There is an editorial in today's Chicago Tribune following up on its recent article on the declining number of high school football players in Illinois. Here is the gist:
More parents and high school students are looking at the risks of a serious brain injury, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and deciding against the game. There are plenty of other sports and leisure activities for high schoolers, and lots of other ways to capture families’ time, energy and money. . . .
The scariest stats about football relate to CTE, the devastating brain disease found in 99 percent of NFL players whose remains were examined in one study. CTE was first identified in a professional football player in 2002 and can only be diagnosed after death. In some ways it’s still early days in understanding how severely football can injure its participants, with special attention on young athletes who play in high school or college but not the pros. They may quit the game, but damage remains. CTE has been found in those players, too, at lower rates.
You can read the entire editorial here. There is no mention of Andrew High School's coach Adam Lewandowski, who disparaged football-wary parents as "the kind who get scared and run and hide and cover their kids in bubble wrap." But that sort of atavistic, tough-guy posturing surely contributes to football's declining participation rates.
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