10 Reasons Football Should Be Banned in Schools
In 2012 Dr. Paul Butler, a board member at Dover High School, New Hampshire, stirred up controversy when he suggested that the school’s football program should be terminated. Dr. Butler was not speaking as a critic of the game; the soft-spoken yet stocky retiree used to play football at high school and college. But the growing mass of literature testifying to the game’s negative neurological effects had instilled in him a sense of responsibility as custodian for the wellbeing and education of the younger generation. Nor has Butler’s been the only
voice suggesting football’s removal from American high schools; two University of Minnesota doctors, Dr. Steven Miles and Dr. Shailendra Prasad, recently set out exactly the same position.
The heresy of such suggestions, and the ludicrously disproportionate media witch-hunts that always follow, reveal just how much of a tinderbox the issue is. Writing in the New York Times, Paul Brownfield didn’t exaggerate when calling Butler’s comment entry into ‘a 21st century culture war.’ Indeed the sport is, despite the lip service paid to baseball, unquestionably the nation’s favorite. But there is a real and serious problem with its practice in high schools.
A 2013 research paper into head impact exposure in youth football estimated that there are 1.1 million children in the US playing high school football (compared to 100,000 playing college football and 2,000 playing at a professional level). Knowing that football has far higher concussion rates than any other high school sport, this presents a clear problem. The author of this list believes that football – for all of its cultural, commercial and entertainment value – should be banned in schools. Here are 10 reasons why.
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