High School Football: The Folly of Trying to Sustain the Unsustainable

There were two recent items in the media regarding high school tackle football that, taken together, provide a strong hint of the future of the sport in our schools.

The first was a report that a three-judge panel of Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court rejected an attempt by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) to have a suit against it tossed out. The suit demanded extensive steps to limit the harm from concussions among high school and junior high athletes.

The second was a report from Oklahoma Watch outlining how high school athletes in that state are sustaining hundreds of concussions and how the high schools are woefully understaffed with athletic trainers and licensed medical professionals trained to identify, treat and prevent brain trauma in athletes.

Taken together, these two developments point to the folly of attempting to sustain an activity that is becoming increasingly unsustainable by the day. While many will lament this reality, if one is willing to approach it in an open and honest way, it could provide an opportunity to create a blueprint for the future of high school sports in America.

There are several trends regarding the sport as well as the challenges facing our secondary school system that will make the sponsorship of tackle football increasingly problematic. The first is the mounting evidence of the link between participation in football and damage to the brain. Seemingly every day there is a new study confirming the harmful outcomes of participation in football. This trend is not likely to abate anytime soon.

In response to this alarming trend, football advocates point to various safety measures such as improved equipment, increased medical oversight and staffing and improved concussion testing and protocol. While these efforts are commendable, they are measures that require significantly more costs for an already very expensive sport. Another example of an expense that will rise dramatically relates to risk management and the cost of liability insurance. As a result, educational leaders will be asked to evaluate the supposed benefits of football against the very real risk of their students suffering debilitating injuries to their brains. Many of them will come to the conclusion that the risk is simply too great.

And if these troubling trends are not enough, they are playing out against an environment of increasing academic expectations and tightening school budgets. In such an environment, it will be more difficult for an educational institution to justify allocating additional resources for an activity that scrambles brains. Educational institutions are in the business of strengthening brains, not destroying them.

In short, while there may always be communities and school districts that will continue to sponsor tackle football, given these trends and the reality they reveal, with each passing day, it will become increasingly clear that high school football is no longer a sound educational investment. As a result, the sponsorship of football in our secondary and junior high schools will slowly but surely wither on the vine.

If kept safe and in the proper perspective, interscholastic sports can be a powerful supplement to the educational experience of young people. Thus, it is understandable why educational leaders remain reluctant to eliminate any interscholastic sports. But football, due to it’s extremely barbaric nature, is a different animal. But rather than bemoan and resist this reality, the elimination of football presents an opportunity to restructure the role that sports plays in our schools.

Specifically, it is time for educational leaders to begin to seriously consider moving to the European model of school sports. In that model, elite athletes pursue their athletic experience through participation in private club teams. The role of school athletics in the European system is to provide broad based participation opportunities in activities that can be practiced for a lifetime (i.e., the type of programming that has traditionally been provided through physical education classes and intramural and wellness programs). This, as opposed to our current system of highly competitive interscholastic programs that are geared to a small percentage of elite athletes while relegating the vast majority of students to the sidelines to watch. In one of the world’s most obese nations, such an approach simply makes no sense.  

That said, interscholastic sports have become so ingrained within the culture of the school and broader community, that moving directly to the European club system may not be realistic at this point.

Perhaps there is an intermediate step.  The elimination of football provides an opportunity to redirect the resources, energy and emotion currently allocated to football to not only other interscholastic sports such as soccer, basketball, swimming, cross country and baseball (sports that are less physically punishing and that can be practiced for a lifetime) but also to strengthening physical education and intramural programs as well as lifelong wellness activities such as yoga and weight training. Such a shift will clearly result in far better health and fitness outcomes for far more students than the current tackle football centric model.  This might be a viable intermediate step to eventually moving to the European model of scholastic sports and fitness.

In short, it’s time to stop trying to sustain the unsustainable. With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that both from an educational and public health standpoint, the European school and community sports model is far superior to our current football-centric elite athletic system. That being the case, rather than bemoaning the growing negative health and safety trend lines associated with tackle football, education and community leaders should seek to leverage those developments to re-imagine and restructure how schools can more effectively utilize sports and fitness activities for more positive community health outcomes.

