So, maybe you are a youth league coach or you are simply involved in a league in some capacity. You have all heard certain parents say that they will not allow their child to play football for the fear of injury. Just, in case, you wish to share some thoughts concerning your stance; here is some information that will come in handy.

The Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma in New York has reported the following based on research:

* Organized football among 5-15 year-olds has 12% fewer injuries per capita than organized soccer in the same age range

* Organized football among 5-15 year-olds has 50% fewer injuries per capita than organized bicycle riding in the same age range

* Organized football among 5-15 year-olds has 74% fewer injuries per capita than organized skateboarding in the same age range

* Following a study of 5,128 youth football players it was concluded that less than 1 player per team will experience a major injury.

The famed Mayo Clinic completed a study on the issue and the following was concluded:

“Our analysis showed that youth football injuries are uncommon,” said Michael J. Stuart, M.D., a Mayo Clinic Orthopedic surgeon and the principal author of the study.

* Dr. Stuart and his colleagues studied 915 players aged 9-13 years old. The found a total of 55 injuries for this particular season among the group. An injury was defined as any football-related ailment that occurred on the field during a game that kept a player out of competition for the remainder of the game, required the attention of a physician, and included all concussions, lacerations, as well as dental, eye, and nerve injuries.

* Most of the injuries were mild and the most common type was a contusion, which occurred in 33 of the 55 cases.

* Only 4 of the 55 injuries were severe enough for the player to have to sit out the remainder of the season.

* This study, which has appeared in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found that the data for athletes in grades four through eight indicated that the risk of injury in youth football does not appear greater than the risk associated with other recreational or competitive sports.

For whatever reason, many parents feel that soccer is a safer alternative to football. Here is some interesting information concerning that idea:

At a U.S. sports medicine conference held in the early 1990s, American attendees were concerned about the number of anterior cruciate ligament injuries they were seeing in football players. “You should be worried about the soccer ACL injuries you’ll be seeing as the sport becomes more popular,” a European surgeon warned, recalled conference attendee Tim McGuine, PhD, LAT, senior athletic trainer and research coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Health Sports Medicine Center in Madison. In Europe, where soccer was already extremely popular, ACL injuries were quite common.

“The comment struck me as odd at the time,” McGuine recalled. “I filed it away.”

McGuine and other sports medicine practitioners now know that the European surgeon was quite right.

“Soccer is the number one activity that brings people into our clinic,” McGuine said recently.

Twenty-two percent of patients under 18 who seek treatment at his center are suffering from soccer injuries, he said, with around 45% of those patients having injuries to the knee.

** The above information concerning soccer was written by Lori Rochelle Roniger and published by Bio Mechanics under the title “A kick in the grass? Sports Medicine, youth injuries, and soccer.”