
‘There’s no place to go after eight-man’: Small towns seek to preserve football - pmcpinto
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/theres-no-place-to-go-after-eight-man-small-towns-seek-to-preserve-football/2017/11/06/d5784152-b11f-11e7-99c6-46bdf7f6f8ba_story.html?utm_term=.7b922292efa9
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grecy
Coming from Australia, one of the strangest things about American Football is
that nobody plays it for recreation (or semi-competitively) after High School
/ College.

In Australia there are thousands and thousands of cricket, Aussie Rules footy,
Rubgy (union and league) and more games played every single weekend.

It's strange that a national sport is not played more.

~~~
aaron-lebo
There are flag football leagues all over the US, semi-pro leagues exist, too.
There's lots of people who play on the weekend in and out of leagues.

Or you're asking why 35-year olds aren't buying helmets and pads so they can
break collarbones and tear ligaments? Contact football is brutal.

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grecy
> _Or you 're asking why 35-year olds aren't buying helmets and pads so they
> can break collarbones and tear ligaments? Contact football is brutal._

Yes, yes.

In Australia we play Aussie rules, Rubgy League and Rugby Union - all are full
contact with no pads or helmets. Plenty of people play into their 40s.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh5hNY83UA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh5hNY83UA4)

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aaron-lebo
The price of equipment itself is a limiting factor. Also, though rugby is
rough, there's an argument that the reason why US football is as dangerous as
it is is due to the equipment. See here where a helmet to helmet hit breaks a
jaw.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9RfJwSkMU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9RfJwSkMU8)

~~~
lj3
Helmet to helmet hits are incredibly rare in casual play (and illegal!). Most
of the arguments against Football only apply to Pro and College where people
are getting paid millions of dollars. When that much money is on the line, of
course people are going to be ridiculously competitive, even to the point of
injuring others intentionally. I've yet to see that kind of behavior in high
school or semi-pro ball.

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aaron-lebo
Helmet to helmet hits are illegal but the dynamics of that play are repeated
almost every passing down. Receivers running ten to fifteen yards down the
field, basically defenseless at the catch. Every single punt and kickoff only
exacerbates this with people sprinting down the field in body armor, with
plastic shells on their head that turn into weapons.

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lj3
You've never played football, have you? Or rugby?

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aaron-lebo
What kind of question is that?

I played tackle football from third to 8th grade, fullback and middle
linebacker. I've been watching it for 25 years.

Don't assume things about people when you disagree?

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lj3
I didn't assume. I asked. In all of your time playing football, have you ever
had a concussion? How about anybody you played with? Did you ever lead a
tackle with your head? If you had, you'd know how much it hurts and how
ineffective it is.

~~~
bocklund
In my middle and high school years, it seemed like 1-2 people per year would
get concussions.

~~~
alistairSH
I'd wager 1-2 received concussions that were outwardly noticeable. More likely
received mild concussions that went unreported.

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fencepost
Once thing that jumped out at me was the gender disparity in the younger
classes. If I'm reading it correctly, for 2015+2016 there were 39 kids in
kindergarten and 7 of them were boys.

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sparrish
There is someplace to go after eight-man... Our small school in Eastern
Colorado played six-man football against other schools across the state. The
field is smaller and there's a lot more running. Most guys played both ways
(offence and defense). And the school and boosters funded it very well.

I didn't participate cause I could care less about sports in general.

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oneeyedpigeon
_American_ football; for the rest of the globe, football is something
different, normally what Americans refer to as "soccer", sometimes another
nation-specific sport such as Australian Rules Football. Can we at least get
"American" added to the title to avoid confusion?

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aaron-lebo
Is eight-man soccer a thing?

~~~
lostcolony
It can be played with smaller teams, sure. Just like basketball; even with
just two of you you can still have a compelling reason to play.

Football, not so much.

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burntsushi
Sure it can. I grew up playing 3-man touch football. One QB, one receiver and
one defender. We always called it "stars" and had an entire rule system for
it, although I don't actually know whether it was an intensely local thing or
whether it's something a lot of other people did too.

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randycupertino
These kids shouldn't be killing their brains to play a game. Just finished
reading League of Denial, incredibly eye-opening re: everything the NFL has
done to cover up long term brain damage from football. The NFL is basically
Big Tobacco now, and imo any parent who lets their kid play football at this
point with everything we know is akin to child abuse.

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megaman22
Oh, come on. Anybody that is "shocked, shocked, I say", about football players
who've taken thousands upon thousands of hits getting squishy after their
playing careers has been asleep at the wheel for a long, long time.

But grade school football and NFL level football are orders of magnitude
apart. Life is a trade-off, and children aren't made out of glass.

~~~
jacobolus
We are talking about high school students (14-18 years old), playing tackle
football, with all the helmet bashing (and concussions, if you read the
article) that entails. Many of these kids weigh 250+ lbs and hit each-other
hard on every play.

But if you want to talk about grade school students, the risks are possibly
worse: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-
fo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/sports/football/tackle-football-
brain-youth.html)

~~~
lj3
> and concussions

Scare mongering. Concussions don't happen at the high school level. I played
high school football, my brothers played high school football, cousins, etc.
There is no helmet bashing. It's illegal and it hurts, so nobody does it.

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tallanvor
So... You didn't read the article.

"A week ago, he left the second half of North Dickinson’s loss to Superior
Central because of a concussion. He looked ready to return for senior night,
then took a turn midweek when he couldn’t remember some of what showed up on
the game film of Phillips High, this week’s opponent."

Concussions are common in football, and are not just due to helmet bashing.

