Posted on 03/03/2016 1:15:49 PM PST by PROCON
Ivy League football coaches have decided to take the extraordinary step of eliminating all full-contact hitting from practices during the regular season, the most aggressive measure yet to combat growing concerns about brain trauma and other injuries in the sport.
The move could influence how other football programs, from the youth level to the professionals, try to mitigate the physical toll of football, which has been played on Ivy League campuses since the 19th century.
The eight Ivy League coaches unanimously approved the measure last week. Their decision is expected to be adopted formally once it is affirmed by the league’s athletic directors, policy committee and university presidents. The new rule would be in addition to the Ivy League’s existing limits on the amount of full contact in practice during the spring and preseason, which are among the most stringent in collegiate football.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I am if you are...
Well...in football you don’t get those unscheduled timeouts where the game grinds to a halt while two designated fighters try to punch each other’s lights out.
Ever notice that a hockey fight seldom breaks out where the puck & the cameras are? They always square off elsewhere.
Exactly! You beat me to it.
And all players must wear pink undies.
I believe the term is “Candy-@$$”.
You wait, in five years football will be outlawed altogether in many venues.
We shall have become France.
Ice hockey and lacrosse are next.
Noooooo, not soccer!
Actually, soccer would be pretty cool if they still played with the dried head of a vanquished enemy like in the old days.
Well we wouldn’t want any of the girls to get hurt now would we.
I had a feeling that this last Super Bowl might be our last.
And risk getting an eye put out? Maybe checkers would be better.
The conference that had the first college football game (Princeton vs Rutgers 1869) is making a mistake. When the players have to tackle in a game, there is much more chance of serious injury if they haven't been practicing proper techniques.
Heh... I almost wrote “With proper eye protection, in case of an errant shuttlecock.”, but I figured that would be over-the-top snark
And probably ought to wear padding in case of an errant racquet swing.
To save money, they could just wear their football uniforms , just substitute tennies for the cleats.
Please, please, stop with the common sense!
Freaking Pansies!
Play ceases in football after every 4-second play to show numerous replays while all the players mill around, and then there are all the lengthy scheduled commercial timeouts and challenges.
That’s why you can watch all the action of a football game in 11 minutes even though it’s on the air for 3 hours.
Yeah, all those delays, and every time a referee announces a penalty it’s his showbiz moment with the camera in closeup & his voice booming across the stadium like he was declaring,
“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!!”
;^)
Practice teaches how to tackle and how to take a hit. Without full contact the Ivy League players will be hurt in regular games.
Yes, yes, the Ivy League was founded in the attempt to diminish the influence of athletics on academics - like no more scholarships for athletes (so the athletes are given lucratively paying “jobs” on campus for which they have to show up to work for a whole hour each week).....
I played football in the Ivy League. I know the quality of play is not as good as the big-time programs full of All-Americans at the huge state universities.
But it was a student activity that was fun for the players and hopefully entertaining when the teams were well-matched.
You can reduce the days of full contact practice, but I don’t see how you can inure a player to the hard contact of tackling unless he experiences it during practices. It’s simply part of the sport.
I can’t imagine all the coaches voting for this change unless they were pressured by the Deans and Presidents whose only experience with contact sports is in their bedrooms.
Worse. The French love rugby.
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