When I was young all i thought was I wanna play football i wanted to be like the players i saw all my life playing football. I saw everyone at school loving the sport too so I strived to be the best and to be better than everyone else. I still to this day try to be better than anyone on the field. You have to sacrifice a lot trying to be the best, a lot of time and a lot of grinding . But now I hear that parents are complaining about their kid getting hurt taking away the sport that their kids might just enjoy and grow to love.

Football is a great sport but it does come with its risks like concussions, and injuries alike but there is a list of pros to football it allows kids to be more social,be more active, use leadership, responsibility and it allows them to use there mind and think about their decisions before they make a play or catch a ball it also allows kids to use critical thinking skills in game.                                                                                             Parents blame only football for injuries but kids can get injured in every sport even at the pro level basketball, soccer, and baseball are just some sports that kids can still get hurt really badly.

 For example Anderw luck pro football quarterback retired and his injuries were similar to the cyclist Alessandro de marchi during the tour to France Athletes in every sport cannot be made free of boldly harm. 

According to the op ed: “Football is here to stay” skeptics say that it is true the game of football faces multiple challenges involving player safety including at the youth level and college level as well. But studies show that the neurological damage is not getting worse but is getting better NFL wise reporting only 214 concussions this past year versus 281 the season before. 

The NFL is the leader of youth football and the college level of the sport they changed to limit full contact practices to avoid concussions when the NFL makes big decisions for players health the college and youth level will follow suit.High School injuries are more troubling than NFL injuries. Football participation at the prep level went down 3 percent last season. 

 I know my parents are looking out for the safety of their kids but if they want to play football let them try it to see if they like it and no i am not saying let the kids make their own decisions in my opinion i feel that some parents should be more supportive of the sport that there kids want to do. My dad is very supportive about letting me play football even if I get injured he will help me get better so that way i can try again. 

When I was younger I got injured a lot playing football but the thing is football always taught me to always get back up and keep playing hard.

We know now that yes the sport of football comes with a lot of risks but we also know that other sports also come with risks of their own so how would we just blame one sport when almost all sports come with injury. When playing sports at any level  you can not avoid injury that is the sacrifice of playing sports.

Azariah Calloway is a student at Luther Burbank who aspires to be a Professional football player and psychologist. He was born and raised in Sacramento CA.