Injury Threat Forces New Castle to Expand Flag Football Over Tackle
Parental concerns over the possibility of serious injuries has prompted the Town of New Castle to expand its flag football program for next fall and scrap plans to offer tackle football.
Recreation & Parks Superintendent Robert Snyder said a recent survey administered by the department showed that that an overwhelming majority of the parents were worried for their children’s safety and would prefer to have the town offer the flag version of the sport instead.
Last fall, New Castle was unable to register enough children in grades 3-6 to have a tackle program, Snyder said.
“What we decided is that we needed to find an alternative because that’s what the community wants,” he said.
In flag football, instead of the ball carrier being tackled to the ground to end the play, the defensive players must remove a flag or flag belt.
In the town’s survey that was sent to more than 300 households earlier this winter, Assistant Superintendent Bill Garrison said 75 percent of those parents who responded had indicated they had a concern for their child’s safety with tackle football. Meanwhile, 82 percent wanted the town’s recreation program to offer flag football for the children in those grades. The survey had a 25 percent response rate, he said.
Last fall the department offered flag football for children in grades 2 and 3, Snyder said. This year, plans call for the program to be expanded to include children in grades 3-6.
Garrison said the move by the town doesn’t prevent children and parents in town who want to play tackle football.
“The New Castle Youth Football League is now called Greeley Football and they offer a tackle program for the kids now,” said Garrison, adding that the two programs are not in competition with each other.
Greeley Football league is no longer partnering with the town, Snyder said. Philosophical differences unrelated to concerns of injuries or concussions caused a split between the town’s recreation department and the former New Castle Youth Football, he said. The town’s Recreation Commission voted to no longer recognize the league because of those differences.
Snyder said that the town recreation department’s purpose is to offer local children fun recreational opportunities and exercise.
“I don’t think we’re a feeder program for the high school,” he said. “Our goal is to provide the community with recreation and youth sports.”
Snyder said the flag football program will provide instruction and practice and weekly games at Recreation Field. There will be a third- and fourth-grade division and another for grades 5 and 6. Registration for the fall program will begin in July and the program will start in late August.
The response to worries over the safety of tackle football for children in New Castle mirrors what is being found in communities around the United States. Participation in youth tackle football programs has been declining and some towns are taking a similar route by substituting flag football.
A January 2015 Boston University study examined 42 former NFL players between the ages of 40 and 69. It concluded that members of the study group that played tackle football before turning 12 years old were found to be doing significantly worse than the group who started after 12 on neuropsychological assessments.
The study cited the ages of 10 to 12 years old as a critical time for developing brains that should not be at risk of absorbing hits to the head that can happen more frequently in tackle football.
The study’s authors also concluded that a child in that age group absorbs an average of 240 head impacts during a youth football season. However, that figure has been disputed by officials for Pop Warner, who estimate head impacts at about one-quarter of that number.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
