I was reading an article about football and the new helmets that the NFL was working on to prevent concussions, when I came across a paragraph suggesting that we take away high school football because of injuries. I couldn’t believe it, so I looked into the benefits of highschool football. A study held by the students of Notre Dame Catholic High School, shows that besides the obvious physical benefits, high school football gives a lot of school spirit and other positive social benefits. Not only that, but participating in football provides many health benefits for children. It’s a physically demanding game that provides an opportunity for players to improve their speed, agility, strength, hand-eye coordination and overall cardiovascular endurance. It is also fun to play and fun to watch. Communities all over our country gather every weekend to cheer on their favorite team. High school football ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in the United States and Canada. So, not only will I be mad if we take high school football away, but a lot of other people would be upset and disappointed too. 

I agree that football can be a dangerous sport. According to Healthline, 67% of football injuries are from tackling. About ten percent of football injuries require hospitalization. According to the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study, more than 500,000 high school football injuries occurred between the 2014 and 2015 school years. “Regardless of how safe we make it, it’s still a dangerous sport,” explains Dr. Behr. According to Stanford Children’s Health, 50% of head injuries sustained in sports or recreational activities occur during bicycling, skateboarding or skating. We would never tell people to stop riding their bicycles. According to a 2019 study by the National Federation of State High School Associations, the risk of serious injuries from high school football has never been lower. There are new rules to lower the risk of concussion, and we are better at detecting and managing concussions.

The reason that people want to take high school football away is because kids are getting hurt. A Lot of people around the United States are improving high school football by making everything safer. For example, researchers at UCLA are working on an energy-absorbing microlattice material, called Architected Lattice, that would replace the foam inside football helmets and absorb some of the energy from impacts. The United States Army Research Lab, has begun work on a tether system that uses fluid-filled elastic straps to reduce sudden head motion. They are going to apply this to football helmets. There are risks of injury in everything that we do. Luckily, as time goes on, we find things to make sports safer.