Is football too violent for kids? If it is, then what?

The scrutiny over youth sports concussion seems to get more intense by the day. Last week the New York Times ran four articles - pieces on concussions in youth basketball (we also blogged on this), a suspected link between the suicide of a college football player and years of head trauma, a NFL middle linebacker who was permitted to wobble back into a game despite having taken a major blow to the noggin and renewed speculation that head trauma occurs routinely (and is under-diagnosed routinely) in youth sports.

Over the weekend the Philadelphia Inquirer's deputy editorial page editor asked whether football is just too darn dangerous for kids.

Youth football organizations need to be taking the lead in sharing accurate information and encouraging frank discussion of this issue. On my last visit to the Pop Warner Web site, I couldn't find either. The lead articles were "Enter the 2010 Pop Warner Photo Contest" and "Vote for Pop Warner National Championships."

This is not Pop Warner's responsibility alone. But as the largest organized kids' football league in the country, it should be speaking loudly about this issue. And speaking out in every possible forum, including its Web site. So should countless other youth football leagues around the country.

Meanwhile, I recommend Stop Sports Injuries as an excellent source of information about concussions and many other common injuries in youth sports.

Is football too violent for kids? And if it is, then what?

One coach speaks out about specializing in sports

This isn't the first post in this space about reasons to encourage kids to play many sports - not just the one that a parent wants to coach or a child seems to have decent ability in. More like the third. Or thirtieth.

But just when you begin to think there's nothing more to say about early specialization, there's more to say. Roc Murray is baseball coach at Rocklin High School in Northern California. He's the 2010 California Coach of the Year as voted by the California Coaches' Association. (I take this to mean he had a better year than Phil Jackson and Joe Torre).

It's rare for a high school coach to take a stand against specialization, in part because when kids are specializing in the sport they're coaching it's great for their programs. Or so the thinking goes. I had a chance to speak with Roc Murray last week. My first thought: This guy is a lot less interested in his win-loss record (though his seems to be excellent) than in developing the young kids who comes through his program. My second thought: Too bad my kids never had a chance to play for Roc Murray.

Roc is dead-set against specialization, even for high school athletes and especially for the kids playing on his teams. He wrote a short article about why. "Playing only for one sport, and one team, and one coach, promotes the idea that if you want something bad enough you should disassociate yourself from all other contacts. This disassociation keeps players from gaining experiences that will enhance decision-making both on and off the field or court."

I have a new favorite team in California high school baseball.

"We see kids hurt before they become athletes"

Suddenly - and encouragingly - overuse sports injuries are getting a lot of attention this month in some prominent publications.

James Andrews gets much of the credit. Two articles this week focus on the surgeon's new initiative Stop Sports Injuries. Andrews sees a startling number of kids with overuse injuries in his clinic in Birmingham. This year, as president of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, he nudged the surgeons' organization into backing STOP.

The STOP program launched in April - with Andrews doing a round of interviews and the unveiling of an impressive Web site. More stuff is coming, including - if Andrews can find the millions in funding that he seeks - a National Youth Sports Day when sports docs would fan out to youth leagues around the country preaching about the dangers of starting too soon and doing too much.

Already, Andrews has lined up an A-list of STOP spokespeople, friends and ex-patients, including Charles Barkley, Jack Nicklaus, Terry Bradshaw, Bo Jackson, and John Smoltz, among them.

The Boston Globe ran this article Thursday.

I wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated in the current issue (June 7). In it, Andrews says: "I don't think epidemic is too strong a word. We're seeing kids hurt before they even have a chance to become athletes."

Education is a helpful thing, no doubt. What Andrews is doing - and what he has talked his star patients into assisting with - is fabulous. The key will be to persuade those of us with big ambitions for our kids that we're not helping them reach their potential as athletes. If anything, the opposite is true. Tough being a hot-shot travel team player with a cast on your leg or arm in a sling