Intense ‘atmosphere,’ concussion concerns take toll on select football

The scene was right out of a Hollywood movie studio: The ultra-competitive assistant football coach peering menacingly into the facemask of his player, who apparently needed a pick-me-up motivational message at halftime.

“You go out there and hit somebody now!” the coach screamed to his trooper. “I put you out there for a reason!”

Only, this wasn’t Rudy or the The Blind Side.

It was the 10-and-under Dallas-area Yellowjackets United select football team, playing in the championship game of the Texas Youth Football State Championship Series at a stadium on San Antonio’s east side.

It’s this type of stuff that is chasing Rockey Parker from youth sports and making many others question the wisdom of select football that plays as many as 24 games between fall and spring leagues. Especially in an era when science has offered so much more instruction in the risk and consequences of concussions, particularly among the most vulnerable: young children whose brains are not fully developed.

Parker, whose Tarrant County-based Texas School of Football has had more than 10,000 players from Dallas-Fort Worth since opening in 2005, suspended his spring season a few months ago.

For eight years, he had both a spring and fall league. Now, he’s more than likely folding up his tent altogether.

“This day and age, youth sports is not always a pleasant atmosphere,” said Parker. “Three years ago, we had a kid with a concussion … we made him pull his gear off and after halftime we noticed that the coach put the kid back in. It was a win at all costs.

“I love football, no one was doing spring tackle football” until the Texas School of Football, he said. “I’m 51 and I got two grandsons, and I couldn’t wait for them to play football. I grew up playing, my four sons played, but I’m not sure I want [the grandsons playing]. It’s changed for us.”

Not only do more and more studies confirm that sports specialization at a young age, no matter the sport, is not good and offers no benefit to future success, they also show that multisport athletes show the most potential.

Of the 31 picks in the first round of this year’s NFL Draft, 28 were multisport athletes in high school. Of the 256 picks on the 2015 NFL Draft, 224 were multisport athletes.

Most concerning today is what has been learned about concussions in young players and a lack of education among coaches and parents when it comes to head injuries.

While all 50 states have laws mandating that their public schools have concussions teams (which include a doctor or nurse practitioner) overseeing the well-being of injured players, most, including Texas, have no laws subjecting youth leagues to the same standard.

While you can clearly see a player with a gimpy leg, oftentimes you can’t see the brain limping, especially among those who have no extensive education in head injuries.

“I’m unqualified to tell a coach that he should run a particular offense or defense,” said Cindy Trowbridge, a certified athletic trainer for more than 20 years and now a UT Arlington associate professor and clinical educational coordinator for the school’s athletic training program. “How can we expect a coach to make a medical decision on whether a player should return or not?

“We take a group of students who are 15-18 and we mandate this, but then we say, if you’re younger than 15, you can be out there playing, have an injury and a parent, who has no medical training can send you back out because they think they’re OK.”

Trowbridge emphasized that another important element of youth sports, particularly football, is neck strength, which can moderate the impact of deceleration from acceleration and can limit the movement of the brain inside the skull on a play of impact or whiplash.

She compared the brain to egg yolk still in its shell. Studies show that those with stronger necks suffer fewer concussions, she said. Kids develop differently. Some have strong neck muscles at 12, others do not.

Properly fitted helmets are another important facet. Some kids are wearing helmets that don’t fit, straining the neck and, as a result, the brain.

Each of those teams competing in San Antonio on May 14 were required to bring their own trainer. The games featured divisions as young as 8-and-under.

It’s unclear how many brought a trainer, though the Yellowjackets United 10U has a parent who is a paramedic who volunteers his time. Their opponent, Unity of Dallas, has a parent who is a doctor and volunteers her time.

The Euless Longhorns, a 14U team, do not have a trainer. All preventive measures and pre-diagnosis is done by the coaching staff, said coach Jason Barnes, who has more than two decades of experience. Like any other youth sport, he requires liability forms.

A trainer is cost prohibitive, said Barnes, who added that he spent $5,000 out of his own pocket to take the team to San Antonio.

All the coaches are volunteers, and he does not have a sponsor. The team was playing in the Texas School of Football league, but moved to the DFW-based Best Youth Football League when Parker called it quits.

Barnes said he coaches differently with the growing knowledge of concussions.

“We teach things a little differently,” said Barnes, a former high school coach who has been coaching youth football for 21 years. “We certainly watch things a little more … there is no more ‘suck it up, get back out there’ like when we played.”

But at the same time, “It’s football. It’s going to happen. It’s how you monitor it that is more important nowadays.”

Barnes does not believe the kids play too many games, especially considering that there is essentially no hitting in practice. David Grubbs, the paramedic with the Yellowjackets, said the same. Practice entails only instruction and walk-throughs, he said, with moderate hitting one day a week at practice.

Trowbridge, a football fan who has worked with football teams since 1993, and Denton High School football coach Kevin Atkinson believe 20 to 24 games a year is too much.

“I am not a fan of spring football,” said Atkinson, whose son, Colton Atkinson, is a quarterback for the Broncos. “Football is meant to be played one time a year. Your body only needs to take hits one time a year. To me you double the chances for freak accidents, or a concussion.”

Atkinson said the key to youth football and sports in general is the coach. Not all of them are qualified.

“You get these guys who love the game of football, and I’m glad they love it, but they’re not coaches. They didn’t go to school to be certified as a teacher and coach. Their favorite thing is professional football, they watch that and try to get kids to do things they really can’t do. And they’re hard on them. There’s a small percentage that you can be hard on and they’ll love that. But there are a lot of kids who are intimidated and they don’t like it.”

As part of her work, Trowbridge focuses on educating parents.

“It’s ultimately the parent making the decisions most of the time,” Trowbridge said. “They know the kid better than anyone … the emotional changes and physical changes.”

There is a movement afoot to eliminate tackle football altogether for kids under the age of 15. That could be wise, Trowbridge said, yet that wouldn’t eliminate all of the risk. Whiplash can also cause concussions.

But that’s part of the education she hopes to advance — that and fewer games — that might ultimately help save the good work that coaches such as Parker and Barnes are doing for young people.

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Intense ‘atmosphere,’ concussion concerns take toll on select football."