The debate on the safety of youth football has been re-opened after the death of 2 players on the same day

HEWETT, W.Va. (AP) — Ryan Craddock has seen his share of tragedy for two decades as a coal miner and firefighter.

Then came the worst heartbreak of all: his.

Craddock and his family are mourning the loss of their 13-year-old son, Cohen, who died last month of a traumatic brain injury after making a tackle during middle school football practice.

Cohen’s death and the death of a 16-year-old Alabama high school player from a brain injury on the same day have sparked renewed debate over whether the safety risks of youth playing football outweigh the benefits of the sport a community.

“I don’t think we need to eliminate football,” Craddock said. “A lot of people enjoy football, myself included. I just think we should put more safeguards in place to protect our children.”

Craddock is among those who believe some concrete action needs to be taken to prevent more deaths.

Proposals in individual states to ban the game of football for younger children during a critical period of their brain development have received little traction. At the same time, youth participation in football has been declining for years, and efforts to steer youth into flag football are increasing.

In 2023, three youth football players died from head injuries and 10 players died from other causes, such as heatstroke, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Robert Cantu, the organization’s medical director, who has been tracking football-related deaths for more than 40 years, calls this year “typical.”

“So I wouldn’t be particularly alarmed by two deaths in one week,” he said. “But I would be very alarmed if we had two deaths a week for four or five weeks in a row. Because I’ve never had anything like this before.”

Cantu also subscribes to another philosophy: “No headshot is good,” he says.

In the past, Cantu has recommended no tackling in football, no catching in football and no full-body checking in hockey for kids under 14.

In football practice, at least, most helmet-to-helmet contact can be eliminated by using non-collision methods such as tackling dummies, said Cantu, who is also co-founder of the Concussion Foundation Legacy in Boston, which supports struggling patients and families. with brain trauma symptoms. He suggests kids play flag football by the time they enter high school.

Soccer is already extremely popular among girls and is sanctioned as an Olympic sport for men and women at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. About 500,000 girls between the ages of 6 and 17 played flag football in 2023, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Whether this popularity carries over to boys remains to be seen. The Concussion Legacy Foundation has a “Flag Football under 14” initiative and has compiled a list of pro football hall of famers who waited until high school to play tackle football, including Tom Brady, Jerry Rice, Jim Brown and Walter Payton.

“I would suggest that age 12 would be a good place to start the conversation,” said Dr. Chris Nowinski, CEO of the foundation and a former WWE wrestler who retired due to a concussion. “But any minimum age requirement that takes into account children’s brain health would be welcome.”

Nowinski said even the NFL has limited full-contact practices during the regular season and recently changed kickoff rules to prevent concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that medical studies have linked to head trauma. NFL players.

“However, middle and high school football hasn’t made any changes,” he said.

Efforts to ban tackling in youth football have met with strong resistance. A New York lawmaker has fought unsuccessfully for 10 years to enact such a rule. In January, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would not sign a similar bill if it reached his desk.

But there was some progress. For example, all 50 states have some form of concussion laws, most requiring athletes to leave a game or practice if a concussion is suspected and be cleared by a medical professional before to be able to return.

An increase in reported concussions from 2005-06 to 2017-18 was likely due to this additional education and awareness, said Christy Collins, president of the Indianapolis-based Datalys Center for Sports Injury Research and Prevention. The center uses a nationwide sample of high schools to calculate injury rates involving football practices and combine games.

“The athletes (and their parents) may have been more likely to recognize concussion symptoms and report those symptoms to medical professionals,” Collins said.

Loren Montgomery, who won nine Oklahoma state championships in 14 seasons as head coach at Bixby High School, believes football is “safer than ever.” He cites efforts to minimize the risk of injury, such as penalizing helmet-to-helmet contact and certain types of blocking, along with technology, including cognitive tests to assess concussions and protective helmet covers known as Guardian caps .

“Obviously there are risks inherent in all contact sports, but the values ​​of teamwork, hard work and overcoming adversity far outweigh the risk involved,” Montgomery said. He allowed his son to play football starting in the fourth grade, “and I think that made him a more complete young man.”

Guardian caps are used from the NFL down to the youth level. A cap made by Guardian Sports sells on Amazon for $75. But the caps only have a limited warranty of six months from the date of purchase, which means they could be expensive for a school district to have to replace every season.

Guardian Sports also warns on its website that no helmet, helmet holder or training device prevents or eliminates the risk of concussions or other serious head injuries during sports.

Still, Craddock promised to look into the use of the caps at Madison Middle School in Cohen’s memory.

On Wednesday, days before his son was to be laid to rest, Craddock found the strength to talk to Cohen’s teammates.

“I told them this was a serious accident, to move on,” he said. “I didn’t want him to have the weight of my son on his shoulders. But I wanted to play for him. I wanted them to play “Cohen Strong.”

AP writer Safiyah Riddle reported from Montgomery.

Photo: Ryan Craddock holds a photo with his three children, from left, Shawn Craddock, 18; Kendall Craddock, 17, and Cohen Craddock, 13, at his home in Hewett. (AP Photo/John Raby)

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