International Federation of American Football

Two-year youth football player safety surveillance study to be completed and released in 2014

USA Football has released preliminary findings following the first year of a two-year study to examine player health and safety in organized youth tackle football.

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Ronde Barber did plenty during his 16-year NFL career to merit consideration for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

A three-time All-Pro selection, Barber is the only player in NFL history to have at least 40 career interceptions and 20 career sacks.

He’s a member of the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team and helped the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII.

But for Barber – like all the young football players out there who watched him – the thing he enjoyed most about his career is that he was able to stay on the field and help his team.

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Ryan Mathews looks for every edge he can get on the football field. A 6-foot, 220-pound running back for the San Diego Chargers, he has run for 2,476 yards and 14 touchdowns in his first three seasons.

Mathews is a spokesman for Shock Doctor and Cutters gloves – official partners of USA Football and U.S. National Teams. He recently discussed his love for football, the importance of developing fundamentals as a youngster and the need for proper equipment to enhance his game.

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A sprained ankle is one of the most common injuries in football.

Often times, it is a simple matter that requires a few minutes of rest to let the body recover enough on its own for a return to play.

Whether during practice or in the middle of a game, coaches who don’t have access to athletic trainers can check for simple signs that will determine whether a player remains on the sideline or goes back in.

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Welcome to the first edition of From the Field - A Guide to Athletic Field Safety and Care, brought to you by FieldTurf.

Throughout this series, we will focus on a sometimes overlooked but critical component affecting the safety and performance for athletes of all ages – the playing surface.

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Football is a sport that draws from a wide variety of skills, including flexibility, strength, agility and speed.

For young players, these traits can be developed through different activities – both organized and recreational.

With increased specialization beginning earlier than ever, parents often face a difficult choice when helping young athletes reach their peak performance: Focus all their energy on one sport or let their kids try different things?

For Brad Hatfield, chairman of the kinesiology department at the University of Maryland, the approach is simple.

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Fundamentals. Teach them. Reward them. Select for them. Don’t let tackling become a lost art. If shots to the head are flagged, better tackling skills are rewarded.

“How would I build a team today? I’d want to find out who the best tacklers are as far as technique is concerned,” said Gil Brandt, the former longtime Cowboys vice president of player personnel. “I think that’s probably where it starts.”

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As more is understood about concussion and its effects, it is important to learn how to recognize symptoms and respond correctly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new resource for parents, coaches and school and sport professionals – titled Get a Heads Up on Concussion in Sports Policies (download PDF below) – designed to help safely return concussed student-athletes to the classroom and playing field.

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Player safety is a two-way street.

For years, football rules regulating illegal and excessive contact have focused on the defensive side of the ball.   

But as football organizations – from the NFL to youth leagues across the nation – look to return to the game’s fundamentals and lessen the  hits that can lead to injury, the spotlight must shine wherever those occur.

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The NFL's goal in making helmets where a runner or defender leads with the crown of his head illegal is a good step forward towards increasing on-field player safety. But I'm willing to bet it comes at the cost of significant controversy when enforcing the rule.

There are plenty of reasons to like the rule but the primary one is it makes tackling more fundamentally sound, limits nasty head-first collisions and takes the head out of the game.

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