DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Pop Warner participation dropping

I wonder if the NFL Flag program that started at the same time isn't also a HUGE factor into this drop-off. You still get the football, but w/o as much risk for injuries. And, your kid gets a NFL jersey to keep as part of it. I've been coaching in Austin for 3 years now and it's great.

Anyways:

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/page...n-causal-factor

The nation's largest youth football program, Pop Warner, saw participation drop 9.5 percent between 2010-12, a sign that the concussion crisis that began in the NFL is having a dramatic impact at the lowest rungs of the sport.

According to data provided to "Outside the Lines," Pop Warner lost 23,612 players, thought to be the largest two-year decline since the organization began keeping statistics decades ago. Consistent annual growth led to a record 248,899 players participating in Pop Warner in 2010; that figure fell to 225,287 by the 2012 season.

Pop Warner officials said they believe several factors played a role in the decline, including the trend of youngsters focusing on one sport. But the organization's chief medical officer, Dr. Julian Bailes, cited concerns about head injuries as "the No. 1 cause."

"Unless we deal with these truths, we're not going to get past the dropping popularity of the sport and people dropping out of the sport," said Bailes, a former Pittsburgh Steelers neurosurgeon whose 10-year-old son, Clint, plays Pop Warner outside Chicago. "We need to get it right."

The statistics, which have not been previously disclosed, are consistent with declining participation rates reported in youth football across the country. USA Football, a national governing body partially funded by the NFL, said participation among players ages 6 to 14 fell from 3 million to 2.8 million in 2011, a 6.7 percent decline.

Pop Warner, founded in 1929, is the largest youth football organization in the world; the NFL players union estimates that 60 to 70 percent of all NFL players started in the program. After years of steady growth, the organization saw participation drop 5.7 percent for the 2011 season, according to the internal Pop Warner data provided to "Outside the Lines." Last year, the figures fell 4 percent. Officials said they do not have statistics for the 2013 season but expect that participation rates will be flat.

The decline in participation is not reflected on Pop Warner's website, which boasts that "participation has steadily increased to today's record numbers," adding that "over 250,000 youths participated in Pop Warner-sanctioned football programs in 2010, and those numbers are continuing to grow."

Representatives from Pop Warner and USA Football suggested the reasons for the drop in participation were unclear and could be attributed to several factors. Among those cited were the nation's economy and the ongoing trend of youth specializing in a single sport. Officials pointed to a survey showing declines in participation in other team sports, including baseball and basketball, although dips among core participants were not as severe.

The downward trends in youth football participation coincide with a series of ominous reports about football and brain damage in the NFL. In 2005, the first of dozens of confirmed cases of former NFL players with neurodegenerative disease was reported. In 2009, Congress held hearings on the NFL's long-standing efforts to conceal the connection between concussions and mental illness. In 2010, a league spokesman acknowledged for the first time a connection between concussions and "long-term problems."

In early 2011, former Chicago Bears defensive back Dave Duerson committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest to preserve his brain for study. He was later diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain disease that has been linked to football.

Tony Strickland, an associate clinical professor of neurology at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine who sits on the Pop Warner's Medical Advisory Committee, said he believes participation dropped "in part because of the description of individual cases and the information out there about the incidence of CTE. If I'm a parent, anybody hearing that information, in the absence of other science, would be foolish not to be cautious."

But Strickland, who is CEO of the Sports Concussion Institute, said concerns about football and head injuries have outstripped the pace of scientific evidence, creating unwarranted hysteria about the risks of playing football.

"I have felt that the pendulum swung way ahead of the science and what we know," Strickland said.

In 2012, Pop Warner significantly cut back on the amount of tackling permitted during practice. This year, the organization announced a partnership with the NFL to endorse "Heads Up" football, a program launched by USA Football and designed to teach proper tackling techniques to minimize head contact.

In the coming months, Pop Warner's Medical Advisory Committee is expected to take up more rule changes that some officials believe could foreshadow where football is headed, as parents and players continue to reassess the risks.

One proposal under consideration would take all linemen out of the three-point stance. Bailes, its chief proponent, said requiring players to start upright would cut down on head-to-head collisions that can lead to brain injuries.

