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Pop Warner fans vow to block rush by Somerville mayor to ban youth tackle football
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Christ
Ain't nothing like government telling you how to parent your children.
Football = bad
Blocking highways = good
Your outrage is duly noted.
When you're finished, here's some light reading;
http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/09/01/pop-warner-youth-football-lawsuit-concu...
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/americas-most-d...
http://nypost.com/2016/03/08/pop-warner-football-settles-concussion-laws...
http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/15507908/donnovan-hill-pop-warne...
LIfe has some risk....
You can get hit by a car:
http://www.wcvb.com/article/pedestrian-hit-killed-by-car-on-route-128-so...
A crane can fall on you:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/04/04/three-dead-in-boston-crane-colla...
You can get hit by a train in Somerville:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/08/28/man-bike-killed-commuter-ra...
Hell, you can get run over by a bike messenger:
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8465786.html
Some people want to play football, some people want to play tag. I side with the parents here.
Good thing we don't have intramural coal mining.
It's risky but does build character.
Brace yourself for the other kind of astroturf
Many billions of dollars a year in big business are involved, and the industry knows it causes repeated concussion brain damage.
They need to fight the public awareness of that, at every level, including social media shill commenters fighting to keep children getting brain damage.
It's the Russian h4><0rz!
They hacked into all the UHub accounts that usually post against nanny-state BS and made them post more sentiments against nanny-state BS! It's brilliant. No one will ever suspect!
And the usual UH contrarians, who do it for sport
Now we're talking about head-smashing sports and butt-sitting sports. Neither of which is great for you, but the head-smashing is a lot worse.
The fact that this practice harmful to kids is being automatically defended by a bunch of people is one of the reasons that it might be time for the "nanny state" to step in: people are doing it automatically, without thinking, and it's harming kids.
Let adults choose what they want to do with their own bodies, but don't let them inflict their ill-informed pigheadedness onto kids, who cannot consent.
That's a great line of reasoning
Maybe that's why y'all always jump straight to it. I mean, if it works for cigarettes, soda sizes, and seat belts, it can work anywhere and everywhere!
What argument can't be won with "won't someone please think of the children!?"
This is a rare time it's actually about the children
This causes brain damage. Kids can't consent to it.
Boo. Hoo.
Today it's football, tomorrow it'll be another contact sport. Next week the driving age will have to go up to 21 and next month you'll need to have your house inspected bimonthly for sharp corners, secured cleaning chemicals, and covered electrical sockets.
Okay then
So long as you agree to pay the societal costs of brain damage to young people resulting from this sport being pushed down to younger and younger ages, we are all good.*
This includes health care, custodial care, prisons, mental health facilities, family support, food stamps, vocational training, and all other things needed to deal with the consequences of brain damage in people who may still live a full lifespan at reduced capacity.
*note that when my dad played football in high school in the 1950s, they didn't typically play tackle football until age 15 or 16. The JV squads played flag football.
Yes Swirly
It's called the cost of...there's an F word that I'm looking for. I can't quite place it, but its that thing where one person's idea of a global cost function isn't optimized but everyone else gets to do their thing without outside interference from busybody knowitalls...Ah! Eureka: freedom!
Let me see if I have this straight
Brain damage is the price of freedom.
Okay, now I think I understand you better.
And lung cancer
and suicide by firearm, and hate speech, and rapists going free on technicalities, and lots of other shit.
An old adage that often gets thrown at me is, 'mind your own business.'
If other people want to fuck themselves up, that's their problem, not yours.
You don't seem to understand that
There are two ways that increase costs when individuals decide to "fuck themselves up." It raises monetary costs across the board for health care, including health insurance, because the public at large spends more on health care, and, the societal impacts of large amounts of individuals decide to do behave this way, such as from a public health perspective. Quite frankly, you "exercising your freedom" ends up both "treading on me" and "becoming my business." You have to think in a really short-sighted or myopic way to see it otherwise. This isn't opinion, this is based in actual fact.
What you don't seem to understand
is that it is the height of hubris to declare yourself as the god and emperor who knows best for the ignorant masses who obviously can't take care of themselves.
I'm sure my taxes would be at their absolute lowest optimum per unit services received if everything were centrally planned down to the thread count of my bedsheets. Not!
The data, facts, and reality are available
Just read the thread.
Again, you libertarians love to talk about freedom, while also avoiding as much responsibility for your exercise of that freedom as possible.
You are beyond reasoning with because its all about what you "believe" and all about you right now. Meanwhile, the world is more complicated than you seem to be able to cope with - at least while still pretending to appear to be intelligent.
Cognitive dissonance really is your thing
How else could you go from accusing us "libertarians" (I'm a registered Republican, thank you very much) of being afraid to take responsibility for a "complicated world" and then in the next breath try to lord over the fact that it is a complicated world.
