Mighty Mite Athletics

For much of the history of athletics with kids younger than high school, it has been widely believed that the impacts in contact sports such as football and hockey are not as great as they are in high school, collegiate and adult athletics.  This theory has come from the simple belief that because speeds are slower, the mass is smaller, and therefore, the accelerations are less.  What this theory has not taken into account very often is the lack of skill and experience in the sport that often allows older athletes to brace against and withstand these greater collisions.

Recently, a Virginia Tech research project looked at the forces in youth football by placing accelerometers in the helmets of various players of a local league.  What they found was shocking.  Stone Phillips of Dateline NBC fame, has recently published on his blog, StonePhillipsReports.com, a short video on the findings of this Va Tech research.  This video is worth the time for all coaches and parents of youth athletes in contact sports.

 

Picture taken from Head Impact Exposure in Youth Football by Ray W. Daniel, Steven Rowson, and Stefan M. Duma

The report reveals that children were suffering comparable g forces to those experienced by older populations in football.  The most disappointing part of this study was that the highest g forces were being experienced during practices, not games.  What makes this finding particularly disturbing was that coaches have a much greater degree of control over what happens during practices than they do over the action in games.  The harder hits should never be occurring during practices.

This research is too important to ignore.  To help get this publicized more, PBS Newshour gave the report air time and conducted an online chat with viewers that included Stone Phillips.  There is also a brief follow-up interview that is located on the same page that summarizes the same arguments of inexperience and lack of skill and strength that affect the young athletes.  The Concussion Blog, by Dustin Fink, also identified the PBS report to increase its publicity.

It is my hope that more research will be performed with children of these younger ages and that it will also include more sports than just football.  If our youngest children are indeed being consistently exposed to these high g forces while playing at their age, then we should reconsider how we teach the game to them.

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