I will wait another post before addressing the ‘physical harm’ excuse at the youth league level. I want to make sure something is clarified about my stance dealing with high school kids before moving on.

will take a page from Larry Vaught and his ‘Ask Larry’ section to reply to someone who posted a response. Frank McMahon responded to my most recent entry concerning the ‘physical harm’ excuse with a fair statement that I want to address. Here is Frank’s post:

The stats that you use are true, but very misleading. a better way to evaluate the risks of High School football vs teenage driving is to divide the injuries/fatalities by their respective populations. Your conclusion might still be true, but you cannot state that football injuries are less likely vs driving unless you compare the injuries vs the total number of persons at risk.

Frank makes a fair assessment here and he is also correct about what the findings would show. I used information from the National Federation of High School Associations that stated 1,071,775 athletes played 11-man high school football in 2005. I divided that number into the number 16 representing 6 deaths and 10 injuries causing permanent disabilities. The result was .000015 meaning that about 1 out of every 100,000 high school football players will sustain a life-threatening injury or die as a result of playing high school football.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that 44 of every 100,000 licensed drivers from the ages 16-19 are involved in automobile fatalities each year. This breaks down to one out of every 2,500 licensed U.S. drivers from the ages 16-19 will die in a car wreck. And, this is comparing only driving fatalities to both high school football fatalities and permanently disabling injuries. This is a statistical best case-scenario for those who would oppose my stance. As you see, the data greatly points to teen driving as the much greater risk when compared to playing high school football.

Now, I would also like to say something else. It is very easy to get too caught up in these statistics and miss a key point I was subtly trying to make. That is to expose the mindset in the U.S. of parents turning their cheek away from what is really the greatest daily threat that most teens face which is the roadways. For whatever reason, many people turn the other way to the riskiest behavior that teens undertake.

Allow me to pose a scenario to you. Let’s say that the KY Dept. of Education implemented 3 weeks of boxing into the high school P.E. curriculum for 2007-08. Students would be taught basic skills and would later spar with classmates of the same gender and of similar size and weight. Students would wear proper headgear and gloves heavier than what is used for golden gloves amateur bouts and only fight a couple rounds of 2 minutes a piece (which would be shorter than the 4 round Golden Gloves bouts).

Realistically, this would be fairly safe, as in 1996 the National Safety Council voted amateur boxing the as the safest contact sport in the U.S. based on quantity of deaths and serious injuries (behind football, in-line skating, gymnastics, etc.). But, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that 1 kid would die from this sparring and 14 more would be injured in some way. We would hear a public outcry of how brutal and barbaric boxing is for young people. However, that 1 death would be dwarfed by what happens to teens on KY roads each year. And this scenario uses the exact same population as would be driving and riding in vehicles. There was once a time in this country (when we were a much healthier nation than we are today) when boxing was a part of P.E. curriculums. Sure, students don’t have to box when their 25 years old, and they do need to be able to drive in our society. But, teen driving is responsible for nearly half of all teen deaths. Why don’t we try to do more to fix that problem? Why do we think it is necessary for teens to drive unsupervised all over the place? Why do we, as a society, not fully accept the riskiest behavior that teens (and even adults) undertake?

Yes, young people need to learn how to drive before getting a job and/or going off to college. However, couldn’t that be done through the following measures:

* a 16 to 20 month permit period

* a state-mandated ‘no drive period’ for 16-18 year old drivers from midnight to 6 A.M. on weekends/summer nights and one of 11:00 to 6 A.M. on school nights

* a limit on the amount of teen passengers that can be in a vehicle with a teen driver

Why is it that we don’t have hordes of parents lining up to demand changes such as these for the safety of their children? If it were the threat of disease, sporting accidents, and much more they would be lining up in bunches. Why don’t we fully accept this risk? These changes would certainly cut down the amount of teen fatalities and injuries from driving. It could cut down some on worries for parents. Why aren’t they demanded?

I do know one thing as a father. If my son chooses to play football then the time he is at practice, games, workouts, etc. will be one of the times where I will worry the least about his safety. But, the minute his mother asks him to take the 2 mile drive to Wal-Mart to pick up something she forgot is when I will worry. I will definitely be sweating when he is driving in the evenings. I can see myself having my cell phone close by at all times he is out.

As a football coach I know better than anyone that the sport of football is not for everybody. But, if you want to say that one activity poses a physical risk then you must be willing to acknowledge those that pose a much greater risk. This is why if a parent tries to talk their son out of playing football because of the risk involved then they shouldn’t let their son drive unsupervised or ride in a car with other teens. If they do, then they are turning their cheek to a much greater risk to their child’s well-being.

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