Bailes co-authored a study in the November issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery showing how repeated "subconcussive impacts" can lead to brain damage. One way to minimize those impacts in football, the study concluded, might be to have linemen start in a "squatting position, to remove them from the inexorable, ubiquitous, gratuitous head contact on every play."

"I really think we need to limit the number of head impacts," said Bailes, who also leads the department of neurosurgery at NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Ill. "I think that's where the sport needs to go."

Jon Butler, Pop Warner's executive director, said the move to take linemen out of the three-point stance is "in the very early stages. The concern with a rule that sweeping is that politically it's going to change the game to the point where people get turned off. My personal feeling is that that is where football is ultimately going to go. The question is how we get there."

Strickland said there needs to be more study to determine if such a measure would have the desired effect. "What is intuitively a good idea may not necessarily be so," he said. "We want to make sure any policies that we implement we can evaluate and track their efficacy."

At the same time, youth football officials emphasized that they believe football is safe relative to other sports.

"It's an emotional decision for a parent, but statistically we can prove that football is as safe if not safer than other sports," said Butler. "If you take kids' activities, including bicycle-riding and skateboarding, the rate of concussion is tremendously higher in those activities."

Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon and concussion expert at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, has advocated for banning tackle football for children younger than 14 because "the young brain is much more susceptible to the shock associated with concussion."

"What I've stated from the beginning is that I desperately want kids to play sports; I want sports participation to go up," said Cantu. "I just want the most dangerous sports for head trauma to be played in a way that's safe."

Cantu, who serves as a senior advisor to the NFL on concussions, said he hoped that younger children would play flag football before they reach high school.

Bailes, though, emphasized he believes the research shows the youngest players are not as likely to suffer concussions as those playing at the high school level and above. He said the key is minimizing exposure through rule changes at the youth level.

"We need to help try to morph the game where it needs to go," said Bailes. "Numbers are down, but it's a wakeup call. None of us are saying football should end. I'm saying the opposite -- football should continue."

If I had a son, I wouldn't let him play football.

No sport is without risk. Heck, I skateboarded throughout highschool. I spent most of my time in halfpipes, sometimes without a helment. So I was aware of the risk and how I should have protected myself more (I'd say I wore a helmet 50% of the time).

I think the difference between the risk I took and the risk football players are taking, and this is why the former NFL players sued, I knew it was all on me to protect myself and nobody told me it was safe. The NFL probably hid their early findings of CTE hoping that helmet technology would catch up in time.

Maybe that's not the case anymore with everyone in the know about the effects of CTE and how repeated medium hits can cause it.

yeah, with the information out there especially about how developing brains (pre-teen) can have really bad effects from repeated soft hits, I couldn't in good conscience let my sons play tackle football at their young ages (5 & 7).

my older son loves football and has played flag football since 4years old. And, every year, he begs me to play tackle. I won't even consider it until 8th grade, but I honestly don't know what my decision will be at that time.

my younger son chose to love soccer instead, so it's basically the same amount of contact as flag football at this age.

It's a tough choice. I do like that Pop Warner is considering not letting OL/DL have a hand on the ground. There's really no reason for that at their ages and they need to find a way to keep their chins up too (head-up).

Football is definitely going to undergo some drastic changes in the next 20-40years and it will likely start in the youth leagues first.

I think you're correct that the numbers are decreasing due to youth flag football. It's really taking off around here. I don't think there's much of a concussion risk with kids at the Pop Warner level. They're just not big or strong enough to deliver the impact required for a concussion. My son played and the only injuries I saw were twisted ankles and jammed fingers. His worst injury happened in baseball.....lost a fly ball in the sun and caught it with his front tooth. At that age, baseball is more dangerous than football.

I still maintain that the Communist Party introduced soccer to America's youth in order to feminize young American boys and subsequently take over our country.

...and therein lies the beauty of it.

Maybe Vers suffers from CTE.

That could explain some things.

If I have kids and they want to play football, I'll let them. There are so many dangerous activities in everyday life that can harm them, I'm not going to place them in bubble wrap and try to prevent them from living life the way they want (within reason, of course). I do understand the fear from other parents, though.

j/c my son has been playing tackle football for 2 years. he's 11. He playes QB/RB and OLB/CB. I know my son has knocked about 9-10 kids out of the game thru the season with injuries. He's a downhill runner and he loves to run thru other kids. (not going to lie... it makes me nervous)

as coaches ( I just helped out a little and I had no say) we have a certification we must take before the season and we are required to pull players.

