Hello Everyone, Coach Bobby Hosea here to share some important information with you.
First, I want to congratulate Brooke and her team for re-establishing the name MomsTeam. I can only guess somebody suggested in order to be politically correct that Dads needed to be represented with the former "Parents" something or other name. The fact of the matter when it comes to children, Moms care more. Dads do care but, Moms care more about the safety and well-being of their children, especially when it comes to tackle football.
I have been coaching football since 1982. I have been coaching Youth and High School football since 1991. I have seen my share of reckless behavior on the part of coaches when it comes to injuries in tackle football. When I decided in 2002 to share my Injury Preventive Tackle Training System with the rest of the football-playing world, I thought that I would be welcomed with open arms by every Parent, Coach and Athletic Director because I had the formula for ending catastrophic brain, neck and spinal cord injuries that result from players slamming their head into other players to block, tackle or run them over.
Well, to my surprise. that has not been the case. I recently spoke at an All-Sports Coaches Clinic in Irvine CA. My topic was "Lowering the Risks of Severe Head Injuries in Tackle Football." There were 125 chairs in the room but only 3 coaches sat in to listen to what I had to say. The problem are the Coaches, Athletic Directors, Board Presidents and apathetic parents. There is a serious lack of leadership at the top of the football-playing community throughout this country. For the most part, when it comes to this subject, I have been a lone wolf howling in the wilderness. Everybody is now aware of the serious threat head injuries pose to Youth and High School age players. With all the news reports about former NFL player's difficulties with their deteriorating mental and physical capacities, the many reports of football-related tragedies all across the nation each season, you would suppose all Youth, High School and College programs would be knocking on my door looking to lessen the danger posed to their athletes. It has not been the case.
Moms: it is clearly up to you to force changes in the way football programs treat your children. Please visit my new website at www.TrainEmUpAcademy.org (click CAMPS and CLINICS) to see for yourself how players and coaches alike will learn how to identify and avoid the physical mechanisms that lead to head first impact when attempting to make a tackle. Also see the TAKE-A-L.A.P. (Learn-Avoid-Prevent) Injury Preventive Fundraiser I created to get the knowledge, training and equipment into the hands of your child's football program. If your child's league is not pursuing tackling safety certification of their coaches and players, don't allow your child to play football with that association. Sit this and every year out until the leagues begin to care as much about your child's health and well-being as you do. If the number of brain injuries have not prompted them do their due diligence in seeking ways to better protect your child, maybe the number of dollars they don't collect from sign up fees will.
Until that time comes, I say play chess everyone!
Moms--the all time guardians of kids at play
Brooke de Lench
Publisher /Editor In Chief
MomsTeam.com
Author:
Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports
Mr. Hosea, Your efforts are
Mr. Hosea, Your efforts are noble, and many parents (mom's especially) are in your corner. There are even many Mom's who probably like the publicity of the concussions in recent months as ammunition to keep their kids out of football. Below is one of your last points, and it really hits the nail on the head.... "If your child's league is not pursuing tackling safety certification of their coaches and players, don't allow your child to play football with that association. Sit this and every year out until the leagues begin to care as much about your child's health and well-being as you do. If the number of brain injuries have not prompted them do their due diligence in seeking ways to better protect your child, maybe the number of dollars they don't collect from sign up fees will. Until that time comes, I say play chess everyone!" Yes, if you don't WANT to play, then don't. You see, and I'm suprised as a football coach you've not realized this. Football is a violent contact sport. Players get hurt. It's as simple as that. There has never been a mandate for kids to play football. All made a decision some time way back that they wanted to play football. That's the difference. It's not that mom's care more, it's just dad's understand the risk/ reward of playing sports. Some will risk the injury because football is such a great and popular sport to play. In fact, many now say that the NFL is the most popular professional sport in America. As you say though, if you are not comfortable with this arrangement, then don't play.
