Illinois Tackle Football Ban For Kids Under 12 Proposed

CHICAGO — A local lawmaker has introduced a new proposal to ban tackle football in Illinois for kids under the age of 12. State Rep. Carol Sente (D-Vernon Hills) appeared with a coalition of former football players, their families and medical experts Thursday to announce the Dave Duerson Act, amid increasing concern about the long-term impact of tackle football on participants.

The bill is named after the Chicago Bears starting strong safety, a member of the 1985 Super Bowl-winning team and captain at Notre Dame. He took his own life at age 50 in 2011. He was found to have the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy that has been linked to getting hit in the head, repeated concussions and playing tackle football.

"When my father tragically took his own life, he donated his brain to science in hopes of being part of the solution," said Tregg Duerson, who also played football at Notre Dame, in a news release. "Thanks to increased attention and research on brain trauma, we know that part of the solution is to guard young children's developing brains from the risks of tackle football. This bill honors my family's hopes and my father's legacy to protect future athletes and the future of football."

Sente, who is stepping down at the end of this term, presented the bill at the start of the General Assembly's 2018 legislative session. The coalition behind the Dave Duerson Act to Prevent CTE emphasized that repeated hits to the head can cause CTE.

"We all want kids to have fun playing football and to learn to play the game the right way early on. But the overwhelming data and powerful stories of our supporters here today show the risks of playing tackle football before turning 12 just aren't worth it," Sente said.

While football is an inherently dangerous game, it should not be so for children, the supporters of the bill said. They said evidence shows that the risk of CTE correlates to the number of years spent playing football, just as lung cancer risk increases with the number of years a person smokes.

Those who start playing football before the age of 12 have an increased risk of cognitive impairment and disturbances with their mood and behavior than those who start later than 12, the bill's supporters said.

Current and former football players and coaches are also broadly supportive of encouraging pre-teens to play flag or non-contact versions of football, according to the announcement of the bill.

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Sente's office said she has sponsored multiple proposals in recent years intended to reduce concussions and other head injuries in youth sports that can lead to lifelong problems.

"We have a long road ahead," said Sente, "but I am confident we have the science on our side and can make a very persuasive argument that safer football for youth will lead to healthier and more rewarding lives for generations to come."

The coalition of supporters appearing Thursday at the Thompson Center to outline plans for passing the ban includes:

• State Rep. Carol Sente, Democrat representing the 59th District
• Tregg Duerson, Dave Duerson's son
• Otis Wilson, Duerson's former teammate
• Mike Adamle, former Chicago Bear and TV broadcaster
• Liz Nicholson, wife of former NFL player Gerry Sullivan
• Chris Nowinski, Ph.D., CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation

Dr. Larry Robbins, a Riverwoods physician who operated the Neurology and Headache Center in Northbrook for 29 years and now practices from the Robbins Headache Clinic in Riverwoods provided the following analysis of the dangers of tackle football for young children.

Robbins writes that children are unable to provide informed consent to the risks their parents expose them to and notes various studies about the risks of degenerative brain disease.

Read his complete remarks below:

After some general comments, I will talk about a few important studies, and also briefly discuss why kids should just play flag football. The media has focused on concussions and CTE, which College and Pro players may get; but there are many more youth players, 3 million plus. Even if they stop at age 14, the long-term consequences are many.

Intuitively: it’s just not a great idea to use your head as a battering ram, at any age; but it is more dangerous the younger a child is.

Kids are not just miniature adults; they have underdeveloped brains, which set them up for brain injuries. The white matter of the brain is crucial for protecting the brain, and from ages 6 to 11 the white matter is not very developed. The new connections that kids brains make are disrupted by blows to the head.

Kids heads are bigger relative to their body, creating a “bobblehead” effect; with tiny, thin neck muscles, they can’t cushion their brain from blows.

I love football, I played it, but it is ruining kids brains. Kids coordination is not yet fully developed, and they are often out of control. It is fantasy to hope that they are in control, with their head up, avoiding head hits.

The younger a child starts to play, the greater chance for neurologic, emotional, and behavioral problems down the road.

STUDIES

Just a few studies to summarize:

• A study out of Purdue assessed high school players using advanced imaging techniques. As the season went on, the kids brains deteriorated, with some parts of the brain taking over tasks that they were not meant to do. The kids degenerated on intelligence testing and other similar tests of the brain. Changes on functional MRI were seen. These kids brains are changed forever. Even the kids with no concussions had problems with their brain functions.
• There is a Virginia Tech study looking at 7 and 8 year old players for 2 seasons; they wired up their helmets with sensors. The kids averaged 100+ hits to their head per season, most in practice; many of the hits exceeded 40g’s, and some were 80 to 100 g’s. 40g’s is like getting punched in the face; even 18g’s is like getting hit very hard by a pillow. 80 to 100g’s will knock out college players. And remember, these kids have no neck and shoulder muscles to protect their brain from accelerating quickly.
• Va Tech also did a recent(2017) study in kids; 8% of hits to their heads are high magnitudes, over 40 g’s. This study found the backs and recievers to be at an increased risk; 60% of high impact hits were in the open field. In contrast, In High School, more of the hits are taken by the lineman.
• A Wake Forest study of 8 to 12 year olds revealed problems with the white matter in their brains after the football season. Kids who had no obvious concussions still had problems. Dr. Chris Whitlow…looked at sub-concussive blows…8 to 13y.o. in North Carolina….Helmet with sensors….”They were hitting at extremely high levels of brain impact”…They did pre and post-season MRIs…Changes in White Matter at post-season. They assessed kids who did NOT have concussions: They found: with increased exposure to sub-concussive hits, you get increased WM changes…We DO NOT KNOW if these are permanent. I am sure sometimes these WM changes ARE permanent. Can we risk it?? WM changes: lead to poor memory, attention, behavioral changes, and depression.
• A Canadian study of former athletes revealed that those with a concussion history, 30 years later, had worse memories, and more problems with moving and walking, than controls who did not play contact sports.
• There was an interesting German study of 19 y.o. soccer players, vs. swimmers: the soccer players ALL had white matter disruption, or problems, vs. none of the swimmers. I am sure that would be the same if they looked at tackle football players.
• A Boston Univ. (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) study of 12 and under: large study, they concluded: players who started prior to age 12 were at increased risk for behavioral and cognitive(thinking) problems later on. The behavioral problem risk doubled among kids who started prior to age 12, while the risk for depression tripled. In young boys, ages 6 to 11 are critical for brain development. Kids have very fragile brains.
• Another study indicated that youth football players have 3 to 4 times the injury rate as at older ages.

