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by Alan Schwarz, New York Times
The poster, soon to be hung in locker rooms leaguewide, becomes by far the N.F.L.'s most definitive statement on the cognitive risks of football, which it had discredited for most of the past several years as academic studies and reports of deceased players' brain damage mounted.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
by Tim Murphy
Ridgefield Press
February, 15 2010
RIDEGEFIELD, CT -- On the field, the football season may have officially ended with the Super Bowl. But off the field, things are reaching a fever pitch -- at least in Ridgefield.
In a span of 10 days, the town's youth football and cheerleading organization, Ridgefield Youth Football, was asked to leave the league it has played in for the past five years; a former board member formed a new board and applied for re-admission to the league; and three members of the current board, including the president and vice president, decided to resign.
The unexpected developments have left the roughly 350 children who participate either as players or cheerleaders and their parents asking the same things: Why did all this happen, and will Ridgefield have a league to play in next fall?
by Stephanie Smith
CNN
February 5, 2010
For more than 20 years, former San Francisco 49ers lineman George Visger has lived his life out of hundreds of small yellow notebooks. In them he scrawls the minutiae of his daily life: "4:45 am left house. 2 stops to find coffee and a roll. Paper work till 9:25. 10:05 Ed called."
The notebooks are the last vestige of his memory.
"I always have them. They sit in my back pockets," said Visger, 51. "The movie '50 First Dates,' this has been my life for 28 years. I get up in the morning and I have no clue what I have to do that day. If it's not written down it doesn't exist."
Visger said his memory began fading in 1982. During his brief, injury-shortened career playing for the 49ers, he said, a jarring tackle caused a concussion.
by Maureen Nolan
Syracuse Post-Standard
February 04, 2010
Roland Grimes moved away from Central New York a few years ago, but he's reaching back to help organize a town hall meeting about ethics and accountability in sports.
Its particular focus is on sports and youth in the black community. He wants to get local people talking about the subject.
The idea is for the town hall, scheduled for Feb. 24, to bring together all facets of the community involved in youth sports, for instance parents, coaches, trainers and educators, for a discussion. Grimes said organizers do not yet have a time and location for the meeting.
by Kay Lazar
Boston GLobe
February 2, 2010
There was the nasty concussion Ben Price suffered from an eighth-grade skiing accident. Then the countless jarrings from wrestling and baseball. By senior year, he was plagued by nagging headaches after football practices at Wayland High School.
His mother, Wendy Price, did not connect the incidents until a chance conversation last year with another parent at a youth soccer game. That parent, Dr. Ann McKee, is studying a form of early dementia that was once thought to develop primarily in boxers. Now McKee and her colleagues think the disease may be silently destroying the brains of athletes in a variety of sports after years of repetitive blows to the head.
"You don't know who is going to be the unlucky one,'' said Price, who asked McKee to speak at a forum in Wayland.
Recommendations and Guidelines
To safely and sufficiently acclimatize in the early season and improve the safety profile for each player, teams should use graduated repeated exposure to heat stress,
training intensity and volume, and the football uniform, combined with appropriate alterations of practice intensity and duration, equipment cover, and betweenpractice
recovery time. This will allow players to adapt more safely and effectively.
ESPN.com
New York, NY
January 28, 2010
NEW YORK -- Robert Johnson from Mission Viejo High School in California has been chosen the NFL's high school football coach of the year.
Johnson will receive $5,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl, and a $10,000 grant from the NFL Youth Football Fund will be awarded to his school's football program.
The award was announced Thursday.
Johnson was nominated by Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez and Seahawks defensive end Nick Reed. He was picked from a pool of nominations that came from more than 75 NFL players.
The high school coach of the year award was created in 1995 to honor coaches who made a positive impact on the athletic and personal development of NFL players.
ABC News 11At least a half-dozen states are considering measures that would toughen restrictions on young athletes returning to play after head injuries, inspired by individual cases and the attention the issue has received in the NFL.
Washington state led the way last year, passing what is considered the nation's strongest return-to-play statute. Athletes under 18 who show concussion symptoms can't take the field again without a licensed health care provider's written approval. Several other states, including California and Pennsylvania, have similar bills pending.
by Around Town - Dave Kaplan and Fred Mitchell
Chicago Tribune
January 21, 2010
Robbie Gould has been "money" for the Bears most of his career.
Now Gould is assisting a local youth football team make a trip for a game in Miami. The American Youth Football Organization national champion Naperville Patriots, a group of 12-,13- and 14-year-olds, are scheduled to play a team from Texas led by Deion Sanders on Feb.6, the day before the Super Bowl. When anticipated funding from the NFL for hotel rooms in Miami fell through at the last minute, Gould offered to help.
"I will gladly help raise the funds and talk to some of those people who are close to me to raise the money," said Gould on Thursday. "We are working to get as much money as we possibly can. I think the kids will enjoy it and it will be a chance of a lifetime."
Greater Tulsa Reporter - GTR Newspapers
Tulsa, OK
January 27, 2010
USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels, announced today that Seattle Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu has donated $10,000 to the independent non-profit to assist in its work of establishing American Samoa's first youth football program. With USA Football's financial assistance, bolstered by Tatupu's gift and support from Riddell, youth football is being played by youngsters aged 11-14 on the island territory for the first time.
Tatupu is the son of Mosi Tatupu, the first native-born American Samoan selected to an NFL Pro Bowl (1986) as a fullback for the New England Patriots. The younger Tatupu's pride in his American Samoan ancestry and respect for the island's people and their affinity toward football compels him to further strengthen the sport there.
Since 2008, USA Football has worked with American Samoa football leaders to establish organized youth football on the island, providing the latest equipment and USA Football's coaching education resources to serve the new league's volunteer coaches. USA Football is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, the NFLPA, and the league's 32 teams.
by Anthony Alessi
Norwich Bulletin
Jan 26, 2010
Aside from the physical benefits, youth sports are an effective means of shaping a child's work habits and character. Approximately 30 million children under the age of 14 participate in organized youth sports throughout the United States.
The problem is that many of these activities are unsafe. And the statistics are staggering:
-- Approximately 8,000 children are treated in emergency rooms each day for sports-related injuries;
-- 62 percent of injuries occur during practices;
-- There are 5 times as many catastrophic football injuries in high school athletes as opposed to college athletes;
-- Cardiac and neurologic injuries account for the predominance of sports-related deaths.
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