Amen to the soccer concussion causes. I played a lot of soccer in the olden days, and played it in a very physical way that’s really not allowed anymore. I could head a half field goal kick of a sodden practice ball in October with no issue but I was knocked out twice, both times on corner kicks (once hitting the crossbar with my head and once when someone hit my temple with their head.) The only time I was actually injured was blocking a clearing kick with my face, where I tore a muscle in my eye and was out for 4 weeks. Technique can save you from most things that a ball can do, but with kids being so much faster and larger these days there’s little to save you from unexpected collisions.
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My oldest was a serious fiddle/violin musician her entire life and also an athlete as she got older. Never occurred to us that music was the lynchpin for decisions like this. If it was bad for her musical future it was going to be bad for everything else as well. As it turned out she piled up the concussions over the years (grade school slip on ice, middle school softball to head, passed out in hallway in high school and hammered the terrazzo) that culminated in a very serious volleyball TBI her senior year. She was not only off the court but out of the classroom for several months. Luckily there was little long-term damage, but she made an informed choice to keep playing club and college VB in the same big, front court, powerful style she always did and let the chips fall where they may. She still plays today and that heightened risk of another TBI still lurks, but she won’t yield to it.
Everyone else in the family, other than the theater kid - that’s just a safer life, all have folders at our local orthopedic clinic and most are sports related (ACL, torn achillies, lots of hand and wrist fractures, etc.) It’s part of life, and you can stay at home or get out there and experience things. Football is an egregious example, but there are lots of other sports with risks to the brain (eg girls hockey, where the No Hits rules often only result in lowered defenses, not reduced contact) and you just have to choose where to spend your limited number of Big Hits.
My kids played a lot of things (not well) but one stayed with lax and played in college. She was always a black and blue mess from being hit with balls and sticks, but she loved it. She thinks she had a concussion once in college but it wasn’t diagnosed so she played on. She started every game for 4 years but came close to missing a game at the end of senior year because she had the flu. She’d also had the flu earlier in the semester so knew to get to the clinic and get Tamaflu. It was still iffy if they’d let her ride with the team so we arranged separate transportation to the game but in the end they allowed her on the bus.
Other daughter played hockey (badly) since she was 8. She was never fast and didn’t have a lot of collisions. Her only serious injury was just this year at age 29 playing ‘bar league’ hockey. She was in the lowest level, D, and an A team player was allowed to sub for the other team and whacked a puck into her skate and broke her foot.
My brothers played all the sports growing up. The only one my mother didn’t like was wrestling. At one of the first meets, another wrestler lost his match and the ref was holding up the victor’s arm and facing away from the mat and didn’t realize the loser had the helmet/hat thing caught up under his chin and was choking. Everyone was screaming and finally a cheerleader ran onto the mat to help the kid. That was enough for my mother and my brothers couldn’t wrestle anymore. They played football, hockey, ski team, lax with an assortment of injuries, but more as adults than hs or college age.
My kids were both soccer and basketball players. D2 got a couple of concussions along the way from balls to the face.
D1 is already saying that my GS won’t play tackle football.
TBH– not playing organized sports is no guarantee of avoiding concussions. Two of mine as a kid/teenager were from playing pickup “touch” football with friends. My most recent one was from a ball to the face.
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