How dangerous is football

COPY OF EMAIL TO PARENTS REFENCED IN THE POST ABOVE


Hello parents and players,

Since we have had to change some of our off season scheduling by the new state rules and since I have had several parent questions on safety, I have done a little research into the reasoning behind some of the rules that have changed.

Some things that I have found out relating to football (and some other sports and activities)

1. How dangerous is football?

a. (from the Seattle Times) It's probably safer than kids getting in a car and driving on the highway," said Dr. Frederick Mueller, who heads the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.
Statistically, anyway, there's no comparison.




According to numbers compiled by Mueller's center, the death rate for football players at the high-school level last year was 0.13 per 100,000 (there were no deaths last year in college football).
The death rate for male drivers between the ages of 15 and 24 years old, meanwhile, is 48.2 per 100,000, according to numbers published in 2001 by the University of Maryland Medical Center.
"What I don't want people to do is all of a sudden stop playing football," said Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, the chief of neurosurgery at Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington. "It's dangerous, but so is riding a bike, driving a car and simply living."

Ellenbogen's 11-year-old son plays football and the doctor says he "worries much more about kids riding bikes without helmets" than his son's safety during a football game.
Mueller's numbers indicate, in fact, that per 100,000 participants, football has a lower death rate than hockey, gymnastics, lacrosse and baseball, and much lower than competitive skiing.

b. (from NFHS) Injuries for high school and college cheerleaders have more than doubled since the early 1990s, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, with the estimated number of emergency-room visits spiking from fewer than 12,000 in 1991 to about 28,000 in 2004. And no other sport comes within shouting distance of cheerleading in terms of major injuries, such as spinal and head trauma, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research, which is based at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Of the 101 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes between 1982 and 2004, 55 percent resulted from cheerleading—more than every other sport combined. Dr. Frederick Mueller, director of the center, puts it plainly: "There's no doubt that [cheerleading] is the most dangerous women's sport."
SOME WOULD SAY CHEERLEADING IS THE most dangerous sport, period. Recent statistics from the National Collegiate Athletic Association suggest that it may be even riskier than football, the sport it was created to support. Last year, the NCAA's Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program found that 25 percent of its claims for college student-athletes since 1998 have resulted from cheerleading. "[That is] second only to football, and football was not that far ahead of it," says Juanita Sheely, NCAA travel and insurance manager. When you consider the ratio of college cheerleaders to football players—about 12 to 100, estimates Sheely—that 25 percent figure is shocking.

c. (from NFHS) Over the past three years of study according to the National Federation of High School reports on sports medicine the highest incidences of major injury per 100,000 participants have been in cheerleading for women and soccer for men.

d. (from NCCSI) HEAT RELATED CONCERNS
A major concern in football fatalities has been the number of indirect deaths due to heat stroke, both at the college and high school levels. This number is unacceptable since heat stroke deaths are preventable with the proper precautions. Every effort should be made to continuously educate coaches concerning the proper procedures and precautions when practicing or playing in the heat. In the Annual Survey of Football Injury Research – 1931-2006 there are recommendations for safety during football activity in hot weather. New regulations by the National Collegiate Athletic Association for volunteer summer conditioning programs and pre-season football practice went into effect during the 2003 season and it will be very interesting to see how they effect heat related injuries at the college level.
TABLE 4:
HIGH SCHOOL FALL SPORTS
INDIRECT INJURIES PER 100,000 PARTICIPANTS
1982-1983 - 2005-2006
MALE / FEMALE

SPORT FATALITIES NON-FATAL SERIOUS
CROSS COUNTRY 0.37/0.22 0.00 0.00
FOOTBALL 0.49/0.0 0.00 0.01
SOCCER 0.39/0.13 0.00 0.00
WATER POLO (1992-94) 1.63 0.00 0.00


2. MOST OBVIOUS CONCLUSIONS

a. HEAT AND CONDITIONING - It is of primary concern based on all these numbers to be sure that the players (in any sport) are in condition and have time to acclimate to the heat. This is real information that indicates that the off season and summer conditioning are essential for the players safety. Heat injuries account for a greater and greater percentage of total injuries in high school sport. Conditioning, and to some degree weight training, are the
primary methods to reduce the rate of occurrence.

b. Football is NOT the most dangerous sport. According to many studies, soccer and cheerleading (on a national basis) have moved past football in per capita serious injury at the high school level. (Just look at the heat related catastrophic injury table above) There are more injuries in football, and there are more people playing it at the high school and jr. high levels nationally, but on a per player percentage football is not the most dangerous high school sport.

c. Many more serious injuries occur when teens ride in cars than do when they play any sport. In real life, it is more dangerous for a teenager to be in a car, then it is for them to be on a football field, or a soccer field, or a basketball court, etc.

d. Continued education of coaches, parents and players is the key to playing as safely as possible.

e. IT IS MY OPINION that our coaches at our school do an awesome job across the board in these areas. We can all improve the conditioning of our athletes as a whole, and you parents can help too. But I don't believe for a moment that a big part of the reason we have avoided catastrophic issues in our sports programs is that God has blessed us all with coaches who are working hard to teach our students how to play the games the right way.

If anyone has any questions, please let me know.

PLEASE - have your kids participate !!

God Bless