Building Lifelong Communities Both Large and Small Through Music

One of the most important and powerful benefits of music is its capacity to build communities, both large and small, that can last a lifetime. I was recently reminded of that capacity by a television commercial. The opening scene shows four middle-aged men, instrument cases in hand, greeting each other. After a cutaway to a black-and-white photo of what is obviously the same four men playing music together as young adults, the final scene shows them playing together again, forty years later.

Music’s potential to build community, not only through attendance at a music event, but, more important, by providing opportunities for actual participation, is something that cannot be undervalued or overestimated. Music’s powerful influence in this regard is largely due to the fact that you can participate in music for your entire life. That is why it is so important that we offer broad access to music education in our schools from an early age throughout high school.

The most common way to reap the benefits of music’s community building potential is through continued participation in bands or jam sessions. There are all types of bands with all kinds of sponsoring agencies. Whether a community band, a group of friends forming a rock or jazz band, or simply a loosely coordinated, regular drum circle, there are plenty of opportunities to become an active, participatory member of a music community, regardless of your age or ability. In fact, it is widely accepted that being connected to others and part of a community becomes more important as we age.

And it is not simply small bands or groups of friends that can define a “music inspired community. There can be all types and sizes of music communities.

I have had the great fortune to witness music’s continuing capacity to build community through my work with Music For Everyone. One of MFE’s key mission components is to cultivate the power of music as a community-building tool.  Two of MFE’s programs provide great examples of music’s ongoing community-building potential.

The MFE Community Chorus is a choral group that gets together one night a week to sing. The group is open to anyone, regardless of age or ability. Average attendance at the weekly gatherings is between fifty and seventy, with over a hundred members in total. The chorus is a vibrant community in and of itself. It brings together a very diverse group of people who have bonded in ways that go beyond music. Friendships have blossomed. Members emphasize how much they enjoy the group and how much it means to be a part of it. And the group has developed its skill to the point where it has public gigs that draw crowds in the hundreds.

MFE’s Keys for the City program, in which between ten and twenty artistically designed and painted pianos are placed throughout the city of Lancaster each summer, is another powerful example of music’s ongoing ability to build community. Whether you are a virtuoso or a beginner, whether you play Chopin or “chopsticks,” you have access to these pianos. Everyone who has played one of these pianos or heard one being played while walking through downtown Lancaster is connected. Literally tens of thousands of magical musical moments occur around those pianos each summer with people of all ages, races, and beliefs coming together to share the community building power of music. They all share this common civic and very public experience.

A major part of that shared public experience is the extraordinary way the citizens of Lancaster have embraced the program and care for these pianos.  The first season, there were serious doubts the pianos would last a week on the streets before being vandalized and destroyed. But Lancastrians proved the naysayers wrong. That first year, after 20 pianos were on the streets available 24/7 for four months, there was one incident of vandalism. This very public display of caring and responsibility has resonated throughout the community. It has instilled a sense of civic pride in the decency and integrity of the citizens of the Lancaster community. Keys for the City has had a profound impact on Lancaster’s vibrant arts scene by providing a random gift of music, uncountable times throughout the city all summer long. This is a real-life testament to music’s tremendous ability to contribute to a sense of community in profound and ongoing ways.

Further, because music is the universal language, its potential community-building impact is not only local but global.  There are all types of musical groups that bring together young adults for tours of foreign countries, which enables them to learn about and appreciate different cultures as a way of demonstrating that we are all part of a world community.  In an age that demands the crossing of cultural and national divides, a universal language has great value.  

Meanwhile, the number of ways in which music can be utilized to build community through such venues as concerts, benefit shows, tours, street events and exhibits, is essentially limitless.

But what do these and other community music programs have to do with educational funding priorities of our high schools?

A primary purpose of our educational system is to encourage and inspire a commitment to and love of life long learning. But that is simply the beginning. We must also provide students with the experiences on which to base this commitment, as well as the resources necessary to build a foundation to be an active life-long learner. Education continues after your school years are over. An investment in quality, broad-based and accessible music opportunities and programs can foster an interest in, and life-long love of, music and, as a result, a lifelong continuation of the benefits and lessons learned through such participation. 

