ESPN ran a story earlier today that he won't allow his boys to play football due to high level of injury risk. Lebron was an All State WR and after his Junior season he broke his wrist and that was it for Lebron and football. I had the chance to watch him play Football and he may have been better or just as good at football as he is in Basketball. It made me think about what are the percentages of concussions by sport of the most popular sports and Football crushes the other sports in number of concussions.
Concussion Rates per Sport
The below numbers indicate the amount of sports concussions taking place per 100,000 athletic exposures. An athletic exposure is defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.
Football: 64 -76.8
Boys' ice hockey: 54
Girl's soccer: 33
Boys' lacrosse: 40 - 46.6
Girls' lacrosse: 31 - 35
Boys' soccer: 19 - 19.2
Boys' wrestling: 22 - 23.9
Girls' basketball: 18.6 - 21
Girls' softball: 16 - 16.3
Boys' basketball: 16 - 21.2
Girls' field hockey: 22 - 24.9
Cheerleading: 11.5 to 14
Girls' volleyball: 6 - 8.6
Boys' baseball: Between 4.6 - 5
Girls' gymnastics: 7
This is the attitude unfortunately that I see quite often among parents as a coach. My son's elementary school just banned all running at recess let alone playing football at recess! Let's face it...you can get hurt falling out of bed in the morning and but I will let my kids play any sport they want while teaching them about injury prevention.
Thoughts?
