Youth Tackle Football Teams Carry On Despite Concerns

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Independent youth football clubs are rushing in to fill the void left by the Marshall, Texas, junior high tackle football team after it shut down in 2014. The move to close the seventh-grade team was advocated by Marshall high school football coach Clint Harper, who claimed that poor teaching in youth football made players more susceptible to injury. The Pop Warner and Boys & Girls Club youth football programs have also been discontinued in Marshall, citing as the main reasons safety concerns, liability and a lack of participation.

Bryan Partee, director of the local Boys & Girls Club, wanted to make it clear that “we’re not on a crusade—we’re on the side of safety. The contact stuff is just outside our youth development strategy.” And Marshall is not the only place where youth contact sports have taken a hit. According to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, participation in tackle football for boys between the ages of six and twelve has dropped almost twenty percent since 2009, and schools in Maine, Missouri and New Jersey have all moved to close their tackle football programs.

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