Youth Sport Specialization: A Terrible Idea

University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh raised some eyebrows recently when he recommended that football players not concentrate on football year-round but rather to play soccer for a portion of the year.

Every parent of every athlete in America should think about his suggestion.

One of the more troubling and counter-productive developments in youth sport over the past 20 years is the increasing pressure being placed on young athletes to specialize in a sport. The logic behind this notion is that the younger an athlete specializes in a sport the greater the chance of that athlete achieving success in that sport at the high school or college level.

That is ludicrous. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

All evidence points to the fact there is little correlation between early specialization and later athletic success.  Yet, all too often, young athletes are being pressured, mostly from coaches, to pick a sport (usually, the sport that particular coach coaches) to concentrate on, the earlier the better.

“If you want to start next year or if you want to have a chance at a college scholarship,” urges the coach, “you need to spend all of your time, effort and energy on one sport. If you are not dedicated to and practicing that sport, someone else is. And when the two of you meet, he or she will prevail.”

Parents, many of whom may not have a lot of experience with athletics or have visions of future athletic scholarships and stardom for their child, all too often defer to the wishes of the coach. But parents and their young athletes would be well served to consider several factors before committing to specializing at an early age.

First, is the physical toll. According to Dr. James Andrews, one of the nation’s most respected orthopedic doctors specializing in sports related injuries, the number of “repetitive/overuse injuries” sustained by single sport athletes is rising at an alarming rate. The fact is, our body parts wear out with overuse. When you choose to specialize in one sport, the wear and tear of the specific muscle, ligament and skeletal groups is intense and unending. Different sports require the concentrated use of different sets of body parts. Participating in several sports develops a well-balanced body and well-rounded athlete. When the time finally comes to specialize in a sport, a well-balanced and developed body provides more potential for long-term development and improvement.

And then there is the “burn-out” factor. While specialization may lead to some immediate improvement, over the long haul, it increases the likelihood of the athlete experiencing “burn out”. Simply put, when you pour all of your time, effort and emotion into any activity 365 days a year, year after year, it’s only natural that the chance of becoming tired, bored or simply “used up” increases dramatically. Specializing in a sport at a young age in the hopes that athletic success will be achieved years down the road may actually decrease the likelihood of long term success because it increase the chance that repetitive/overuse injuries will take their toll or that the athlete will simply burn out on the sport and discontinue participating.

If the potential negative effects regarding injury and burn out are not enough for parents and young athletes to reconsider specialization, a compelling case can be made that playing another, secondary sport will actually improve the athlete’s skills, competitive instincts and mental capacity when the athlete re-engages in his or her primary sport. Playing sports are playing sports. Regardless of the sport, many of the same principles and attitudes apply. It doesn’t matter what team sport you play as long as you are playing a team sport you are learning teamwork skills that apply to all sports. As long as you are competing, regardless of which sport, you are developing competitive instincts and skills that apply to sports across the board. 

Further, it can improve understanding of team dynamics when the athlete experiences being a major contributor in one sport but is more of a support player in a second sport. For example, being a “star” of a team requires certain leadership responsibilities and skills. The star in one sport will be better able to understand, motivate and lead less talented teammates if that star participates in a different sport where he or she was not the star.

Finally, it is imperative to understand and consider the motivation of coaches who push athletes to specialize in their sport. As the son of a high school football coach, I fully respect the time and effort that goes into coaching. And, for the most part, coaches have the best interests of their athletes at heart. But far too often coaches pressure athletes to specialize in the sport they coach more for their own ego and to ultimately win games rather than considering the long-term best interest of the athlete. Having their athletes concentrate on their sport is clearly in the short-term best interest of the coach and his or her team but it is hardly in the long-term best interest of the athlete.

In short, Jim Harbaugh is exactly right on the issue of sport specialization at an early age. We’d all be well served to heed his advice. 