Hello John, I am not
Hello John, I am not talking about "INJURY" like a broken leg, pulled muscle or torn knee ligaments, those kinds of injuries are inherent to tackle football and will always be apart of the game. I'm not even talking about concussions because players get concussions from hitting their head on the ground and those will also always be apart of the game as well. I'm talking about catastrophic brain, neck or spinal cord injuries that are the result of players initiating contact with their head to tackle their opponent. Catastrophic injuries that cause paralysis or death need not be apart of the game. Those types of injuries can be totally avoided. With the proper knowledge, training and equipment, catastrophic upper torso injuries can be completely eliminated from the game. John I played football for 14 years of my life and have been a coach since 1982, I know the game is extremely physical, Tackle football is the most dangerous thing most kids will be involved in their entire lives unless and until they join the Marine Corp or their local Police Department. The difference is that the Marines and Policemen are being trained by instructors that are teaching them to survive the hostile environment they are about to go in to, the same thing can not be said about the average Youth or High School football coach. They don't know the specific reasons that causes headfirst impact or how to train players how to keep their head out of the tackle. When you consider that 75% of all Youth football players do not go on to play at the High School level, it makes the risks entirely too high for the reward they will gain from it. John football players are not born they are made and the people responsible for making them into football players are obligated to look out for their well-being and that is where due diligence comes in, looking for ways to lower the risks. For now, the only real instruction young players get from their coach is simply "KEEP YOUR HEAD UP" and if a youngster does not keep his head up and gets a catastrophic head injury whose fault is it, the child's or the instructor? Clearly it all falls on the coach and the entire league because they did not do their due diligence to learn how to teach the child the proper way to tackle. In other words, they didn't call me. Due diligence means doing everything you can to make your program is safer for the children that play it. Most parents think coaches know what they are doing simply because he is the coach, but for the most part the coach is just a Dad not someone who has spent 14 years and thousands of hours on the subject of avoiding brain injuries in football as I have. I want every kid that wants to play football to be safe while they play and that starts at the top with the league Commissioners, Presidents, Athletic Directors, Coaches and Parents seeking a safer way to play the game and if a league is not willing to protect the children better, do not let your child play for them. Pro footballs popularity has nothing to do with teaching a more intelligent way of playing the game.
As for mandate for playing football, the only mandate that is needed is that coaches should be mandated to be educated on how to teach tackling properly but there is none and that is what I want to change. At the moment anybody can be a coach without any coaching qualifications at all. All is needed is to clear a background check and a person is good to go. As long as there are no standards that force leagues to improve their coaches, catastrophic brain, neck and spinal injuries will continue to escalate.
Duty of care
Due Diligence
Lindsay, what I am trying to do is make people aware that there is a way to prevent needless brain, neck and spinal cord injuries through knowledge, training and the proper equipment and if leagues don't at least pursue or investigate a method that lowers the risk of injury, then they are liable for negligence and can be sued for not looking out for the best interest of the children. After all, Youth Leagues are 501 (c) 3 not for profit corporations created for the "PUBLIC GOOD"! I want every Mom whose child wants to play football to visit my website at www.TrainEmUpAcademy.org so they can pass the information on to their child's league and if they are unwilling to improve the safety of their program they should not put their child in harms way.
Mr. Hosea and Lindsay, I'm
Mr. Hosea and Lindsay, I'm just trying to provide some balance. No of course I don't feel the league has no obligation for safety, of course they do. Conversly, I don't think you can GUARANTEE that no kids will get hurt playing football, even head and neck injuries. You guys seem to think that through coaching and instructions, all of our perils will go away and we'll can play sports in this safety zone and no one ever gets hurt. That's not realistic. Kids who play contact sports will get concussions. Someone will get hit at just the right angle, even with proper technique.
No Safety Guarantees
John, you are missing an
John, you are missing an important aspect of what is being called for. Nobody is GUARANTEEING anything. Injury is apart of tackle football. The point is that every Youth or High School football program do their due diligence to make sure their coaches are not teaching techniques that cause player's head to initiate contact to block, tackle or run over their opponents. What players are taught or not taught, leads to severe injury of the brain, neck and spine. Those types of injury that occur from headfirst impact are not accidents, they are the result of a lack of knowledge on the part of the teachers. That is the responsibility of the Youth League to assure the parents their children are being instructed properly.
BINGO, Mr. Hosea and Ms.
