If i had a 10 year old son, I wouldn’t want him playing football. Too much risk of long term neurological damage. Broken bones, cuts and bruises don’t worry me. They heal. But I don’t want my kid not remembering my name when he’s 45 years old.
If you want to call that a “feminist” position, then so be it. But there’s no doubt that the constant head banging that goes on in the NFL (and lower levels of football) isn’t good for the brain. Plenty of studies back this up.
Not to nitpick, but what NFL players don’t remember names at 45? There’s no doubt it takes a toll on the body at the NFL level, but I don’t recall hearing that type of damage.
My son started playing a 6 but stopped his freshman year in High school. I would have let him play but he wanted to pursue music instead. I am ok with either.
The point being that the city league ball was not very damaging. In the years that we played, I only saw one concussion and one neck injury that required an ambulance. The concussion was a straight up legal hard hit. The neck injury was to a girl player who was not fitted properly with her shoulder pads in my opinion. I did see a couple of muscle tears, several sprains and lots of scrapes and bruises.
I played football when I was a kid. Maybe I did suffer some neurological damage, but it’s about 1% of that the “medical marijuana” generation, begat by liberals, suffers.