Concussions Should Be Banned

Bam! A player will head the soccer ball an average of twelve times during a game, thirty or more times during a drill in practice, and hundreds and thousands of times during a season. In the article, Frequent Soccer Ball ‘Heading’ May Lead to Brain Injury the Albert Einstein College of Medicine has estimated that a soccer ball can travel up to speeds of sixty-seven mph when a player kicks it. If a player heads the ball that many times at those speeds, think of what could be happening to a player’s brain. Concussions are becoming national headliners in today’s news, with many players suffering from the effects of concussions. Football’s struggles with player concussions have been well documented over the past few years, but what people do not

High school soccer is one of the biggest areas for concussions. In 2010, more high school soccer players suffered concussions (50,000) than athletes in wrestling, baseball and softball combined (Payne). In the article, U.S youth soccer players told: Don’t head the ball by Greg Botelho, a study published in 2012 by the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that girls’ soccer had the next highest concussion numbers. These are significant number that show that concussions are a major problem. In the article, Will Soccer’s New Header Rules Make Kids Safer? Jon Schuppe points out that a September study of high school athletes in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that heading was the soccer activity responsible for the highest proportion of concussions in boy (30 percent) and girls (25 percent). This is an alarming percentage of high school soccer athletes that are suffering from heading related concussions. Could banning heading on the youth level result in kids choosing their feet to control the ball instead of their head. Not to mention, when kids do get into age groups where they are allowed to head the ball they can focus on proper heading technique instead of having to focus on teaching kids how to dribble a ball correctly. High school teams will not only have players with solid foot skills, but also players