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Pop Warner eliminates kickoffs

This is some rather huge news regarding youth football in the United States. The nation’s oldest youth football organization, Pop Warner, announced on Thursday that it has eliminated kickoffs in its three youngest divisions starting this fall.

Per CNN:

“The ban will take effect in the three youngest divisions when the season begins this fall. The organization said it’s aimed at significantly reducing the number of full-speed, head-on impacts in games. After the season, Pop Warner said it will evaluate the results and consider implementing the kickoff ban in older divisions as well.”

As much as the focus has been on brain-related issues surrounding the NFL, there’s a logical issue people have with the contact young kids endure during their adolescence.

We are talking about children at the height of their cognitive development continually finding themselves put in unsafe situations on the football field.

Pop Warner’s decision on Thursday will go a long way in helping the organization overcome what has been an increasing focus on just how safe the sport is for young children.

After all, the NFL itself has bandied about the idea of eliminating the kickoff altogether. Moving the kickoff point up to the 35-yard line years back was a direct result of the league’s concern over safety.

In lieu of kickoffs, the ball will be placed at the 35 in three different levels of Pop Warner football with the age groups ranging from 5-10 years old being impacted.

“We are constantly working to make the game safer and better for our young athletes, and we think this move is an important step in that direction,”Pop Warner’s executive director Jon Butler said in a statement. “Eliminating kickoffs at this level adds another layer of safety without changing the nature of this great game.”

It also must be noted here that Pop Warner could very well extend this kickoff ban to higher levels should it go according to plan for the younger age groups.

Football itself has been under fire over the past several years due to our increased awareness of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative disease that’s found in people who have suffered repeated blows to the head.

On a more micro scale, the NFL itself has been under fire following the suicide of multiple former players who were shown to have the disease post-mortem. This has led to a large number of lawsuits being filed against the league on behalf of former players.

What’s so amazing about all this is the fact that the focus itself hasn’t necessarily been on America’s youth.

These are children that find themselves put in unsafe situations to play a game at an age in which their brains are still rapidly developing.

Considering we just started to understand CTE, we have no idea just how much children have been impacted in the past.

The good news here is that Pop Warner has just taken a drastic step to rectify the issue.

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