Girls just throw themselves around without worrying about the consequences.

thanks for the info conns. Now I have more talking points regarding my decision not to get my kids involved in organized sports.

All you animals who let your daughters play soccer should be ashamed of yourselves!!!

It's time to make headers illegal at the high school level and below. I wouldn't let my son play football and I won't let my son or daughter play soccer with this information.

Why not just allow the use of the hands? That seems like it would make the game much safer.

“Soccer has always had a very high rate of concussions,” Naperville Central athletic trainer Bill Hughes said. “I’ve had two goalies concussed by hitting their heads on the goalposts. More and more of the girls game is played in the air, and the most common occurrence are two girls going for the ball and hitting their heads,” he said.

The point- our lives are filled with risks. You should still try to protect your children, but let's not fool ourselves with the general level of dangers in every child's life.

It's a miracle the human race survived long enough for this generation of perfect parents to come along at all.

So the takeaway from this story is that girls can't play sports right?

Humans are pretty resilient. We survived bloodletting, leeches, and using cancer causing asbestos. We can survive the outdated practice of trading constant head trauma for a win in a sophomore game.

Thought question of the day.

Would you rather have your kid play football at the age of 14 or smoke?

I think a strong case could be made that smoking is the better option. At least that damage is somewhat reversible.

Maybe in a hypothetical world. In reality there's not even a weak case that can be made that smoking is better.

Of course there is. Keep in mind we are talking about both activities being quit at the end of high school. We aren't comparing someone who smoked their whole life. If someone played football from age 16 to 50 they'd likely have worse health than someone who smoked that whole time.

1) Most smoking damage gets better if you stop. The lungs can heal quite nicely. The brain doesn't really heal itself.
2) Very few, if anyone has significant health issues during the first 4 years of smoking. Of course there are some minor issues. Have you ever known someone to have to quit smoking within the first four years of usage because of medical reasons? I know people who did for football.
3) The risk for catastrophic injury is almost 0 for smoking for the first few years. It can happen on day 1 of football.
4) Football brain injuries sometimes don't manifest themselves until much later in life. This is true of smoking too, but it's rare for someone who quit at the age of 18 to deal with issues.

It's just a thought experiment.

That's a hypothetical world argument. In the real world there's a great chance your kid doesn't quit smoking.