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Sunday, February 7, 2010

The most dangerous game
Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook suffered two concussions this season. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Amid all the usual Super Bowl hype this past week, an important, if sobering, public-health message about pro football was being delivered.

Time magazine devoted a cover story to what it called “the most dangerous game” and the punishing physical toll exacted in the National Football League, which has crippled retirees mentally and physically.
 

That’s a warning not only to the next generation of NFL players, but also to the millions of other young athletes who are unlikely to don shoulder pads after high school.
 

The House Judiciary Committee convened Monday in football-obsessed Texas for its third hearing on football injuries. While two previous meetings focused on the NFL’s inadequate efforts to prevent brain injuries, the Houston session examined risks faced by younger players.


Testimony revealed that no collegiate football conference has chosen to go beyond the NCAA’s minimal policies on handling concussions. The colleges’ half-steps to protect young athletes should not be tolerated.
 

Florida Gov. Charles J. Crist Jr. later announced a national initiative by the American College of Sports Medicine and a brain-injury foundation to promote state safety laws governing head injuries among young players. It seeks to replicate laws in Washington and Oregon mandating that coaches be trained in recognizing head injuries, athletes be pulled from play if suspected of having a concussion, and players receive medical clearance before getting back in the game.
 

If such laws take hold in other states, a good federal role could be to help schools manage the added costs. Toward that end, Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) is proposing about $10 million for “proper prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of sports-related concussions” in high schools and middle schools.
 

School sports boosters also need to get off the sidelines to help address the growing crisis of head injuries among young athletes.
 

Researchers estimate that young players suffer 140,000 concussions each year, and nearly half of them return to the field so soon that they face a grave risk of a further debilitating brain injury.
 

The youngsters emulate their NFL role models in playing a style of football that’s simply become too violent and dangerous. Yet their bodies cannot tolerate anywhere near the same battering without injury.
 

The tide seems to be turning, if slowly, on public attitudes about the risks of NFL-style play. Fans love to see a big hit, but they now understand the potentially lifelong consequences.
 

While the NFL dawdles over making rule changes that, as they trickle down, would safeguard players of all ages, scholastic sports officials must step up now with brain-injury prevention programs.
 
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