Is Football Worth The Risk Essay

Is Football Worth the Risk for High School Athletes?
When I was beginning high school as a freshman, I searched for an activity that I could participate in. I was looking to meet new people and hoping to be accepted by other students. I was willing to do anything for their acceptance. At the beginning of the school year a football meeting was announced, although I had never played football before, I decided to attend the meeting. From the day of that initial meeting, I will be in love with the game for the rest of my life. I learned of the consequences involved with participating in a full contact sport such as football. Many people ask if football is worth the risk for high school athletes. I decided that for me the benefits outweigh the risks.
Being a part of a

team makes each person feel like they are needed and relied upon to do the job they have been asked to do. Without all of the teammates working together, the team could not succeed, and would be a failure. Being on a team with other people reveals the person’s true character. For instance, when someone is in a challenging situation it seems they either step up to the challenge or take the easy way out.
If a team does not have the chemistry and the skills to work together it will be almost impossible for the team to be successful. Learning these skills is one of the benefits of playing football. Once all the players on the team understand that the success of the team is more important than their own personal success is when the benefits of their work start to pay off. This shift in understanding makes everyone work harder together for one common goal.
Although losing a game is hard, it is less painful as a team than as individual players. For instance, if players have not learned the beneficial skills of playing as a team they start blaming your own teammates for their mistakes and not congratulating them on their positive impact on the game. Even when the outcome is not what they expect or want it to be, your focus should always be for the team and not yourself. On the other hand, if they are a strong knit team the focus will be on the positive aspects of the game and your teammate’s accomplishments instead of the negatives; this makes taking a loss far less difficult than taking a loss as a team that is full of individual players.
These skills do not pertain to just football; this aspect can be translated to all sports teams and life itself. Team building helps one grow into a leader. One of the key things that can be learned from playing football is leadership. When a team faces adversity only a certain type of person will be the one to stand up when other team members are looking for leadership. Those who demonstrate being a leader, those leadership abilities will not go away for the rest of your life. An example I have learned from playing football is when everyone is doing conditioning and is about to vomit a leader is the one who continues to encourage the rest of the team that they can finish together stronger than ever. Instead a leader would never allow someone to be punished and watch them suffer alone. A leader will always join them and support them to the very end. To some, leaders are the athletes you hear yelling on the field or court. They may be leading but a true leader is one who shows by example and who never gives up no matter the situation. Leaders are those who go to war with the rest of the team and is the one leading them across the battlefield.
I am very thankful that I was given the opportunity to play a sport that I have grown to love since my freshman year of high school.

Playing football has given me the opportunity to meet new people and make new friendships that will last a lifetime. Those friendships are made in the hot summer workouts, when everyone is tired, hot, and thinking about giving up, teammates are right by their side motivating them. After a brutal beginning of the season players are scraped and bruised and during mid-season practices, some players may think that the team doesn’t have any chance at being in the playoffs. Teammates unite together and remind each other that if everyone works together, everything will fall into place. A good team involves also being in good physical shape. Players are banged up and have little annoying pains, but that doesn’t stop a good team so the conditioning doesn’t stop. Everyone has to do it, but being on a team that helps motivate each other, it helps the pain feel more tolerable. In any sport you will be thrown into rigorous situations and being with your teammates and sticking together through it all will not only make the team better, it also will help bring you closer to your

teammates.
Playing a full contact sport such as football it will come with consequences. Those consequences will be the health of your body. In any sport there is a chance for you to get hurt, however in football I believe that your chance is greatly increased. A head injury is now more of a common injury. However any type of injury is possible while playing any sport. In my experience of playing high school football for only three years, I have had my fair share of injuries. During my sophomore year I had a concussion, and junior year I tore my labrum in my shoulder. I’m having surgery in seventeen days and will miss my entire senior year of sports. I have no regrets of playing football in my high school career; it was the greatest time of my life and I would never tell a parent or a student to not play football. However, if I could go back and change one thing it would be as soon as I felt like I was hurt, I would have told a coach about the injury. As an athlete, you believe you’re invincible and think if you don’t play or practice you will lose your spot. There is a chance of that happening; however, your health is far more important than a high school sport. Believing that I wasn’t hurt and that it would have been fine, I still played through it. I will miss my senior year, but the three years that I was able to play and all the memories I have made from playing will make up for having surgery during my senior year. Trying to act big and bad instead of admitting I was hurt is my only regret of my high school football career.
Schools are starting to make budget cuts, and the first thing that comes to their minds are expensive sports. The most expensive high school sport is football, big schools will have to have at the minimum of one hundred helmets, shoulder pads, and girdles. Also they have to pay for game home and away jerseys and game pants. The school will also have to purchase practice gear for all the athletes. Schools will also have to pay for the game field maintenance but also practice field maintenance. Also they have to pay for all of the coaches’ salaries for the season. Since all of these are very expensive, struggling high school’s number one target for budget cuts is football. Since football is such a high impact sport injuries are common and if an athlete gets injured on a schools property they must deal with the situation. Since the chance of an injury is common schools would rather eliminate the problem. There are some schools that are not financially struggling and they offer a type of insurance that is specifically for athletes who participate in football. The insurance is intended for athletes that were to get severely injured the parents would not have the burden of paying for all the medical bills.
The risk of injury is the reasons why some people have a different view of high school football than me. They have many logical reasons why a high impact sport is dangerous for young adults. When someone thinks of football related injuries the first to come to mind is concussions. “There are approximately 67,000 diagnosed concussions in high school football every year” (Prevacus). A concussion is a very serious injury; the effects that a concussion has on a person may not be visible, but mentally a person can be damaged for life. Even with all the dangerous situations football yields it is still one of the most popular high school sports in America. According to CNSNews.com, “Even leaving aside the 1,531 girls, who played high school football in the 2012-2013 school year, the 1,086,627 high school boys who played football exceeded the number of boys and girls combined who participated in any other sport” (Jeffery). “Out of three million and eight hundred thousand concussions reported in 2012, high school football accounts for 47 percent of all reported concussions” (HeadCase). Concussions are not the only reason that deters parents from allowing their children to play. There is a good possibility for any type of injury to occur such as broken bones, sprains, or torn ligaments. Some injuries are more serious and require surgery while others need a bag of ice and a day of rest. “Each year in the U.S. an average of a dozen high school and college football players die during practices and games, according to a new study that finds heart conditions, heat and other non-traumatic causes of death are twice as common as injury-related ones” (Daily News). Parents when debating on letting their children play a high impact sport often think of the negative aspects of the sport.
In conclusion when entering high school I was looking to be a part of something and if it was not for football I would not be the person I am today. I am extremely thankful I was given the opportunity to play high school football. Having teammates and parents who supported me each day to never quit even when I was convinced I could not go to one more practice. Without them I would not have been able to enjoy the sport and all of the great things you learn from playing football. I will never forget the life lessons and the life time friendships that I have made from join a sports team in high school.