Keith Strudler: Football And The Power Of Parenthood

A couple of days ago, someone asked me if I had heard about a new study coming out of Boston University about kids and football. Now I’ve seen the past studies out of BU that tie football and concussions and CTE – including the most recent that showed some 110 of 111 brains from former NFL athletes having signs of the disease. But this study isn’t about former NFL athletes. It’s not about college football players, or even high school football, when admittedly the game gets a quite a bit more physical.

This was truly a study about football and kids. Kids under the age of 12. Pre-pubescent, and perhaps still young enough to believe in the tooth fairy – or at least maintain no more than a healthy skepticism. According to the study published in the academic journal Nature’s Translational Psychiatry, which admittedly I don’t subscribe to, of 214 football players that played at variety of levels, those who played tackle football before the age of 12 were – and I’m borrowing language here – twice as likely to have issues with behavioral regulation, apathy and executive function, and had three times the risk of clinically elevated depression scores. In other words, if your football career started before 12 instead of after it, you were way more at risk with future behavior problems and clinical depression.

For clarification, the average age of survey respondent was 51. 43 of the respondents played through high school, 103 played in college, and the remaining 68 played in the N.F.L. The results, however, were consistent for each subgroup. Here’s my disclaimer. I haven’t read the full study, so I’d be lying if I could give you detailed analysis of methods and statistics. But, from a basic methodological perspective, these are surveys, not clinical examinations of brains. Which brings inherent limitations – not that clinical work doesn’t have that as well. I’m not entirely sure how subjects were selected, and I have no idea of the response rate. So take anything I say with that in mind. At best, I’m giving a top line read – and at worst, an uninformed analysis.

That said, this isn’t just an academic study. It’s a news story, and one that’s part of a much larger narrative about two of our nations most storied institutions: kids, and football. We’ve all come to understand that football and blows to the head can lead to CTE, which is a neurological disorder that us lay folks are still trying to understand. Because of that, we’ve all gotten a bit leery of violent play at the highest levels – especially the NFL, where hits are cartoonish and head trauma is visceral in the broadcast of the sport. And because of that, the League has pressed a narrative about making the game safer and demonizing blows to the head. Similar rhetoric has followed to college and high school ball, where particular at the scholastic level, certain schools in certain parts of the country have had a hard time simply fielding a team.

This most recent study isn’t about that. It’s about a far more base concern not simply for football fans, but for anyone who’s ever raised a child. At least according to these results, letting your pre-teen play tackle football could lead to angst, mental challenges, depression – really, all the things you hope not to happen to your kids. As a parent, above all other things, you want to kids to be safe. And, at least according to this study from BU, letting your young kids play football makes that less likely.

There’s plenty of counter narrative. Pop Warner – the largest youth football organization for kids – has stressed studies that suggest the opposite. USA Football is talking about a less strenuous 7 on 7 football and teaching hits below the head. To the extent this resonates is up for debate. Certainly, the news story that football is dangerous is far sexier than the one that its not. And I’d imagine the public is somewhat skeptical of voices that seem more focused on industrial survival than human survival. So there’s that.

Perhaps more to the point, it’s undeniable that football is facing its truest existential crisis. And anyone who denies that isn’t clear on the power of parenthood. Polls have indicated that parents – especially educated ones on the coasts – are increasingly reticent to let their kids play football. Participation rates in the sport support that data. And that was before this research. Not research about pro players, or college ones. But about what happens when kids under 12 play. That is how football could end – not from the head, but at the base of the pyramid.

It is, as any parent knows, the beginning of fall sports. I’m currently carting my 7 and 10-year-old boys around to collectively three soccer and two baseball teams. Basketball starts in December, and my oldest wants to do track next year. Which means the end of anything resembling a personal life. There’s no football in there, and to be honest, my 10 year old only has one friend who’s actually on the gridiron. That was before I, or anyone else saw the study that came out yesterday, which may or may not be strong science. For most parents, the nuance of that may be irrelevant. 

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