DISCUSSION

The evidence is here: tackle football is bad for our kids brains and bodies.
Years later these kids are more likely to suffer from various neurological problems, including: Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia, Parkinsons, and ALS. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, and ADHD. Depression and suicide are more likely. I think they lose IQ points; isn’t it ridiculous to have a kid go thru life with an IQ of 102, when he should be at 108, all those decades of life, because we allowed him to go out there with an underdeveloped brain and body and ruin his brain.

There have been efforts to make the game safer; the Heads Up Program, new practice rules, etc. But this all helps only a little.

Parents can’t be left to decide: While many moms(and some dads) understand, and say “no way my kid is playing football”, many put blinders on; they just don’t want to hear any negativity. Some just don’t understand the serious consequences. I have had parents of a kid who had 5 concussions say “he seems fine, and he just loves the game, we’ll give it one more chance”…….Other parents, and some coaches, say “ Once their head gets used to being hit, it starts to cushion the brain, and they’ll be fine’.
There are various reasons why parents refuse to acknowledge the reality: the kids really love playing, the parents like watching and sometimes bask in the glory, they just don’t know or have not been told of the long-term consequences, and others.
I have spoken to very bright, concerned parents of kids who have had 4 concussions, and they listen, and then send their kid right out to play.

Informed Consent: kids who are ruining their brains are not able to participate in the process of deciding, and parents can’t be trusted because they often just ignore all of the dangers.

Certified trainers and qualified coaches: we just don’t have them at youth games; even if we did: we have all seen, on TV, an obviously severely concussed quarterback reeling around, and then he goes back into the game. And that is with trainers and independent neurologists deciding and observing. How about when no one who is trained is around?

I see many guys in their 50’s and 60’s who can’t do much exercise, due to old football injuries. So, they are overweight, with High Blood Pressure and Diabetes. Some get early Parkinsons or Alzheimers, and I always wonder if it was from football half a century earlier; nobody even faintly remembers those long-ago games, but these guys live with horrific diseases day in and day out.

USA Football, one governing body, says they are strongly for safety; the Heads Up program sounds nice(hey, with your head up, what bad can happen?). But football is an inherently dangerous game, kids are out of control, and nothing we do will make tackle football more than 15% safer. Even $800 dollar helmets with sensors don’t really do much; they protect from fractures, but not from the soft brain smashing against the skull. Do we really need sensors in the helmet to tell us that we just ruined our kids brain?
Yes, we can make it safer: Heads Up programs, better helmets, limiting hitting in practice(or no hitting in practice), not allowing full tackle, BUT: this all only helps a little, it’s just the nature of the game, you WILL hit your head. These are little kids, with poor coordination, out of control. And, with little myelination(white matter) to protect their sensitive brain….And, with little neck and shoulder musculature to protect their brain.

I coached travel soccer; not all youth coaches have the kids interest as #1. Some coaches just don’t understand any of these serious issues, nor do they want to know. They dutifully will go thru a brief training program, but they don’t all buy into it. After all, coaches are amateur volunteers, often whose limited football knowledge is from watching NFL games on TV.

The naysayers state that we don’t have “evidence based data” to prove my points here. But we do, we have the studies that I just cited. Even without those, common sense tells us we are ruining some of the kids brains and bodies.

If a kid who weighs 40 lb goes against a kid 60 lb, that is a 50% difference in weight, and often in muscle. That little kid is just at great risk; the neck, which cushions the brain, of a 40lb boy is like a little pencil; no muscle. So, the blows to the brain generate enormous force. Or, we have 50lb kids playing with 75 lb kids. An enormous difference.

Flag football is a lot of fun; touch football is fun; the big kids who are slow can’t compete with the speedy little ones, so we could have separate divisions for bigger, slower kids. Anything is better than ruining them for life.
There are occasional deaths, or paralysis, every year; I am not as much focused on these devastating injuries. I am focusing more on long-term consequences of multiple blows to the head.
Say we delay tackle until age 12; the kids will have hundreds of less blows to their sensitive brain; even if they play middle school and high school, their brain will look much better at age 19, than if they started hitting at age 6 to 11.

The #1 expert in CTE, Dr. Ann McKee of Boston, said “kids under 14 should not play football. Period” The vast majority of neurological experts agree.

Top photo: An undated photograph of former Chicago Bears Dave Duerson, while he was playing at Notre Dame, hangs behind his son Tregg, during a news conference in Chicago in 2012. | AP Photo | Charles Rex Arbogast