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Message: [QUOTE="Shine33, post: 3252749, member: 10026"] Story time: My father has an outlook very similar to yours. I’m 30 years old now, but my dad was my football coach through high school. I only played from youth through high school. He taught me to always hit harder than the man across from me. So I did. I was always one of the hardest hitting “toughest” on the team. Not big enough for college football nor did I ever want to take it that far. But I put guys on their butt that went to try out for nfl teams later their careers. 2 years after high school I couldn’t even sit in class to study because of severe neck pain. I had X Rays and the disc degeneration in my neck was similar to a 50-60 yo neck at 20 yo. I have lipping and spurring on my anterior vertebral bodies that literally look like spurs coming off a cowboy boot because my neck was calcifying and bracing for high impact. I used my head and shoulders as a battering ram and no adult, including my dad, was educated enough to tell me “hey this might hurt later on in life”. Instead I always received praise and respect for being tough. Well it’s not so tough to try and figure out how you are going to get through the rest of your life without pain killers at 20 years old. Because of my experience I am now studying to be a chiropractor bc it is the only thing that has helped me and has kept me off medication. I don’t necessarily regret what happened to me bc it lead me to becoming a doctor. And I forgive my dad bc he was raised a different way and didn’t know any better. I also learned many valuable life lessons from football. It’s a beautiful sport in that it teaches life lessons. But we can teach kids life lessons without having them run into each other full speed and causing repetitive trauma to their spine and surrounding structures. As someone who used to love football and was very good at it myself...I can no longer stand by the attitude that you and many like you within the culture possess. It’s simply pride over intelligence. Kids and young people are out their hurting each other and causing life long damage to their one and only body they will ever be given and we glorify it and praise them. When you really think about it on a deep level. It is just dumb, and i will not let my kids play. Matter of fact I plan on advocating against it and educating parents and their kids about the dangers and the damage it causes to spinal and cerebral health. I want to help people not watch them try to kill each other. And I don’t want kids to end up suffering the way I have if it can be avoided. And sadly many have suffered much worse than me after their football careers ended and some have literally died due to brain damage. If your pride for watching a sport is greater than your empathy for the well-being and quality of life for others, then that my friend is a problem, and imo the main problem with football culture in this country. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach