Ten years ago, while coaching youth football in our community, I stood outside a local gas station with three 9-year-old players for a team fundraiser. About an hour in, a woman approached our table. Visibly upset, she confronted me, declaring that youth football was a form of child abuse and that I should be arrested.
I let her speak and politely asked her to move on. But while the 9-year-olds quickly bounced back from the encounter, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why did she feel that way? I realized that, like her, many people in our town genuinely believe football is inherently unsafe for their children.
As a former player and someone who studied sports medicine in college, I understand where that fear comes from. I grew up in the 1980s, an era when high-impact, bone-crushing hits were celebrated on ESPN highlight reels. I can still hear Chris Berman’s voice saying “Welcome to the NFL.” When I played, the “warrior mentality” ruled: you shook off hits and stayed on the field.
For a long time, I resisted calls to change the game. But as I continued playing into adulthood, reality set in. I played in a local semi-pro football league, and every week players were being taken by ambulance for preventable injuries. I realized that unless player safety became the absolute top priority, the sport wouldn’t survive.
Thankfully, the way football is played now is fundamentally different from the game we grew up watching.
At the youth level, head contact is strictly penalized; any contact deemed unnecessary or with the intent to injure is cause for ejection, and coaches focus heavily on safe, wrap-up tackling techniques. Crucially, the culture around head injuries has completely transformed. Today, if an official, coach, or trainer suspects a head injury, the player is removed from the field immediately for medical evaluation – no exceptions, no pushback.
While sensationalized headlines and movies focus on historical NFL studies, they often miss how much the game has evolved at the local level. At ConVal, where our football program has run for nearly 30 years, we see roughly the same rate of head injuries as in soccer.
At the same time, youth sports participation is declining nationally, while youth mental health issues are rising. Organized sports teach resilience, teamwork, and discipline – life skills our kids need now more than ever.
No child should ever be pressured to play football. But if a young athlete genuinely wants to play and commits to learning proper technique under knowledgeable, safety-focused coaches, we shouldn’t let fear rob them of the opportunity. A well-trained, well-coached athlete is a safe athlete.
Football has changed for the better. It’s time our conversation about it changed, too.
Joe Benham is a 15-year Peterborough resident and youth sports coach who serves as a Wellness Teacher and athletic coach at ConVal High School.