6 kids had concussions and about 7 others got hurt during the past season. One kid was forced to quit by his parents after a concussion.

Good point.

I have heard more talk from friends with sons about not letting them play football. Of course, I didn't have those same conversations 10-20 years ago because nobody had sons to worry about that. So maybe every parent has wondered about the safety of football.

My parents pushed me into soccer, baseball and eventually accepted my skateboarding after seeing how I was relatively good at it (plus my group of friends were decent guys). I don't think my mom would have let me play football but then again, I was 5'8" about 120 when I started high school and 130 when I graduated. I'm 5'10" 165 now.

My nephew is in high school football and they seem to have a concussion incident almost every week. Heck, a few weeks back they had a kid in the hostpial for a few days and was forced to quit the team. I don't remember players in my high school getting concussions at all.

interesting consideration, but the drop rates in Pop Warner started in 2010, so births in 2007 dropping are too close to it to affect. the 2007 birth rates wouldn't even affect the entry-level age of Pop Warner in 2012. and, even if it had, it would be 1 age level across the entire spectrum.

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My parents pushed me into soccer, baseball and eventually accepted my skateboarding after seeing how I was relatively good at it (plus my group of friends were decent guys). I don't think my mom would have let me play football but then again, I was 5'8" about 120 when I started high school and 130 when I graduated. I'm 5'10" 165 now.

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My mom would not let me play football. I didn't hit my second growth spurt until my senior year. My Junior year I wrestled 103lbs ( I had to cut a little weight), my Senior year I wrestled 119lbs (again cutting a little weight). But the guys on our football team were 6' something 200 something lbs.

I ran Cross Country to get in shape for wrestling.

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Of course, I didn't have those same conversations 10-20 years ago because nobody had sons to worry about that. So maybe every parent has wondered about the safety of football.

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I had friends who were not allowed to play football 35 years ago because their parents thought it was too dangerous.. one of them, my best friend in elementary school, was kept out of football and all other sports for years until he was finally allowed to play baseball when he was about 9... he broke his arm the first day of practice because he didn't know how to slide.. it was ironic, funny, and sad all at the same time.

I played football when I was young and switched to soccer around 6th grade, voluntarily. Primarily because I looked ahead and our HS football team was historically terrible and the soccer team was good... Our HS football coach was the same guy that had coached my dad when he went to HS there, and he hadn't changed the playbook. AT ALL. I mean literally, it was the exact same playbook he had for more than 30 years... consequently, most of the better athletes switched to soccer so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that the football team remained bad while the soccer team remained good.

I had no problem with my son playing football other than time.. football, even at a young age is 4 or 5 nights a week, where as most other sports, basketball, baseball, soccer are 1 or 2 nights a week with games on weekends... my wife and I both work, we could never make it work with our schedules...

that surprises me about the schedule in your area. here, it's baseball that is the time consumer. it's at least 3-4 nights a week and we had to really search to find a league that was that "lax" (and no long road trips on weekends).

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I had at least one, that I went to the hospital for after a baseball game.

I played middle 2nd,

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I've played a lot of baseball in my life.. what the hell is "middle 2nd"?

Around here, soccer is 7 days a week between games and practices. Now, that's for the 8-12 year olds. Once you're on a school team, it's 6 days a week, be that jr. high or high school.

Heck, volleyball, basketball and softball.......v-ball is a guaranteed 5 days a week, with 4-5 saturdays included. Same with basketball. Softball for 12 u and 14 u is 6 days a week, for sure. Practice every morning, even game days, and about 3 games a week, tourneys on Sat. and Sunday.

And I'm talking about my currently in 7th grade daughter. Thank God she's not in soccer.......it's worse. Furthest we traveled for volleyball was about 50 miles - real close to Clemmy's house. For soccer? I know parents of even younger kids that travel as far away as 2 1/2 hours. Practice every night other than games.......and that kind of travel?

Maybe I'm totally missing your point, or your kids age.......but around here, especially with soccer, it's 6 days a week at minimum.