Are Some Sports Too Dangerous for Kids?

Are Some Sports Too Dangerous for Kids?
Author: Amy B. Rogers
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2018-07-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1534525602

Sports are fun, but they can be dangerous, too. As more information becomes available about concussions and other injuries, many people have wondered if certain sports, such as football, are too dangerous for kids to play. People often have strong opinions about this topic, and readers are introduced to these opinions in a way that enhances their critical-thinking skills. The facts readers need to develop their own informed opinion are included in the thoroughly researched main text and accompanying fact boxes. A graphic organizer and full-color photographs help readers visualize the many parts of this complex issue.

That's Gotta Hurt

That's Gotta Hurt
Author: Dr. David Geier
Publisher: University Press of New England
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1512600695

In That's Gotta Hurt, the orthopaedist David Geier shows how sports medicine has had a greater impact on the sports we watch and play than any technique or concept in coaching or training. Injuries among professional and college athletes have forced orthopaedic surgeons and other healthcare providers to develop new surgeries, treatments, rehabilitation techniques, and prevention strategies. In response to these injuries, sports themselves have radically changed their rules, mandated new equipment, and adopted new procedures to protect their players. Parents now openly question the safety of these sports for their children and look for ways to prevent the injuries they see among the pros. The influence that sports medicine has had in effecting those changes and improving both the performance and the health of the athletes has been remarkable. Through the stories of a dozen athletes whose injuries and recovery advanced the field (including Joan Benoit, Michael Jordan, Brandi Chastain, and Tommy John), Dr. Geier explains how sports medicine makes sports safer for the pros, amateurs, student-athletes, and weekend warriors alike. That's Gotta Hurt is a fascinating and important book for all athletes, coaches, and sports fans.

Changing the Game

Changing the Game
Author: John O'Sullivan
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2013-12-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1614486468

The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.

Concussions and Our Kids

Concussions and Our Kids
Author: Robert C. Cantu
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0547773943

From America's preeminent expert on the head trauma crisis in sports, a timely, provocative, essential guide to concussions in youth sports--what they are, how to treat them, and how to protect our young athletes.

Sports-Related Concussions in Youth

Sports-Related Concussions in Youth
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309288037

In the past decade, few subjects at the intersection of medicine and sports have generated as much public interest as sports-related concussions - especially among youth. Despite growing awareness of sports-related concussions and campaigns to educate athletes, coaches, physicians, and parents of young athletes about concussion recognition and management, confusion and controversy persist in many areas. Currently, diagnosis is based primarily on the symptoms reported by the individual rather than on objective diagnostic markers, and there is little empirical evidence for the optimal degree and duration of physical rest needed to promote recovery or the best timing and approach for returning to full physical activity. Sports-Related Concussions in Youth: Improving the Science, Changing the Culture reviews the science of sports-related concussions in youth from elementary school through young adulthood, as well as in military personnel and their dependents. This report recommends actions that can be taken by a range of audiences - including research funding agencies, legislatures, state and school superintendents and athletic directors, military organizations, and equipment manufacturers, as well as youth who participate in sports and their parents - to improve what is known about concussions and to reduce their occurrence. Sports-Related Concussions in Youth finds that while some studies provide useful information, much remains unknown about the extent of concussions in youth; how to diagnose, manage, and prevent concussions; and the short- and long-term consequences of concussions as well as repetitive head impacts that do not result in concussion symptoms. The culture of sports negatively influences athletes' self-reporting of concussion symptoms and their adherence to return-to-play guidance. Athletes, their teammates, and, in some cases, coaches and parents may not fully appreciate the health threats posed by concussions. Similarly, military recruits are immersed in a culture that includes devotion to duty and service before self, and the critical nature of concussions may often go unheeded. According to Sports-Related Concussions in Youth, if the youth sports community can adopt the belief that concussions are serious injuries and emphasize care for players with concussions until they are fully recovered, then the culture in which these athletes perform and compete will become much safer. Improving understanding of the extent, causes, effects, and prevention of sports-related concussions is vitally important for the health and well-being of youth athletes. The findings and recommendations in this report set a direction for research to reach this goal.

The Brain on Youth Sports

The Brain on Youth Sports
Author: Julie M. Stamm
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1538143208

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Dispels the myths surrounding head impacts in youth sports and empowers parents to make informed decisions about sports participation “They’re just little kids, they don’t hit that hard or that much.” “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) only happens to former NFL players.” “Youth sports are safer than ever.” These are all myths which, if believed, put young, rapidly maturing brains at risk each season. In The Brain on Youth Sports: The Science, the Myths, and the Future, Julie M. Stamm dissects the issue of repetitive brain trauma in youth sports and their health consequences, explaining the science behind impacts to the head in an easy-to-understand approach. Stamm counters the myths, weak arguments, and propaganda surrounding the youth sports industry, providing guidance for those deciding whether their child should play certain high-risk sports as well as for those hoping to make youth sports as safe as possible. Stamm, a former three-sport athlete herself, understands the many wonderful benefits that come from playing youth sports and believes all children should have the opportunity to compete—without the risk of long-term consequences.

