High School Football.. a good way to ruin your brain

These concussion studies on the effects of playing football are shocking, and as bad as the pros have it - a concussion by a young kid is much more damaging than a full mature male. Since their brains aren't developed fully, you're just asking for trouble. One thing I think that is overlooked is that there's been a lot of kids killed while playing the game of football and we just kind of sweep in under the rug. And there's this statistic...

It's just one sad data point in what truly is an epidemic of head injuries — an estimated 55,000 concussions in high school football in 2005-06 alone, according to the Journal of Athletic Training. Teenagers' heads, already chock-full of hormones, confusion and dancing images of Megan Fox, are being battered around on the football field, their brains sloshing inside their skull like the coffee in your mug when you take a turn too fast. If you watch Brian Westbrook or Jahvid Best being helped off the field by a team of trainers and doctors, you're seeing exactly what our high school and youth players lack: trained professionals who at least have a basic protocol for dealing with concussions.

Good point. Whereas NFL and college players have a full medical staff to see these things - a lot of high school players are at the mercy of their coach, who's sometimes just a guy reliving his glory days on the gridiron and couldn't give a damn about his players mental health. Seriously, I've seen this first hand - you can't immediately trust the judgment of every coach. Bad coach - terrible situation.

I understand there are a lot of coaches out there that are concerned about their high school players well-being, they still might not have to training or resources to determine if a kid has a concussion. So good coach - bad situation - the player still in the end loses.

And again, this issue is just ignored or under reported. I personally would like to see some sort of nationwide board that would enforce the utmost requirements for equipment (if you can't afford to protect your kids, your can't play football) and coaches (buttloads and buttloads of training, along with a representative constantly monitering how they treat their players).

I know this is a pipe dream, but there are just some terrible things going on with high school football players, probably more so than in the pros which has gotten the majority of the headlines.