News flash, Swirly, the world is so damn complicated and not even you have a handle on it either. If you did, you'd understand why exactly it's a fool's errand to try to micromanage it all and you wouldn't be so cock-sure that have all the answers, not just for yourself but for everyone else too.
Incidentally, would you like a list of times when "scientific" consensus and facts and figures turned out to be not just wrong, but damn wrong? I promise I'll stay away from global warming, too.
somebody learned a new word
Now he's using it because he thinks it makes him look smart, but he doesn't understand what it means.
hahahahahahaha
I proved myself more versed in this debate than you and the first retort you offer is "WAH THIS GUY IS SMARTER THAN ME!" type insults. Grow up.
How about
If people want to fuck their children up. Is that also just their problem, not mine?
Tackle football is more
Tackle football is more dangerous than illegal aliens?
Really Somerville?
What's next a half billion dollar highschool to make the western suburbs jealous?
#priorities
Yes
"Tackle football is more dangerous than illegal aliens?"
Yes. Are you unable to do basic research?
Which square
Do you live near?
So It Is OK To Play In Traffic on 93,
But not ok for kids to play football with pads and helmets?
I used to like Joe. He seemed like the perfect blend of old and new in Somerville. He probably has a shot someday to pull off being governor at some point.
This may be a tipping point for Joe. If he wants to prove his mettle with voters statewide he may want to focus on this massive high school building project and the Green Line Extension, and take the advice of the youth coaches here.
Nearly all parents are, believe it or not, smart enough to make choices with their kid(s) sports playing. I steered my son away from football not because of the threat of concussions, but because I hate the youth football culture, but in the other sports he plays there are plenty of opportunities for concussions, just as much as ones on the gridiron.
If Joe is going to do this, make sure he gets the helmet that Welker wore with the Broncos for soccer for everyone for set pieces and switch the baseball teams over to whiffle balls and bats. We would not want the pitcher to take 5.5 ounces to the face at 80 mph off of the bat.
A lot of kids on Beacon Hill and the Back Bay have nannies, the good people of Somerville do not need their mayor making these decisions.
I like this guy. I like you.
I like this guy. I like you. Especially that last line about nannies. It's even funnier when they get nervous around a nice Dominican goofball like me walking past them despite them being minorities themselves.
Oddly enough, you're wrong
According to an NIH study:
Here's another study, specifically addressing concussions:
You're using validated peer reviewed studies and facts
That's so unfair!
And, yes, the government should have a say in this when you consider where people with these injuries will be getting their services and supports from for the remainder of their lives.
Everything Has Risk
Two Liverpool players have already gone off with injury since 10:00 this morning. Those poor guys. Too bad they didn't go to your freeze tag event, they would have been ok.
Some risks are unnecessary
Sacrificing the brain capacity of children to football falls into that category.
Let's just put you in charge, then
Since you feel so empowered to tell other people how to raise their kids, let's just crown you empress.
Your Majesty, given your wise and fully thought-out position on football, what is your stance on allowing children and adult children to ride their bicycles in traffic with cars? Given that there are so many injuries and deaths from this practice in our fair city--many more than from football--shall we ban bicycling too?
Yeah, you libertarians LOVE to talk about your freedom
Funny how you love to shirk your "responsibility" for the consequences of avoidable disaster and then its always about not paying taxes or being "privatized" or some such bullshit.
Why don't you put up money for insurance policies to pay for the damage that football does to people and we will have a deal.
Otherwise, us educated folk will be the ones shelling out the tax dollars to cover the tab for your damaged kids well into the future.
As for raising your kids, go ahead. But our society limits kids from driving and smoking for good reason - and should limit football risk, too.
What are you off about this time
Name me one responsibility that I've shirked. Just one. Any one. Even an unpaid parking ticket or an overdue utility bill. Good like finding any.
I pay my taxes and pay for my insurance policies same as you.
If I smoked (which I don't), I'd pay more for my health insurance. If I drove a cherry red Mustang convertible (which I don't), I'd pay more for my auto. And if I were a professional skydiver (which I'm not), I'd pay more too.
What you, Swirly?
Do you take out an extra policy when you go out into the woods to bag yourself a buck? Is your medical insurance higher or lower because you cycle to work?
Come on, now. In for a penny, in for a pound. Let's have a complete enumeration of why exactly you're better than everyone else. I know you want to.
Those are high school studies, not pop warner ones.
Also, pop warner does have secondary insurance policies for severe injuries. Each player pays a $250 premium a year I believe.
