Head Injuries Impacting All Football Levels

My 11-year-old godson is a tough kid. He plays big for his size (by comparison, my just-turned nine-year-old daughter is taller) and has shown enough ability to have his family — and me — believing he has a real future in sports. But that sport won't be football. After sustaining two concussions, his parents made the decision to pull him out of football despite his love of the game, and his relative success at an early age.

Their actions are becoming increasingly common in youth football. Pop Warner numbers have declined more than 10 percent over the past three years, with league officials acknowledging parental concern over head injuries as the primary reason. High school football participation, as I noted in "Numbers Crunch" (December 2014, p. 40), had been steadily declining since 2008 before rebounding a bit in 2013.

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