Never really thought of youth football as part of the fabric of Chicagoland, anyway. Let other places be football factories and we can devote our attention to baseball and basketball (and hockey where applicable, though US high school hockey is a dead end outside Minnesota).

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Does persistent sub-concussive head trauma happen in nearly every sport?

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It's funny(or I guess maybe not, depending on your humor) looking back on my peewee days. When I was in the 10/11 age group or around there, they used to line us up in two lines facing eachother and the only drill was to basically smash our helmets into eachother as hard as possible when the whistle blew. Still not quite sure the purpose of it but it may explain some of my posting.

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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

Hate to break it to you..but Ice Hockey ain't far behind football.

I only played JV in HS. I was terrible. I only got to play because I actually learned the plays. I got hit in the head a lot..believe it or not.

Also, I'm not forcing my son to play football, he loves it. He plays baseball too, but he just doesn't have the great hand/eye coordination for baseball. It's just really, really, hard to make high school or elite travel teams these days. Everybody is playing that and not football.

Football is life. Baseball is my first love but I rarely watch games that don't involve the Cubs or Sox during the regular season. When it comes to the NFL I would watch the Browns and Jaguars.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

If football dies at the high school level it will be devastating. The logistics alone allow most high schools to take all players which is awesome. No they might not start, but just the concept of "being on a team" is uplifting to these kids. What happens when you take this away?

Man, I would fuckin love a Browns/Jags game right now. Kickoff tonight seems like it's still months away.

_________________
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

Most of the brains being saved will grow up to not be worth much anyway

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

We also could steal from baseball and start importing players who are actually good rather than relying on the Schwarber-types.

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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!

uh, you do something else like 90% of the student body?

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

There are a lot of educated football players.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

For whatever reason hispanic folks don't take well to football. They're either running into their teammates's asses and fumbling or murdering multiple people and not being allowed to play anymore.

_________________
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

I didn't have much more time than that but here goes. I have watched my son play 7 on 7 the last four years in the HS program that exists when "football" is not officially happening. There is literally nothing for linemen, running backs, tight ends and linebackers (as it pertains for the run defense) to learn or even do. You are only gaining advantages for QB, WR and defensive back play for the most part.

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Elections have consequences.

Like drugs?

Here too. For soccer as well.

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Elections have consequences.

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Elections have consequences.

Tell that to this hero!

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/_/id/167 ... villanueva

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Elections have consequences.

It hurts lineman and running backs no doubt. Luckily, those are two of the easier positions to catch up on and they would have 3-6 years before they got to the NFL to learn. Linebackers will be fine. They may not be as big and the style of both offense and defense would be effected but they can still play. I wouldn't be worried about tight ends at all. There are NFL tight ends that didn't even play college football including some hall of fame players.

The thing to keep in mind is that we aren't going from 7 on 7 to the NFL. You let them play either as seniors in high school or once they turn 18. You then let them play in college. If it's really a problem, then you have an NFL "rookie league" to give them another year to prepare.

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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!

Some, I assume, are good people.

_________________
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

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As far as helmets go there seems to be some accepted opinion that it cannot help with the concussion problem. I think that is not entirely true. There are likely ways to lessen the impact of major hits and perhaps prevent the impact of lesser hits.

Think about it from a physics angle. Concussion happens when your brain slides in the cranium up against the inside of the skull causing trauma. If you run at a given speed and smash your forehead into a wall there is a calculable impact which in turn sets the brain in motion at some rate. Using a standard helmet and doing the same you have very little "give" in the helmet to change the equation much.

Now if you have some new technology in the helmet that provides some element of reducing the rate at which the head hits the wall (a cushioning effect) that should in turn lessen the impact of brain against skull. In some cases the brain may not hit the skull at all. Another thought is a shattering like helmet which dissipates energy of impact.

None of that changes the fact that people should not hit head to head or any other factors but in theory helmet improvement for this case should not be impossible.

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Elections have consequences.

The problem is that the only way to do it would be to basically have the helmet crumple like a car.

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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!

College gets impacted more than NFL btw. Not my job to worry about them but how the hell would they even rate potential kids at non 7 on 7 useful positions? You would not have enough kids in most schools to do 18 and over only HS football.

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Elections have consequences.

ok.

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Elections have consequences.

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

Many programs are having the parents buy the helmets. The thought is that will shift the "liability" a bit off the program and to the parent.

Colleges get impacted but it also isn't that hard to figure out who is good enough with a year of game tape and the ability to have a combine system.

When the alternative is "It's immoral and expensive to have 13 year olds play tackle football so we can't find 18 year olds who can play the lines so let's just cancel it all and play lacrosse" they will find a way.

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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!

baseball doesn't have cheerleaders...except for the tribune and cubs broadcast booth

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