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

Girls Soccer: Sport plagued by concussions

BY PATRICK Z. MCGAVIN

All Margaret Walker knew for sure was that she collided with another player.

Playing against rival New Trier in the quarterfinals of the Pepsi Showdown in April, the Loyola sophomore forward looked more like a boxer.

“I had a black eye and everything,” she said. “When I hit my head, I was also sick at the time, so it was confusing.”

It was later determined Walker suffered a mild concussion. She missed four games and joins senior Meeghan Smith and junior Madaline Hartmann as Ramblers who have suffered from concussion-related injuries.

It is virtually impossible to find a team, especially the elite programs, that have not had players dealing with such injuries.

The data is more than just anecdotal. The results of an 11-year study by the American Public Health Association determined that girls soccer trailed only football as the sport with the highest rate of concussion incidence (0.35 per 1,000 athletic exposures).

The same study showed that girls, when playing the same sport as boys, have twice the concussion rate.

“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.

With more and more teams playing on synthetic turf, the game has gotten faster.

The players, many of whom now receive year-round training and specialized instruction, have gotten bigger and faster. The collisions have become more common and more violent.

“Because girls have more room for growth, and we’re training people to be faster and stronger, there’s no way to make the head stronger,” Loyola coach Craig Snower said.“The force of impact between two players is greater than it’s ever been,”

“Girls are a lot more reckless than boys are,” Barrington coach Ryan Stengren said. “Whether it’s going for a ball in the air or on the ground, it would appear men are a little bit more in control. Girls just throw themselves around without worrying about the consequences. The girls don’t ever put on the brakes.”

Schools, coaches and parents have become more sensitive to the issue and have responded accordingly. New technology and medicine have also played a vital role. A decade ago, Lockport became the first Illinois school to implement the computerized cognitive testing program ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing), developed by the medical staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Measuring cognitive functions such as short-term memory, the test helps determine whether students are fully recovered and capable of returning to play.

“It’s not a panacea, but it’s great to have something like this to rely on,” Hughes said. “It’s a great tool to have rather than have kids lie to you about their symptoms just to get back on the field because they think they‘re indestructible.”

More players are wearing protective headgear, but there is no hard evidence that this dramatically lessens the number of concussions, Hughes said.

“We’ve gotten better educated and know more than we used to and coaches are much more aggressive now in taking kids out of the game,” Stengren said.

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Not enough for my tastes.

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I coach youth football that my son plays for the past 6 years (I know Bernsie I am an evil man). My two daughters also have played soccer for the same amount of time at a "traveling team" level. I can't speak specifically to concussions and it is not "quantitative" Bernsie but I can confirm the following... By far I have never seen as many young athletes hurt and torn up than in youth girls soccer.

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Elections have consequences.

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

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Glad I could be of help.

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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.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

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

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It would ruin the sport. Sports where people can use their hands suck. The world seems to agree with me.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm still wondering where bicycle riding falls in the list of brain injuries caused by sports.

My son plays football as well. This will be his 4th year. Needless to say, there is almost zero impact at this age and I imagine natural selection will remove him from the sport before the point of any danger.

Why has Gary Fencik disappeared from the chicago sports landscape? It might be interesting to hear his take.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

So soccer is almost as bad as football.

Ok

We live in a dangerous world. Pretty much everything our kids do exposes them to some level of danger. For instance, children spend way too much time on video games and watching television, which leads to a sedentary lifestyle. They eat fast food constantly, and in combination with a lack of exercise, they grow up overweight. This exposes them to chronic illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes, and other heart ailments. We get in a car everyday in high traffic areas. We let them ride bikes and skateboards, play at parks, near water. We send large amount of young people off to fight in wars. We'll send many of our kids to college, and they'll binge drink, smoke, and probably try drugs. They'll also engage in risky sexual behavior.

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. There is a balance to everything. I let my son play tackle football.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I wonder what pct of High School football players get one concussion? How many get two?


If a significant percent gets two, Id say thats enough to avoid that activity.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

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.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

One addition. The kid stops at the exact same age. So, it's football/smoking until 18 and then stop. Football/smoking until 22 then stop.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

You could always just move to New York City and let Mayor Dummkopf protect you.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

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

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

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Fire Phil Emery

BR, football for sure. The risk to the average kid playing football is pretty low. Most injuries would heal, and if my kid got a concussion, he would cease playing in my household. Smoking (IMHO) is part of a larger problem. People who smoke they know are slowly killing themselves and endangering those around them for what amounts to a bad habit. Smoking is also evidence that one lacks self control. One could argue that both are a form of entertainment, but smoking has no end game. Football has lots of positive aspects including keeping young kids out of trouble, building character, teaching teamwork and discipline, winning games, building confidence, exercising, etc, etc.

Again, just my take on it.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

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.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

except for jello wrestling, lingerie football and foxy boxing

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

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

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

We are probably living too long now anyway.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The dangerous part of "if my kid gets one concussion, he's done" is that they can go undetected.

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

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

That's why he is speaking hypothetically.

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No shit. I was saying there's no case in reality for it and brick said "of course there is". That's what I was disagreeing with and pointing out again.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul