Soccer Head Games
September 1, 2015
I have been trying to get our soccer purists in Michigan to consider – to at least talk about – less head-to-ball contact – at least at the junior high/middle school level. I’ve had very little success. Apparently I lack credentials to offer suggestions about the “beautiful game.”
Recently, people who do have the credentials that I apparently lack have given credibility to my concerns, including a host of former World Cup champions led by Brandi Chastain, who are supporting Safer Soccer which says banning heading for participants under 14 years old (especially females) is a “no brainer.”
Launched in 2014 by Sports Legacy Institute and the Santa Clara University Institute of Sports Law and Ethics, the goal of Safer Soccer is to educate the soccer community that delaying heading until age 14 or high school “would eliminate the No. 1 cause of concussions in middle school soccer and is in the best interest of youth soccer players.”
The danger is both in the head-to-ball contact and the head-to-head contact by two players competing to head the ball.
There are legitimate differences of opinion on this topic, as well as absurd claims of some that this campaign is intended to give back the hard-fought gains of women in sports, and equally bizarre blather of others that this is intended to keep the sport of soccer in a place of secondary profile in the U.S. If we can get past that nonsense, perhaps then we can have an adult debate about children’s health.
Recently, people who do have the credentials that I apparently lack have given credibility to my concerns, including a host of former World Cup champions led by Brandi Chastain, who are supporting Safer Soccer which says banning heading for participants under 14 years old (especially females) is a “no brainer.”
Launched in 2014 by Sports Legacy Institute and the Santa Clara University Institute of Sports Law and Ethics, the goal of Safer Soccer is to educate the soccer community that delaying heading until age 14 or high school “would eliminate the No. 1 cause of concussions in middle school soccer and is in the best interest of youth soccer players.”
The danger is both in the head-to-ball contact and the head-to-head contact by two players competing to head the ball.
There are legitimate differences of opinion on this topic, as well as absurd claims of some that this campaign is intended to give back the hard-fought gains of women in sports, and equally bizarre blather of others that this is intended to keep the sport of soccer in a place of secondary profile in the U.S. If we can get past that nonsense, perhaps then we can have an adult debate about children’s health.
Fracking in School Sports
May 1, 2015
First there were rumors, then there were reports, and now there are beginning to be results from geological surveys warning that the process of fracking in oil and gas exploration and deep ground extraction is increasing the frequency of earthquakes in several parts of the United States.
I want to say, “Duh! How could it not?” Why would it surprise any rational human being that the delicate blue marble we inhabit would not get off kilter when we bore deep into the surface with drills and explosive charges and then pump water at high pressure into the tunnels we create and the crevices we exploit? When I put that picture in my mind, I shudder.
Often I picture the world of school sports like this marble we inhabit. Sometimes I see exploiters drilling deep into our core, dropping explosives, applying pressure, and extracting what they believe are valuable resources while laying waste to everything else, including very much that is very precious to very many other people – in fact, to most athletes, coaches, administrators, officials, parents and spectators.
We should pay attention to the times when we feel our foundation shaking, even just a little. We should make it difficult for the exploiters to extract our elite, especially when they disregard and lay waste to everything else that holds our world – educational athletics – together.