Supporters of banning youth tackle football in Massachusetts say the “NO HITS” bill before the Legislature would protect kids from brain disease, while opponents argued Pop Warner football is safer today and a tackle ban would be a case of “tremendous” government overreach.
The bill, “An Act for No Organized Head Impacts to Schoolchildren,” would bar children from playing tackle football before eighth grade in Massachusetts.
Children who start playing tackle football at 5 years old are 10 times more likely to develop Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy than those who wait until age 14, according to a new Boston University study cited at Tuesday’s hearing. Even safety advancements in tackle football will not prevent long-term brain impacts, said Robert Stern of BU’s CTE Center.
The medical experts backing the bill cited the new BU study — revealing that the single factor increasing the risk of the brain disease CTE was the amount of years playing tackle football.
“Football is to CTE is what smoking is to lung cancer. The more you do it, the longer you do it, the greater your risk,” Chris Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation told members of the Joint Committee on Public Health at the State House.
“We can’t give children a brain disease just to play sports,” Nowinski added. “It’s not fair to them.”
“Unfortunately those big helmets, even the newest and biggest, cannot protect the brain from moving and stretching rapidly inside the skull with each of those hits,” Stern said.
Angela Harrison’s father played football for seven years. He suffered from stage 4 CTE and had a “nasty battle” with dementia before he died at 65.
Harrison on Tuesday gave testimony for Attleboro mother Jessica Stanley, whose 14-year-old son took his own life after sustaining 25 concussions from football. Her son Justin started playing football as a 6-year-old.
“I had no idea about the long-term effects of the hundreds of hits that my son was taking and sustaining each season,” Stanley wrote. “Knowing what I know now, I never would have exposed my son and his developing brain to tackle football at the age of 6.”
But bill detractors said a ban on youth tackle football misses the mark.
“The game’s safer today than it’s ever been,” said Scott Hallenbeck, of USA Football, noting the “substantial reforms” in player safety.
“Education is changing behavior for the better,” he added.
Pop Warner’s Jon Butler said the youth football organization has taken numerous safety measures, including eliminating kickoffs, restricting contact at practice and banning full-speed head-on tackling drills.
“Would you rather these kids play pick-up tackle football games at a local park without equipment, coaching supervision or instruction? Or are they better with the adult oversight and rules that we are all implementing?” he said.
Paul Dauderis of the Massachusetts Youth Football Alliance questioned the BU research that’s being cited to support the tackle football ban. He called it “incomplete” and claimed it used “extreme selection bias.”
“Banning youth tackle football is a tremendous overreach into the rights of parents to allow their children to play a game,” Dauderis said.
