The Glade 4.0

My 9 year old is 65lbs and like, four and a half feet tall. He is by far the smallest kid on his 9&10 year old peewee football team.

We had our second football practice tonight where they actually ran a couple of plays with tackling (full gear) and my son got sacked hard....he hurt his arm pretty bad, but didn't break it or anything. It was enough to worry me and the coaches though....
The heaviest kid is 144lbs and there are a few kids that are between 65-80, but the majority are 80-90 and they all have a few inches on him.
The coach called me tonight because he is concerned about my son's physical safety...to be honest, so am I.

I don't want my son to be a quitter, I want him to toughen up, but I do realize that at half the size of many of the other kids, he could get seriously hurt.

Advice?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

BEEFCAAAAKE!!! BEEEEEFCAAAAAKEEEE!!!

It all really depends on the position he's playing. Is he fast to go with his size? Put him at Cornerback. That way he's doing the hitting instead of getting hit. If he's fast and can catch, Wide Receiver.

Either way though, football is a physical game and there's going to be bumps and bruises.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Wait til he's bigger. There are plenty of other sports out there he can toughen up in without the disproportionate risk of injury.

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Getting hurt isn't an issue. Someone gets hurt every single play. Getting injured is what you need to worry about, and the impact created by collisions at that level is so minimal that serious injury isn't likely. He may break a bone, but that's what happens to people when they play contact sports, and you can't insulate him from that. There will always be large size discrepancies in football at every level.

You can either teach him he's too weak and too smallnor you can teach him that he can achieve no matter what. Your choice.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Coach suggested he try wide receiver...I'm aware of the bumps and bruises, I just don't want to wind up with concussions and snapped femurs or worse.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Then wrap him in bubble wrap and lock him in the house. If he's going to play sports, he's going to have those things happen. Period.

He's more likely to learn how to play and keep himself safe at this level than a few le els from now when he is bigger, but so are the other kids, only they know how to play correctly and protect themseles and he doesn't.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

This. Times 10.

His father knows zilch about football and I don't think he has watched a game in his life. I enjoy watching the occasional football game, but I haven't taught my son anything about it...he's a total newb.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

It never gets easier or safer to learn. The longer you hold him out the more likely a serious injury is.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Taylor is never going to be a lineman. If the coach is offering wide receiver its because Taylor has some speed and can catch. Go with it. Focus on what he can do and not what he can't. Start getting him to run some wind sprints and learning how to fall without getting hurt too badly. Once he starts working out he will put some muscle on fairly quickly. Who knows, he might even add track to his abilities.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

That's what Fox is for :p

Remember, injuries and broken bones and concussions can happen anywhere. Not just on the gridiron.

WR is a good place if he's fast and can catch. If he can't catch, CB is good too.

Go out in the backyard and train with him. Have him run 40's, throw him the ball, etc.

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Holy shitsnacks!

If he enjoys playing, find a position and let him play.

If he's playing because he thinks someone wants him to, and he's afraid to disappoint them, then pull him out.

I was opperating under the assumption that he wants to play. The rules in my house are: You have to do something extra-caricular at all times. I don't care it that means sports, debate club, theater, band, whatever. It doesn't have to be what I would enjoy, but it has to be something. Also, there is no quitting durring your first season/year/level/ect. You will finish what you start, and if you didn't enjoy it, you can try something different next time.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

He asked to play and he agreed to a whole season whether he liked it or not...I refuse to raise a quitter. If he decides at the end of the season that football isn't the sport for him then that's fine, we will try something else.
I just want to make sure I'm not setting him up to fail...I'm super worried about him getting seriously injured.

Seriously, I can't sleep I'm so worried.

He'll be OK.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I had several friends who were a bit on the small side for starting football when some of us did. They went into wrestling for a couple years and then went on to be badass linebackers come freshman year.

You're doing everything right LK. Of course you're worried, he's your little boy. The thing is, he'll always be your little boy . I'd be inclined to go with the coach's suggestion, but I'd also consider seeing if he'd want to play corner. I was always on the light side (damn light until my 20's), but I played corner, because I always found it preferable to be doing the hitting rather than being hit.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'll send the memo to Peyton Manning that it's his own fault for not properly protecting himself

LK you should go read the Tuesday Morning Quarterback archives if you are going to have him play. The guy there takes seriously the long-term dangers posed by concussions and mini-concussions (has a ton of links to scientific/medical papers on the subject) but more importantly he has a lot of good equipment available for pee-wee, high school and college levels to prevent them.

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You didn't mention this last night. The coach is probably doing him a favor without making him look bad. At this level and skill, if they throw the ball more than 5 times in a game I will be very surprised. He's getting Taylor into the game but out of the way of serious stuff because they run the ball 90% of the time.

You know my thoughts. It's football so he's gonna get hit and I think he needs to toughen up a bit.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

If he is just too small to play football, why not try another sport?

Baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey....Plenty of options to suit all skill levels and athletic abilities.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

My 6 year old is in Hockey and it is Awesome!

As a person who has always (except at the moment) been very underweight for his size (I'm 5'9" and I weighed between 117 - 125 lbs in high school), and as a person who played Peewee football at age 11, and as a person who has had his femur snapped completely in half at age 12, I can tell you this:

1. I've been hit/tackled by kids who were 50+ lbs my superior with no major problems. Once you learn how to take a fall and your equipment fits correctly, it is not a big deal at all. As a friend of mine during the Peewee days once said, "It's kinda fun being tackled." I don't know if I ever fully agreed to that, but the equipment does a great job at protecting you out there. You learn the rest on your own.

