CTE: Political Football, Part One

February 16th was the last day to

introduce new bills in the California

Legislature one bill it has cost a lot

of debate is the safe use youth football

act that will ban children 13 and under

from playing tackle football in

California and now they're doing it

because of the risk of concussions in

CTE which is a progressive degenerative

disease of the brain that's recently

been associated with the NFL here's part

one of our series Sacramento Assemblyman

Kevin McCarty along with CD was Lorena

Gonzalez Fletcher plan to present a safe

youth football Act in April Gonzalez is

spokesman none other than former

Chargers first-round pick burt Grossman

who also supports the bill I support

either way twelve or fourteen I just

don't think it's something that kids

have to expose himself to from six seven

eight years old I mean my son is still

in a car seat at eight years old why

would I put him in a helmet in this

battle gear and say go run into a wall

every day or another kid it's just it's

insane the bill would ban tackle

football to children 13 and under now

while there's evidence about CTE in

professional college football players

the argument is there's been no research

on CTE in the youth football player I

mean everything we're about is

preventing trauma and trying to come up

with endeavors to keep children from

being traumatized the problem is is

there's not a medical or literature

basis that really supports the step

forward in trying to you know get rid of

football from 13 years of age and less

it's hard to say what the criteria that

are utilized to pick that age group why

not laughs why not more why not other

sports why not boxing why not MMA why

not

cheerleading you know as the athletic

director here at Madison I can tell you

with 100% certainty that there's been

more concussions and other sports than

there's been in football cheerleading

you know wrestling soccer so you know

there's an inherent risk in doing things

and in athletics is one of them

people getting injured but there's

there's a level of risk in every factor

we're not gonna eliminate the level of

risk but I do totally as a parent and I

do totally understand my ten-year-old

son I do watch out for him and I'm

concerned about him in my nephews as

well Hey

he plays tackle football I know it's a

monitor if I see that you know hey it

was kind of hard we're gonna set you off

for a while and see what's going on but

also I respect the parents to say hey

either they choose to play the sport or

they don't because of recent concussion

studies in the NFL football is being

targeted dr. Michael levy has seen

concussions in every sport and according

to a study in the American Journal of

Sports Medicine girls are twice as

likely to get a concussion than boys in

the similar sport leading the way girl

soccer I don't want to promote anything

that would hurt children but much in the

same way then polo anything where you

ride a horse fast or slow skiing

snowboarding skateboarding bicycling

motocross these are all extraordinarily

dangerous sports and all can be

associated with concussive injury or

worse and so where does it stop is it

that everybody at 13 is no longer

involved in sports where you could

potentially get a head trauma and I

don't think anybody will go for that NFL

I mean that's that's a different world

that's a different world than youth

football I mean you have you know little

kids bumping into each other run into

each other and you have 270 pound men

who run like you know gazelles that can

you know are strong as horses you know

what I mean like there's a different

impact level at that level than at the

youth level people focus on Kesha number

is this about for me the sub-concussive

hits it's how many times does your brain

rattle inside your skull during a

regular practice and basketball and the

answer is none unless you get a

concussion once a month so you have one

football I can name 20 30 times a day

every practice I mean that's the issue

people aren't getting it it's the

shaking inside the skull every single

play and talk about motocross that

doesn't happen and talk about other

dangerous sports it doesn't happen

not even rugby I don't think but you

know it's not we don't let six seven

year-olds go being rodeo clowns or go be

MMA fighters or go kill each other in

the ring so why are we doing this until

we know more about it