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Comment by onlypassingthru | Hacker News Reader

Yes, we take tackle football off the table for HS athletes and below. And then replace it with flag football. It's cheaper for the school, safer for the kids and has the benefit of being more coed friendly (a necessity for small schools that struggle to find enough players).

Soccer is addressing the concussion issue by banning headers. I think the current rule is no headers for U12s and below. That will probably be adjusted upwards to U14s at some point.

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Notice that you don't really do a lot of headers if you consider the course of a full game: the main risk does not come from the ball on your head, but from some other player's body who's also trying to get to the ball.

That's right but these collisions are often predicated by an attempted head ball.

there isn't much need for headers in soccer. I think inevitably it will be banned across the entire game in due time

There is at the elite level.† Kids games, not so much.

† https://news.northeastern.edu/2026/07/12/world-cup-headers-2...

Headers are an enormous part of the game, they are their own discreet skillset. I expect rugby-style headgear to become the norm starting in youth leagues though.

Lower levels of football are the safer ones though. In terms of reducing CTE it would be better to remove NFL then College. Pee wee football is the safest level of football.

Additionally, people in college and NFL have played waaay more football which increases the chance of CTE. 95% of HS football players will not play beyond HS.

Removing HS football and lower wouldn’t make a big difference and would negatively impact the most people.

This is nonsense, the numbers of people involved in these are orders of magnitude different

Tell that to all of the HS players who have gotten concussions playing football. I struggle to think of anyone I know who didn't get at least one concussion playing HS football.

I never did, played 4 years including two years varsity

It hasn't done your logical reasoning any favors though.

You seem to be suggesting a concussion is automatic thing for a high school football player.

And I started all four years, The first two years on both offense and defense.

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