Truth Doesn't Have a Side

Truth Doesn't Have a Side
Author: Bennet Omalu
Publisher: HarperChristian + ORM
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-08-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0310352541

One day in 2002 the fifty-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster’s body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster’s brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn’t add up. It was at this moment, Omalu studying slides of Webster’s brain tissue under a microscope, that the world of contact sports would never be the same: the discovery of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE can result in an array of devastating consequences including deterioration in attention, memory loss, social instability, depression, and even suicide. And Omalu’s discovery of CTE in the brain of an American football player has become the catalyst of a blazing controversy across all contact sports. At the center of that controversy stands the unlikely Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born American citizen, a mild-mannered, gentle man of faith. It is fascinating that it would take someone on the outside of American culture to make this amazing discovery, and refuse to let it be kept hidden. Dr. Omalu began his life in strife, growing up in war-torn Nigeria. But his medical studies in forensic pathology proved to be a lifeline. It fed his natural curiosity and awakened within a deeper desire to always search for the truth. Who would have thought that such an unexpected character would play such a role in bringing to life this world-changing data? In Truth Doesn’t Have a Side, discover the truth about CTE: Its causes and symptoms, how we might keep our children safe and guide professional athletes when CTE sets in. The problem of CTE is coming to light with each new story about an athlete’s concussion problem, and we are likely facing dramatic changes to professional sports. You’ll be inspired by Dr. Bennet Omalu a man driven by his love and concern for the welfare of all people, and his professional vow to speak the truth.

No Game for Boys to Play

No Game for Boys to Play
Author: Kathleen Bachynski
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019-11-25
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1469653710

From the untimely deaths of young athletes to chronic disease among retired players, roiling debates over tackle football have profound implications for more than one million American boys—some as young as five years old—who play the sport every year. In this book, Kathleen Bachynski offers the first history of youth tackle football and debates over its safety. In the postwar United States, high school football was celebrated as a "moral" sport for young boys, one that promised and celebrated the creation of the honorable male citizen. Even so, Bachynski shows that throughout the twentieth century, coaches, sports equipment manufacturers, and even doctors were more concerned with "saving the game" than young boys' safety—even though injuries ranged from concussions and broken bones to paralysis and death. By exploring sport, masculinity, and citizenship, Bachynski uncovers the cultural priorities other than child health that made a collision sport the most popular high school game for American boys. These deep-rooted beliefs continue to shape the safety debate and the possible future of youth tackle football.

Until It Hurts

Until It Hurts
Author: Mark Hyman
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 080709756X

This “hair-raising look at everything that is wrong with youth sports today”—its perils, its history, its key drivers—is a powerful call for positive change (Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights) Over the last seventy-five years, adults have staged a hostile takeover of kids’ sports. In one year alone, more than 3.5 million children under age fifteen required medical treatment for sports injuries—nearly half of which were the result of simple overuse. The quest to turn children into tomorrow's superstar athletes has often led adults to push them beyond physical and emotional limits. In Until It Hurts, journalist, coach, and sports dad Mark Hyman explores how youth sports reached this problematic state. His investigation takes him from the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania to a prestigious Chicago soccer club, from adolescent golf and tennis superstars in Atlanta to California volleyball players. He interviews dozens of children, parents, coaches, psychologists, surgeons, sports medicine specialists, and former professional athletes. He speaks at length with Whitney Phelps, Michael's older sister; retraces the story of A Very Young Gymnast, and its subject, Torrance York; and tells the saga of the Castle High School girls’ basketball team of Evansville, Indiana, which lost three-fifths of its lineup to ACL injuries in 2005. Along the way, Hyman hears numerous stories: about a mother who left her fifteen-year-old daughter at an interstate exit after a heated exchange over her performance during a soccer game, about a coach who ordered preteens to swim laps in three-hour shifts for twenty-four hours. Hyman’s exploration leads him to examine the history of youth sports in our country and how it has evolved, particularly with the increasing involvement of girls and much more proactive participation of parents. With its unique multiple perspective—of history, of reporting, and of personal experience—Until It Hurts delves into the complicated issue of sports for children, opening up a much-needed discussion about the perils of youth sports culture and offering insight into how positive change can be made.

The Sports Gene

The Sports Gene
Author: David Epstein
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2014-04-29
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 161723012X

The New York Times bestseller – with a new afterword about early specialization in youth sports – from the author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training? In this controversial and engaging exploration of athletic success and the so-called 10,000-hour rule, David Epstein tackles the great nature vs. nurture debate and traces how far science has come in solving it. Through on-the-ground reporting from below the equator and above the Arctic Circle, revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism.