Legislating Safety

In the early days of football, there were so many deaths from injuries that President Theodore Roosevelt got involved in trying to make the game safer. There is no doubt that it's a dangerous game. Where does the responsibility lie for reducing serious injuries in the game? The present concern centers around head trauma and concussions.

The NFL, NCAA and state high school athletic associations are trying their best to protect players. Periodically, some Congressman will try to grandstand by threatening to hold some type of committee meetings about player safety.

State legislatures are also jumping into the act. The Illinois General Assembly killed a bill in committee that would prevent high school teams from having more than one tackle practice per week. The sponsor was certainly an advocate of player safety, but I thought this was going too far.

I think government at all levels should stay out of legislating player safety. However, Commissioner Roger Goodell recently spoke about the repercussions that could take place if a NFL player were to die on the field from injury. We have seen players get paralyzed and others with traumatic injuries.

A fatality would really create an uproar and rightfully so.