Recently, a huge amount of attention has been spent on the subject of safer tackling in football. I am fortunate to be part of this national debate, as last month I participated in an edition of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” television series that dealt with the issue of USA Football’s Heads-Up tackling program. The debate regarding safer football has revolved around the issue of tackling and, to a lesser extent, whether or not any aspect of football can be safe. However, there hasn’t been much discussion about how to address the issues faced by youth football outside of the tackling issue. A first step must be to recognize that not every kid should/can play tackle football. Not every kid can play the piano or tap dance or tumble, so the notion that every kid can play tackle football has to be retired. And while there is no downside for a kid to pursue these other activities, there is the real potential for injury in tackle football. The most immediate action that should be taken is to raise the age for kids to be eligible to play football. The vast majority of 8-10 olds are not ready to play tackle football, and the case can be made that kids shouldn’t start tackle until they are 12.
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