Brain on Football vs. Brain on Music

Picture this. A magnified image of a cross section of the human brain. The image shows hundreds of tiny brownish bits. These bits are toxic proteins, called tau, that form after brain trauma.  Tau can inhibit cellular functions in the brain, leading to depression, dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease.

Now, picture this. Another magnified image. This one shows activities associated with vibrant cellular connections. The brain is seemingly swarming with activity, actually brightening the image.

The first image is of the brain of a former football player. The formation of the tau is the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of repeated hits to the head. These violent hits, in effect, shake or “scramble” the brain, flooding it with chemicals that deaden cellular receptors and tear neural connections linked to learning and memory. In short, the connections necessary for optimal brain function and development are being shaken loose. 

The second image is of the brain while a person is playing music. Brain function is about connections between cells and neurons. Healthy brains have strong, clear and vibrant connections. Research tells us that playing music triggers activity in cells and neurons in the brain that are linked to concentration, memory and creativity, thus refining the development of the brain and the entire neurological system.  Further, playing music not only strengthens these connections but creates new connections, thus widening the brain’s neural network. That activity virtually bursts through the second image.

There has been an increasing amount of discussion regarding how football programs, from the NFL to Pop Warner football, are attempting to manage “concussion risk.”  Without question, the revelations of the serious consequences to brain health and function that result from the repeated hits to the head sustained in football have taken the debate regarding the role of football in our culture to a new level. While most of the debate has centered on the NFL’s efforts to mitigate those negative effects, the significance of the issue as it applies to our nation’s educational system, particularly our high schools and junior high schools, is far more consequential. Specifically, we now have to give serious consideration to the question of whether the potential human costs to children’s and young adults’ health have become too great for an educational institution to assume.

Certainly, there have always been physical costs to participants. Football is a violent game. But we are not talking about sprained ankles and broken bones. Sprained ankles and broken bones eventually heal. We are talking about young people’s brains. Brains don’t always heal.
Football, at its core, is a tremendously violent game. Even if it is made “safer” with increased monitoring and improved tackling technique (an outcome that is not assured as, to date, there is little empirical evidence that such change in techniques will actually reduce the rate or severity of concussions), the risk remains extremely high. Say football starts out at 9 on a risk scale of 1 to 10 and, over a long period of time and with great effort, safety is improved such that the risk factor is lowered to 7. Is that nearly enough?

This is a dialogue that is long overdue, the brain trauma issue notwithstanding. Concern regarding football’s impact on academic values and the ability of schools to meet their educational mission has been growing steadily over the past several decades.

With a growing body of research confirming that participating in music actually energizes and strengthens the brain and brain function, while involvement in football can damage brain function, what are education and community leaders to do?

In the end, this is about community values as reflected through our educational institutions. Should we be investing so much time, energy, emotion and money in a violent sport that destroys brain cells? Or, does it make more sense, not only from an educational but a public health standpoint, to invest in music, which strengthens and develops brain cells and enhances brain function? Is our collective, community goal to develop brains or “scramble” them?

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, a good place to start that conversation would be to observe scans of the brain on football versus the brain on music.

Bo Knows Head Trauma

In 1989, NIKE started an ad campaign for cross training footwear featuring Bo Jackson, a former Heisman Trophy winner and the only man to be an All-Star in baseball and All-Pro in football. The ad featured stars in various sports proclaiming that “Bo knows” whichever sport, whether baseball, football, hockey or golf, was featured in the ad.

Apparently, Bo also knows about the association between participation in tackle football and brain trauma. And given that football season is, once again, upon us, it might be prudent to consider what Bo knows.

Jackson created a stir recently when he admitted during a USA Today interview that if he had known what he does today back then, “I would have never played football. Never. I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. “

He also said, “there’s no way I would ever allow my kids to play.”

While the football industrial complex’s public relations machine is running full throttle in its effort to convince parents that advancements in equipment, diagnosis, testing, protocol and tackling techniques have made the game safe, the cold, hard truth is that these claims are being made with little concrete, scientific evidence to back them up. Even on the most basic of issues, there is widespread disagreement, an example being how long a victim of a concussion should be held out of action. Is it a week? Two weeks? A month? A season? We simply do not know.