2. If he got his femur bone, the biggest and strongest bone in the entire body, broken by some 90 lb kids tackling him then I would be shocked and amazed. It took a 10 foot fall onto a hard surface where the impact was directly on the bone itself to cause mine to break. I have since learned just how tough and sturdy that bone can be.

The biggest thing for a smaller kid to learn while playing football is to just not be afraid. Sure he may get some bumps and bruises, and the worst case scenario is a broken bone. But overall it's a safe sport and one to get enjoyment from as he gets better at it.

Football isn't my sport of choice to play, but I don't regret my time playing it as a kid. Sure, I got knocked around more easily than others. But you learn what your strengths are, and the coaches learn what your strengths are, and they play to those.


(Story time, regular post has ended)

Just be sure that you don't have an overexcited coach who sees a one-time moment of awesomeness and thinks it can be a regular occurrence.

One of the kids on my team, who was also one of the 50+ lbs my superior, was one of my school's bullies. And earlier in the year he had made me a target of it. I was always apprehensive with him on my team but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. And, of course, he never started anything during practices.

Well, one of the drills we would do was form two lines. A person at the front of each line would face off in a small lane of cones. The first line of people would be the tacklers, the other line would be the people holding the ball and attempt to get past the tackler. I was in the tackler line. As fate would have it, the bully was in the ball-running line. When it came to be my turn, I was squared-off against the bully.

Again, my job was to tackle this kid who outweighed me by a fair amount and his job was to just blast his way past me. On top of this, he had the psychological edge on me, since he had bullied me in the past.

His first run through, I got him to the ground but only barely. His second run through, I still managed to wrestle him to the ground, but again, it was not the best tackle in the world.

The coaches, getting a little annoyed, gave their bits of harsh wisdom. None of which I remember, or care to. What I do remember is this: I mentally and emotionally focused myself on the bully. I thought about all the torment he caused me. I thought about how it made me feel not being able to fight back. I focused on that rage and fanned the flames of it. I then took it, and compressed it into a super compact highly volatile pit in my stomach.

The bully took the ball, he made his third run. I ran at him. The compressed ball of nitro glycerine rage exploded. My memory is a blur but I do remember a few things with crystal clarity. 1. I slammed into the kid so hard that I truly did lift both of his feet off of the ground. 2. My force was enough to not only get him airborn, but push him the opposite direction. 3. I remember being on the ground with him, face to face, and his exhale was audible, like he had gotten the wind knocked out of him. 4. I remember the coaches going berzerk and howling and cheering with mad glee.

Towards the end of practice, the bully approached me when I was alone and quietly told me "That was a good tackle." He never once bothered me again.

I tell this story because, as I said, you need to be sure that coaches don't see a one-time moment of awesomeness as something that can be capitalized on and repeated. Because of my superhuman tackle, the coaches assumed I could give them an Adam Sandler "Waterboy" performance (many years before anyone knew what that movie was) on demand. They made me a Nose Guard on Defense (basically the guy right in front of the other guy who hikes the ball). It didn't work out too well.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Visualize and attack.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I was a little guy too for the longest time, LK. I was 4'6" starting 7th grade. Between your son's age and my high school graduation, I played softball, basketball, football, volleyball and wrestled. My most severe sports injury was breaking my tibia and fibula clean in half - playing soccer at recess in 3rd grade. Oh, and I popped a tendon off the side of my foot a time or two coming down awkwardly with a rebound and rolling my foot while playing basketball in gym class (but never in an organized game).

In addition to just plain getting hurt, injuries are probably going to happen too sometimes, and in my case insulating me from physical, organized team sports wouldn't have made a bit of difference in the world. I know that having him participate in football you're going to feel like you're consciously putting him in harm's way - accidents will happen but if you're willfully putting him into an avoidable situation, then you have to deal with your conscience about whatever happens. But you can't protect him, he's going to take some knocks regardless of whether or not he's playing football right now, and it's better to let him start taking some now and learn how to respond to it. It's worth it to risk it for the development he'll get as a person for participating in sports.

Honestly, physicality isn't the reason to play football. It may toughen him up to play football, but that's not all he'll carry away from it. He's going to learn discipline, and to push and challenge himself, and to contribute to a team, to know a role. If you'd rather he was playing something else, he can learn all that other places, too, but he can get hurt just as readily doing just about anything else.

PS - It's cool when everyone signs your cast.

It was times last night I wish I recored video more.

The actualy line up last night run some plays, get everyone some training on where you line up, where you run, who you block, who you tackle...all that good stuff. They split them up into two teams and would just switch after every few plays offense and defense. They had Taylor at safety on defense which was smart. He's out of the way of most of the hitting and can get in on the tackle without getting killed. He was a little hesitant but I think that will fade with more practice and he realizes he doesn't get hurt everytime he makes contact with another kid. Well, when his group switched up to offense, he was on the o-line. Not a spot for him being the smallest kid but he had to be somewhere and he wasn't going to run with the ball. The kid who lined up opposite him on defense is probably the biggest kid out there. We hear Taylor say "You've GOT to be kidding me"(the kid has good comedic timing at times). They run the play and LK and I just about fall over from laughter. The bigger kid literally picks Taylor up and places him to one side and then goes after the ball carrier. He must have done it 4 times and it was hilarious every time.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko