In honor of playoff football, I'm posting this longread about youth football in Texas. The commitment of time, emotion, money, and infrastructure to football in Allen, Texas is truly astounding. I want to believe that it is all justified by the lessons of teamwork, discipline, and healthy competition that kids can learn playing this game, but the cynic in me recoils when hearing how football-crazed this town is.
"Friday Night Tykes" by Bryan Curtis
Published in Texas Monthly, January 2013
http://www.texasmonthly.com/cms/printthis.php?file=feature3.php&issue=2013-01-01%3Fsrc%3Dlongreads
Eric
The coach is worried the most about video games hurting the game of football versus concussions - Video games are taking kids away from actually playing the sport and/or making them think they can run like Jamaal and play like Madden right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteI think this is something to worry about, but by comparing it to concussions it takes away from the argument that football needs to have some big changes in the years to come if it's going to be a viable sport to put kids in.