Further, all of the attention being placed on concussions is somewhat misguided. The larger issue is the brain damage sustained by repeated sub-concussive blows to the head. Sub-concussive blows clearly rattle the brain, thus causing cumulative trauma and damage, but not to the extent where the negative impact is immediately and outwardly noticed.

It’s brain death by a million cuts. In other words, your child could be slowly, methodically damaging his brain without showing any immediate signs of doing so.

Until it is too late.

While we have little idea of the effectiveness of various treatments and safety measures, what is absolutely not in doubt is that playing tackle football is damaging to the brain. That is indisputable. The only question is the extent of the damage. And, based on accumulating evidence, the extent of damage is becoming much clearer.

Simply consider the most recent revelation from a study published this week in which 110 of 111 former NFL football players were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E. , the degenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. (Note: C.T.E. can only be determined after death).

So here’s the question: Why are so many people fighting so hard to deny the science and promote suspect and unproven safety improvements to continue to justify allowing children to play what is clearly a brutal sport that has been proven to cause brain damage? And how many more young people will sustain brain damage while we wait for the proof of this link to become irrefutable?

Ask Bo. He knows.

The Campaign for “Bandwork”: It’s Now Personal

Last year, I wrote that the word “bandwork” should be recognized as an “official” word and thus included in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. The purpose behind my proposal relates to the issue of music advocacy as it applies to school funding of music programs. It’s important that we recognize and use bandwork as an “official” word because words and terms are vitally important in effective advocacy.
While effective music advocacy is critical, due to a recent occurrence, this issue has now become personal.

Why should we care whether bandwork becomes an “official” word?

For too long, it has been the athletic community, particularly the football community, that has driven and shaped the dialogue regarding which activities are most effective in instilling in participants, the ability to collaborate and work together as a group. The fact is, football in particular, and sports in general, are no more effective at instilling such characteristics as is participation in music activities.

I have been on five person basketball teams working together to achieve a common goal of winning a game. I have also been in a five person band working together to achieve an agreed upon sound. And in both cases, the lessons learned – discipline, communication, personal and shared responsibility, persistence and sacrifice – are identical. Yet, the music community has remained silent regarding the notion that sports are unique in its’ ability to teach such skills. By remaining silent, the music community has ceded that narrative to the sports “lobby”.  Thus, it’s not surprising that when discussions regarding an activity’s potential to teach valuable communication and collaboration skills occur, all of the attention is focused on team sports’ potential to do so, while music’s potential to do the very same things is largely ignored.

It’s time to tell the other side of the story. And that starts with terminology. Words and terms matter. It is time that music advocates begin to recognize, and, for lack of a better term, “brand” music in a way that more effectively describes its value as an educational tool. A good starting point would be to recognize, promote and actually begin using the term bandwork, which should be defined as “the cooperative effort by musicians to achieve an agreed upon sound.”

In short, at a time when competition for educational funding is becoming more intense, it is imperative for music education advocates to be more focused and strategic in promoting music’s ability to teach the types of skills necessary to succeed in the more collaborative workplace and culture of the future.

To date, my motivation to recognize and include “bandwork” in the dictionary has been exclusively about music advocacy.

That has changed. It’s now personal.  

I was recently engaged in a heated game of Scrabble. The score was close and the game was nearing its end with only a handful of letters in the common pile remaining. I needed a good word. Looking at the letters in my hand and then at the board, it appeared, plain as day. I had the letters to spell it – Bandwork. And, it was worth 18 points! Add ‘em up: B for 3, A for 1, N for 1, D for 2, W for 4, O for 1, R for 1 and K for 5. Not only that, but it would have qualified for a triple word value. That’s a whopping 54 points! I would have easily won that game.
But as anyone who has played Scrabble knows, if your word does not appear in the dictionary, you cannot use it. Go ahead and look it up. It’s not there. This, despite the fact that millions of people intrinsically understand what it means and have benefitted from exposure to it.

So now the “Campaign for Bandwork” is no longer simply about music advocacy.

It’s also about Scrabble. And now it’s personal.