Political writer George Will, an avid baseball fan, once said “Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence, punctuated by committee meetings.”
Football isn’t getting rid of the committee meetings, also known as huddles, any time soon. But this week the Ivy League decided to reduce the violence. Starting this season, no Ivy League team will be allowed to tackle during practice. The goal is to limit concussions, which have become a national concern.
The announcement generated more attention than anything else Ivy League football teams have done in years. Many applauded the decision, while some critics warned it was the beginning of the end of the sport they love.
I can understand both arguments, but here’s a third: if football can’t convince parents the game is safe, parents will respond by killing football softly, simply by keeping their kids out of it.
Besides, the Ivy League’s decision is not as radical as it seems. True, forty years ago, when Division I football teams could have 120 players on scholarship, they would schedule 20 full-contact plays on Tuesday, and 20 more on Wednesday – almost the equivalent of a full game in midweek. But when the NCAA limited teams to 85 scholarships each in 1992, coaches reduced hitting in practice, to make sure their players could play in the games.
Decades age, a Division III coach named John Gagliardi, of St. John’s in Minnesota, decided to eliminate hitting in practice altogether – and proceeded to win four national titles, and 489 games, the most of any coach, at any level. Okay, it’s Division III, but Gagliardi’s success still surprised the critics, who kept telling him he couldn’t win without practicing tackling.
I played high school hockey, where we hit all week during practice, then hit even harder during games. One practice, I made the fatal mistake of looking down to find the puck – and woke up staring at four faces, asking how many fingers they were holding up. My helmet had cracked, so they gave me a new one, and I hopped back on the ice, a little woozy. Make all the jokes you like, but there was nothing criminal in any of that. That’s just how we did things back then.
But we know better now. We know the damage major collisions, or even a lot of minor ones, can do to the brain. We’ve seen the studies, looked at the scans, and heard the horror stories. We’ve learned concussions themselves don’t directly cause depression. But losing short-term memory, the ability to speak clearly and walk safely, and impulse control – which puts the brakes on a lot of bad ideas – can definitely lead to depression, which can lead to suicide, witness Dave Duerson and Junior Seau.
We don’t have all the answers, and it will take decades to know how today’s players will fare after football. But as hockey Hall of Fame goalie Ken Dryden said, “We can’t afford to wait for the science.”
We also already know parents won’t wait that long, either. President Obama has said if he had sons, he wouldn’t let them play football. Last week, in my class on “The History of College Athletics,” I asked my students how many would let their kids play football. Only half said they would.
If football wants to avoid becoming a guilty pleasure, like boxing, it has to do something, and now. But some are concerned that football players who don’t learn how to hit properly will endanger themselves and their opponents. That’s possible, but hockey is as violent as football, and every hockey team I know of, from the Detroit Red Wings to the Michigan Wolverines to the high school team I coached 15 years ago, stopped hitting in practice years ago. The only result seems to be reduced injuries.
Others have argued if you change the game too much, people will quit watching. But critics said the same thing in 1906, when the newly formed NCAA allowed teams to throw the ball. Passing reduced brutal collisions – which had claimed 18 lives the year before – and placed a greater premium on speed and finesse, which increased the game’s popularity with parents and fans.
The critics howled in 1945, too, when Michigan’s Fritz Crisler started substituting players throughout the game by separating them into offensive and defensive units, instead of having them play both sides of the ball, all game long. Both innovations improved safety – and the sport.
Dartmouth made the Ivy League’s decision a lot easier when the Big Green eliminated tackling in practice back in 2010 – then finished third, then second, then tied for first three years in a row.
“People look at it and say we’re nuts,” ,” Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said to The New York Times. “But it’s kept my guys healthy. It hasn’t hurt our level of play. It’s actually made us a better team.”
With the Dartmouth Experiment deemed a success, the Ivy League’s decision will likely put pressure on other leagues to make similar promises to parents, or risk losing their sons to schools that don’t allow tackling in practice.
Life is hard, and full of risks. Football, properly coached, can teach us that, and more. But if the lessons cost too much, parents will probably insist their sons drop the class altogether.
If we must choose between watching football die a slow death because nobody wants to play it, or eliminating hitting during practice – well, that strikes me as a no-brainer.
* * * * *
Please join the conversation, but remember: I run only those letters from those who are not profane or insane, and who include their FULL name.
My latest book, “ENDZONE: The Rise, Fall and Return of Michigan Football,” debuted at #6 on the New York Times’ Bestseller List, and is still going very strong. THANK YOU!
Radio stuff: On Friday mornings, these commentaries run at 8:50 on Michigan Radio (91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit and Flint, and 104.1 Grand Rapids), and a few minutes later, I join Sam Webb and Ira Weintraub LIVE from 9:05 to 9:25 on WTKA.com, 1050 AM.
After 12 years, I’ve handed over my “Off the Field” slot on WTKA to my good friend Jamie Morris, who launched his new two-hour show, “A View From the Backfield,” last year. This gives me the time I need to join Michigan Radio’s great Cynthia Canty on her afternoon Stateside show every Monday for a few minutes. Check it out!
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnubacon. Just cracked 34,000 followers. THANK YOU!
Like this story? Please feed the blog, and keep ’em coming!
John, another spot on observation. No hitting practice could save the sport as we know it.
