Player age and initial helmet contact among American football players

Understanding and Conceptualizing Child Abuse Within Sport

“…Even at a young age, children between the ages of eight and fourteen experience high rates of helmet-to-helmet contact. In the pursuit of finding talented athletes at certain positions, younger children in football leagues will play both offence and defence, which puts these younger athletes in even more danger of getting hit more since they play double the amount a typical football player would play if they only played offence (Wang et al, 2021). In order to increase the safety of young athletes, children should only play offence or defence for the entirety of the game.…”