That is why this doesn't make too much sense to me when HS football is probably more dangerous than Youth football. Most of this has to do with weight limits at the youth level, as well as the general mass/velocity/force formulas you would adjust for for larger players at the HS level (my opinion).
Mostly correct
Youth Football is less dangerous than HS or college ball. However:
Your argument falls into the "yeah, but this other thing is worse" category. It's good that there's insurance, but it would be small consolation to me if my child were injured.
That's not my argument,
I was poking holes in his argument (And possibly Swirly's regarding insurance specifically paid out for youth football.)
I mean, girls soccer players don't pay the extra insurance, so that might cost the health care system more. Of course Curtano would never have the guts to call for a ban of girls soccer.
Curtano
Lol
Geez not this sh*t again...
Clint Eastwood was certainly right about today's society. Shielding our children from anything that can result in harm such as sports will only result in them not realizing that in life, you sometimes have to take risks in order to get a reward. Football is a sport that does instill discipline/confidence and exercise in an otherwise, sedentary society.
Not the best way to achieve those goals
There are far less damaging ways to be active, learn discipline, learn to balance risk, etc.
Smashing your head into things to make adults roar with approval isn't one of them.
I let my kids take plenty of risks that many of the local football parents thought were "way too dangerous" for their kids - things like taking the bus to Davis Square.
Kids don't learn anything from this sort of "risk taking" because it isn't a "free range" sort of risk - it is smashing into stuff in a structured environment.
I'll go ahead and make the unpopular comment
American football also has very little benefit to kids. They're getting much less exercise than in most sports. There's very little strategy, problem-solving or teamwork to be learned, unlike with most other sports. You go and smash into the person you were told to. Why would someone want to have their minor child play a "sport" that has very high risk and pretty much no benefit?
Eeka you have no idea what you are talking about.
No strategy? American football requires more strategy than any othe sport, what are you comparing it to?
Also, except for about 5-7 of the 22 players on the field, hitting someone else is something to be avoided at all costs for football players.
How do you determine that there is no teamwork?
The exercise comes from being in top physical condition, would you say a cross fitter isn't in shape because they only do 10 mi ute workouts?
I get it, you don't like the sport, but don't comment on it if you clearly have No idea about what it even is.
You can get strategy and teamwork skills from video games
Meanwhile, kids need more exercise and football doesn't do much for that.
Kids need their brains to work - football works against that.
You have no idea how much exercise they get.
To be in football shape is a kind of shape you need for basically any sport.
The funny thing is I grew up
The funny thing is I grew up in a football-crazy state and we never played football in pads until junior high. Maybe other parts of the country did the youth football thing, but it wasn't something we in the "good old days" did.
Where were you?
I started playing football at 9 and even the earlier level of football under me used pads. They were probably 7-8 years old. This was in NH.
Everything has risk
The press coverage of NFL injuries has everyone piqued, but we fail to understand that all contact sports have risk.
As a kid I played "tag football" which is supposed to be non-contact, but we still had contact, still fell, and still occasionally bumped our heads.
I also played street hockey with a wadded up ball. I got hit in the head and shoulders with a hockey stick more than I did playing football.
I once rode my bike into a light pole because I was not looking. I woke up in a baby carriage as a neighbor carted me home with my legs dangling on either side.
Not that long ago I watched a girl's Lacrosse game. Yup... one got whacked with the stick and went down in a heap.
As an adult I walked down some stairs at a storefront, the stairs failed, and I twisted my ankle. Got an ambulance ride to a hospital because they thought my ankle was broken. I got out with an Ace bandage and crutches.
So before we label football as a bad thing, next only to the Second Coming, let's reflect that everything in life has risk, sports organizers have a new mandate to be responsible, and parents should have choices.
And more importantly, if Mayor Joe bans it, these teams are just going to organize and play in the next town over, anyway.
Our nation has reached a point, somewhat thankful to social media, that we are over-reacting to press snippets and tweet snippets instead of doing our own learned research. It's easy to quote and link press articles to make your point, but is there a possibility that some of these press items may be slanted to the viewpoint of the writer or editor? Newspapers do this, both print and digital. That is their business, and sensational stories make for sold newspapers.
Stop, think, read, research, listen, make up your own mind as to what is best for you and your family. Please don't try to impose your values, politics, religion, or hyperbole on me.
I'll do the same for you. Pluralistic societies strive to do that, rather than homogenize us into one plain vanilla grouping.
Thanks ever so much.
