So much for Pee Wee football

[DeGrozz]

I know that there are quite a few young parents on this forum, so I wonder if they have similar experiences as me -- I have a son that's a toddler, and I have had the topic "Are you going to let your kid play football?" brought up to me almost an uncountable number of times in casual conversations.

Whether the truth is that we are overreacting or if it is absolutely true that it is unwise to let your child play football (and truthfully, it's probably somewhere in-between), the vast majority of dads that I know and regularly interact with at least hope that their kids choose to play soccer, basketball, baseball, tennis, athletics (track, cross-country, etc), or whatever. Granted, the crowd that I run with is primarily either 30-something white collars or hispanics in the NYC area, but based on that demographic the outlook isn't great.

From talking with a lot of other parent's two decades older than me, it sounds like this was never even a question...

 

[st_machine]

I'm skeptical about this. Little kids are slow and weak. The collisions aren't that bad. Banning hitting when they are too weak and slow to do damage but allowing them to hit when they're strong and fast seems like doing something for the sake of doing it. Maybe the answer is to let kids play football and have fun until they're teenagers and then ban this stupid game after that.

I played pickup footballball all the time with my friends as a kid with no pads no pads and i didn't suffer no any drain bramage.

there was a two week span where everyone seemed to grow and kids were getting hurt bad where we all said NO MAS. then i played a safe sport like soccer where i got my brain and kidneys kicked in

i totally agree.both my kids played from 3rd-8th grade pop warner. very rarely saw an injury: occasional sprained ankle or wrist...no broken bones. ...until...
the program switched leagues when my younger son was in 7th grade.switched from pop warner to AYF.also switched from an age and weight based league to a grade based league.that yr we actually had a team forfeit a game because too many kids were out with concussions.you had 100lb kids going up against 180lb kids. a recipe for disaster.transferred my kid to an age/weight league the next yr. generally at the younger level the kids just bounce off each other.i think the kids benefit from 2 hrs a day, 4 day aweek practice in august..no other youth sport like it.teaches the kids disciple and teamwork. and its a great place to learn how to get knocked down and get back up again and keep fighting. The coaches in that attached video should be banned for not teaching the kids not to lead with their helmets. thats criminal not to teach the kids the right way to play.

 

[Hoo's That]

i totally agree.both my kids played from 3rd-8th grade pop warner. very rarely saw an injury: occasional sprained ankle or wrist...no broken bones. ...until...
the program switched leagues when my younger son was in 7th grade.switched from pop warner to AYF.also switched from an age and weight based league to a grade based league.that yr we actually had a team forfeit a game because too many kids were out with concussions.you had 100lb kids going up against 180lb kids. a recipe for disaster.transferred my kid to an age/weight league the next yr. generally at the younger level the kids just bounce off each other.i think the kids benefit from 2 hrs a day, 4 day aweek practice in august..no other youth sport like it.teaches the kids disciple and teamwork. and its a great place to learn how to get knocked down and get back up again and keep fighting. The coaches in that attached video should be banned for not teaching the kids not to lead with their helmets. thats criminal not to teach the kids the right way to play.

Not basing a youth league on weight is asking for trouble. Like I posted before, when you get into HS there are numerous situations of huge, future D-1 linemen going up against buck-50 linebackers whose college football future is playing IM flag.