Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Concussions may be the death knell of American Football.

In a sobering harbinger of possible things to come, a former Illinois high school quarterback is filing a class action lawsuit against the Illinois HS Association, saying they did not and are still not doing enough to prevent their athletes from getting life-altering brain injuries playing high school football.

It is not going to be a fall in popularity that kills off football in America.
It is not going to be the scandal-after-scandal atmosphere of the NFL and schools like Florida State.
It is not, in fact, going to be anything directly related to the behavior or performance of the NFL at all.

           It will be the refusal of the high school and non-scholastic "Pop Warner"-style youth leagues to open themselves up to litigation for the concussion-like symptoms that are inherent in modern American football.

We at "Following Football" make this declaration now: within twenty years, at least one third of high schools who currently sponsor football will no longer do so.

And that will be a tragedy.

No comments:

Post a Comment