John
Why not eliminate all contact in practice? Treating symptoms rather than causes will not solve the problem.
There are so many causes of head trauma in football, most of them ignored, and none of them are being seriously addressed. Until the thuggery in sports at every level is dealt with , serious injury and later life physical and mental problems will continue to make headlines. I am sure that the elimination of tackling in practice was not the sole reason for winning records. To assume such is a real stretch.
Thanks for the column
bomberjohn5
A couple of disagreements:
1. Football IS, in fact, getting rid of huddles. Not every team will go up-tempo but more (e.g. Ohio State) are coming to the line in formation and THEN calling a play, because it puts the defense at a disadvantage. In 20 years committee meetings will be as hard to find as a printed newspaper.
2. All of the safety innovations you mentioned had a competitive advantage that tackling doesn’t have. The platoon system allowed greater specialization and less tired players. Better safety equipment was desired because it keeps your starters on the field longer. The only times the game of football has ever innovated purely for safety reasons is because it is getting sued, or because the President of the United States had a son who, despite the pleadings of his parents, insisted on going out for the Harvard squad as a freshman. The Dartmouth example is interesting, and I agree if there is a competitive advantage that alone will drive adoption across football. However one sample in a very non-representative pool hardly proves the point. If the Ivy League is dominating FCS in a few years thanks to not tackling in practice, let’s talk.
(Aside: there is a SAFE way to tackle that DOES provide a competitive advantage, and teaching that tackling method is one of the keys to Pete Carroll’s success at every level).
3. The tale of Teddy Roosevelt and his son is instructive; the parents will regulate but a boy (to varying degrees) wants to go out and HIT somebody. They suddenly outlawed hitting in hockey one winter when I was a kid, but that didn’t stop us from nailing each other on rollerblades in a church parking lot all spring and summer. Your boy may seem docile now but in 10 years that thing will be a factory for converting unfathomable portions of lasagna into pure destructive energy, and your wife will want nothing more than to get it the hell out of the house. If sports don’t provide an outlet for it, that energy will escape by another route.
4. Boys also grow up, and want to be successful when they do. In Ann Arbor boys are surrounded by men who made that success with their brains, but Ann Arbor is up there with Cambridge in its extremity. Almost none of the country is like Ann Arbor. In more places than not, the most successful guy used athletics to become so. The pool of NFL players is drawn from the pool of crazy-elite college players which is drawn from a pool of crazy-elite high school players with unfathomable dedication to the sport. If you take hitting out of football in Ann Arbor, that kid who wants to be elite will try the Catholic Schools, or his parents will move to where he won’t literally be developing with his arms literally behind his back. If you take tackling out of the state, the talent will move to Ohio. And the football coach who wants to move up in his profession will go where he can get at that talent. And you will never outlaw tackling in practice across the country, because the rest of the country is as like Ann Arbor as the Ivy League is the SEC.
This really is going too far. The targeting rule has ruined football, and eliminating tackling is the knockout punch. Pretty soon we’ll be watching flag football. Unfortunately the guys on the rules committee are too caught up in their own egos to see the damage they’ve done to college football with their stupid targeting rule.
The way I understand what they said was “No tackling in practice DURING THE SEASON”. I heard the head coach from Grand Valley State say that basically no one does that any way. So the Ivy League is just putting up a PR smoke screen and this is really much ado about nothing.
Message (Required)stop players from using their heads as battering rams expell then from the game
Message (Required)
What I read, but did not see mentioned in the article, is the Ivy League will continue to teach and practice tackling, but not on each other. It will be done on tackling dummies and other objects not susceptible to injury. I would think this should resolve many concerns regarding the lack of ongoing teaching.
What I find most upsetting regarding concussions, however, is the lack of simple precautionary measures especially at the pinnacle of the sport. Although there are limited studies on the subject, many argue the use of a mouthpiece, if properly fitted (i.e. covering the back teeth), reduces concussions. Yet the most popular player (Cam Newton) on one of the NFL’s best teams (Carolina Panthers) in the biggest game of the year (Super Bowl) which is watched my millions of impressionable would-be players, failed to wear a mouthpiece during the entire game. Yet no one seems to care.
Message (Required) Let’s let the free market decide. It seems to me Michigan’s Fritz Crisler, St. John’s coach Gagliardi, and Dartmouth all acted on their own and found out how it can succeeded.
Please don’t let egg head bureaucrats lay down an anvil of inflexibility that almost always have negative unintended consequences for the sport.
At the young levels, there are simply more sports available for kids to play – that has more to do with the declining numbers in football. That’s great news, not bad news. It’s not fear of injury….to me that’s an excuse used by parents. It’s my understanding, there were 4 times the number of serious injuries last year to high school football FANS IN THE STANDS compared with the players on the field. Think about that.
Egg head bureaucrats, please stay away from this sport. Leave it to the Crislers and Gagliardis to figure it out what is best.
Message (Required)
Former great M player and coach, Bob Hollway was also head coach of the St Louis Football Cardinals, and the D-coordinator of the Minnesota Viking purple people eaters… He never believed in full contact practices.. Makes sense, been around since the 60’s in some NFL teams…
You tell ’em, Flame! 🙂
Message (Required)Get rid of the face masks. Every one will go back to tackling with their shoulders instead of their forehead or crown. Your cheeks will get a little raw but the concussions will go away.