ITT - Parents wanting to live their own fantasies
through their children
Book Rec
I loved Steve Almond's Against Football. BPL has it.
http://againstfootball.org
Way back before Boston Latin
Way back before Boston Latin added the rear addition, we used to play two hand touch on the blacktop out back during gym class (when I wasn't cutting) with absolutely no safety equipment. There is a high level of gentlemanly sportsmanship involved when such a hazard as blacktop is introduced to kids in shorts and short sleeve shirts. If we had grass to play on, we still would have kept it as two hand touch, but the aggression and risk would have increased. Point being, is that kids push limits and enjoy risk taking but pretty much know enough to be reasonable about it. I would say that self-preservation is the norm even in murderdeathkill sports. I am thankful the administration turned a blind eye to our unsanctioned gym class football games and I genuinely feel bad for any student that does not have the luxury of taking part in a competitive sport every now and again. I hate watching sports except the occasional football match and absolutely hate playing every other sport besides football.. well, this rugby season may expand my horizons.
No one I have ever respected has ever come up on the wuss side of the issue of banning "dangerous" sports.
Asinine
Next the City will ban cars, bikes, stairs, ladders, dogs, boiling water, bees, bathtubs, and peanuts. Only then will the children be truly safe.
Cut out the middle man
Ban procreation. Can't have child endangerment without children.
Also insert joke about gender fluidity or somesuch.
They should ban everything...
And I mean everything. Each time someone wants to do something, they need to schedule a hearing and arrive with facts, studies, charts and graphs in support of said request.
Our fearless leaders will then be able to pick and choose what is best for these people... it's the only logical way.
Youth hockey will be next...
This is a slippery slope. Parents know the risks and should be allowed to make the call. If Curtatone bans tackle football, youth hockey will be next and so on. I believe "checking" is allowed in youth hockey for kids 12 and up. Like any contact sport, sometimes injuries occur. After wading into youth football and hockey, what will be next? As noted above, kids probably have a better chance of getting hurt by MS-13 in Somerville than tackle football. Curtatone should stay out of it.
Interesting
The man who was just saying that the POLICE should open up a CHILD ABUSE file on parents who took their kids to a political rally is NOW saying OMG THEY WANT TO STOP CHILDHOOD BRAIN DAMAGE!!!111!!!!!!1!!!
I'd say "think about that", but someone is obviously too brain damaged to do so.
eh whatever.
so instead of TBIs from football they'll get them from looking down at their smartphones while driving a car or walking on the sidewalk.
making something against the rules/law doesnt seem to really protect people from anything.
i will be honest and say that i don't particularly care if people play football or not. the NFL is putting out one of the worst products it has in years and viewership (both broadly, and my own) is responding. so if their well dries up its no big deal to me.
the fact is that kids and teenagers find a multitude of ways to hurt themselves and removing the relationship between schools and football programs will not end football programs- and if you think it will, you might have suffered your own TBI at some point.
edit: hell, if the talent starts to dry up here, and i am an NFL exec, i'm going to every third world country and finding the biggest mofos i can (starting before they hit puberty) and molding them to be perfect little
slave soldiersfootball players.itll save a ton on labor too, since they won't have to pay third world joe flacco 20m/year to be mediocre. they just ship him back to craplandia, or kill his family, or whatever. basically itll just be exactly the way the system works now except instead of pop warner/high school/NCAA, the labor is outsourced. hell, when they underperform and their contracts are terminated, they won't even be allowed to stay here and mooch off the system.
its actually kind of beautiful in a sense. very roman.
How are you going to enforce the footballl ban!
Somerville is a sanctuary city so if you ban youth football and send in the Somerville Police to enforce the ban by rounding up all the kids and coaches in a dragnet don't you run the risk of illegally rounding up the sons and daughters of undocumented workers.
I played football for my MA high school,
and I got a lot of value and great memories from it. (Never mind that my greatest tackle was on a punt returner who had called for a fair catch and I didn't notice, leveled the poor bastard. I'll never forget the elation of that moment, then watching sideways as the yellow flag fluttered down in front of me. Coach was pissed at that penalty -- "You're supposed to be the smart one!" -- benched me for it. My teammates still cheered when we watched the film on Monday -- such a crushing hit! -- but I knew better. A life lesson.)
For all I got from those experiences, I'm not sure I'd let my kids play, given the recent science: there's lots of very new information based on studying the brains of deceased athletes.
My many friends with young kids are looking hard at sports where brain trauma, CTE, is a potential hazard: tackle football, soccer, ice hockey, lacrosse, to say nothing of boxing or MMA. Some have decided it's not worth the risk.
Can't say I blame them. It's one thing for adults to make those choices: if I had the talent, maybe I'd make the trade-off between short-term riches and long-term health. But I suspect that more and more parents are going to make the conservative decision on letting their kids play these hard-contact sports as the medical science advances.
I don't want to see those sports go away, but it seems like at the very least, on the professional level, there needs to be a better balance between the profits of owners and the welfare of the players. Junior Seau sure looks like a cautionary tale.