BINGO, Mr. Hosea and Ms. Barton, you've nailed it! Courts, lawyers, claims of negligence...trainings, workshops, certifications, layers and layers of red tape. At the end of the day what does it mean? $$$$$$$
Most youth programs run on shoestring budgets with volunteer coaches. These leagues don't have hundreds of dollars to pay for training of staff and coaches and certifications. In reality, when these types of things are brought about, good coaches are run off and don't want to deal with the beaurocracy.
Sure, in a perfect world if funding wasn't an issue, everyone would do everything they could to insure the safety of these kids. But let's deal in reality. Honestly, in my opinion, with the millions of kids who play youth sports across the country, most sports are relatively safe. At least a heck of alot safer than when I played them 30 years ago.
I guess our difference of opinion stems on the degree of safety both of you are advocating. Considering the resources available, I'm happy with the job most of our mostly volunteer youth coaches do. But, as you say Bobby, if you're not satisfied, play chess!
Liability
Brooke de Lench
Publisher /Editor In Chief
MomsTeam.com
Author:
Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports (Harper Collins)
BINGO...
No John, you have it backwards, if a program is unwilling to improve the safety of their program, they need to get out of the Youth Football business. Your assumption that programs can't afford to have their volunteer coaches certified is not based on fact first of all because you have not done your due diligence to see if there are indeed programs out there that addresses this very issue at NO cost from to the poorest to the richest of programs. That's why courts and lawyers get involved, because of negligence. The lawyers looking to get paid are all after the fact. After needless injuries have occurred. This is not 30 years ago when you played, this being the information age, people are aware or can become aware of any and everything in the world if they want to seek the information. What Lindsey and I are talking about, for example, back when you played football coaches were teaching players to stick their forehead in the middle of a ball carriers chest, rap your arms around his waist and put him on his back. Well, that is how coaches across the country are still teaching players or, they are telling the kids to "BITE THE BALL" which leads directly to head-first impact and injury. So now you have information available telling you these types of tackling techniques kill children, causes paralysis, neck injuries and concussions. Which is more costly, mandating your coaches to attend a Tackling Safety Awareness Clinic or, be sued because your coaches were teaching something that is KNOWN to cause catastrophic injury and a child gets severely injured as a result? That's when a program can and should be sued. All Youth Sports Programs have a legal responsibility to provide the safest environment possible for the children and if they can't, they need not be involved with children's sports. If they won't, that would be frieghtning and I would not allow my child to play for that organization. For information on how you can make your child's football program safer this coming season, please visit my website at www.DipNRipSticks.com and click on the TAKE-A-L.A.P. button.Only knowledge, training and equipment can lower the risk of catastrophic brain, neck and spinal cord injuries that result from players initiating contact with their head to make tackles. This is the only program in the country that can provide all elements needed to improve safety and every football program in the nation can do it.
Mr. Hosea, so to cut to the
Mr. Hosea, so to cut to the chase, kids don't play youth football becasue they don't have the funding to properly train coaches in tackling techniques OR they disband their program for fear of being sued??? And this helps who or what in the long run?
Who?.....The Children and their Parents that's who!
"Because of no funding to train coaches...OR...Disband for fear of being sued?"
John again, lack of funding has been eliminated from the equation and people in those decision making positions know it.
To answer your question, no, if programs do their due diligence to find out ways to get their coaches properly trained, they will never have to worry about being sued in court if a child is injured as a result of initiating contact with their head to make a tackle. As long as a coach did not directly or indirectly instruct the child to do so. After a player has been educated to the dangers of hitting with the head and trained how to avoid it during live football competition, coaches and all league officials are not liable for the injury because they did their due diligence to lower the risks. Knowledge and training gives athletes the power to protect themselves from injury. That is when initiating contact with the head becomes a choice not an accident. If they have been taught the correct way to keep the head out of the tackle everybody wins in the long run!
Kudos to you coach for
Kudos to you coach for standing up to applaud the mothers who call your peers to task on unprofessional and risky behavior. So often youth athletes are indoctrinated with the mantra 'coach is always right', and though that might make for good training and team building it's important that the coaches also have a certain sense of humility and the common sense to listen to parents concerns about personal injury.