their brains be studied. Many of them had CTE.
Many of these young athletes left videos where they described the “demons” in their head after years of playing football. The web page includes these videos. It is hard to watch sometimes. But I urge you to read the article and watch the videos if you or someone you know has a child playing football or is thinking about it.
The following is a summary of that NYT piece
“The article begins with a heartbreaking recording that Wyatt Bramwell, who was 18 at the time, made minutes before shooting himself in 2019. ‘The voices and demons in my head just started to take over everything I wanted to do,’ Bramwell tells the camera as he sits in the driver’s seat of his car. He goes on to ask his father to donate his brain to be studied. Bramwell then tells his family that he loves them and says goodbye.
“He was one of the 152 athletes whose brains the Boston University researchers studied. More than 40 percent — 63 of the 152 — had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head. Of the 63, 48 had played football, while others had wrestled or played hockey or soccer. Some had never played beyond high school.
“In the interviews with parents, they talk about what they would — or would not — have done differently.
“There is a line between the love of a game and the dangers it presents, and even those who have lost a child cannot agree where it is…But as we learn more about what contact sports can do to the brain, it may be harder to justify letting children play.
“Although much about CTE remains unclear, the risks clearly seem to rise with time spent playing football or another contact sport. For that reason, many CTE researchers recommend that young children play only touch or flag football. Some experts believe tackle football should not start until high school.
“Other people, no doubt, will ask why tackle football exists at all. It almost certainly isn’t going away, however. NFL games made up 82 of the 100 most watched broadcasts in the U.S. last year. Both college and high school football are beloved rituals. Several holidays, including Thanksgiving, revolve partly around football.
“But if football is the country’s leading form of popular culture, it is also one that kills some of the people who play and love it. Figuring out how to make it safer remains an urgent matter of public health.”
Please share this blog post or the NYT interactive article with those who can benefit from it. We need to protect young (and old) brains as much as we possibly can. And let me know your thoughts about this subject.
I hope you and your family have a wonderful, blessed Christmas and holiday season.
Stay well, John
John Joseph Ray
Ray of Light Training
John is a Board Approved Continuing Education Provider through the NCBTMB
Member of the Fascia Research Society