My son grew quickly when he was young and most of the other boys were barely up to his shoulder as he started kindergarten with feet too big for light-up sneakers. Thankfully he only ended up just over 6’1” full grown but until the other kids started catching up in height during high school, he was always one of the few big kids. I forbid him from playing football when he could have played flag because I knew he would love it and I would never be able to get him to stop playing when the game grew more dangerous with tackling. He skied and played soccer, baseball, lacrosse and ultimately settled on basketball as his year round sport. All the pop warner football coaches in town were contacting us in elementary school and the high school football coach told him he was going to follow him around the hallways everyday until he agreed to play for him.
First semester in college he went and joined the rugby team, but his opponents were mostly other NESCAC club teams, so he was very often the most athletic and strongest kid on the field so it was not that scary to watch since he was fast and hard to tackle. The team even made it to Nationals his junior spring. Although a few of his teammates suffered concussions and other rough injuries, his worst injuries luckily were black eyes and bruises.