Joseph Overturf
Reporter
Editorial
Heading the ball in soccer does not cause concussions if proper techniques are used. With proper technique and the distribution of kinetic energy, heading the ball is hardly an issue. Hence why all of these studies are done on young athletes and not professionals. Professionals know the proper way to head the ball, which is why they do it so often without injury.
People seem to think that heading the ball causes lots of unnecessary concussions and that it should be banned from the sport in the youth leagues to prevent damaging the minds of developing children. What they don’t realize is that heading the ball doesn’t cause injury or brain damage, heading the ball incorrectly does.
Derrick Z. Jackson wrote, “Ban heading in youth soccer,” published by The Boston Globe, on May 18, 2014. Jackson believes that soccer organizations should ban the act of heading the ball in youth soccer leagues. The contact and viciousness of soccer play isn’t as bad as it is in football, but women’s soccer is the second highest cause of concussions at the high school level in America. The largest opportunity for concussions is when players go airborne to head the ball, when two players collide heads when both attempting to head the ball, or when a player gets elbowed while in the air.
Jackson talks about Patrick Grange. Patrick Grange was the first soccer player to be discovered to have CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) which later triggered ALS in his body. Grange’s parents say that he started to learn how to head the ball when he was only three years old. This is a sad story, but my only question for Jackson would be if heading the ball caused CTE which caused his ALS, with as long as soccer has been around, why is he the first player to be diagnosed with these diseases?
Jackson claims that we should try to reduce contact in soccer. One way he suggests is to implement a foul system, like in basketball, where refs can issue fouls to players who enforce too much contact while going up for a rebound. With lower levels of heading the ball in soccer, the brain is able to regenerate and fix itself in most players. But there is a point where the trauma caused by heading the ball develops into more lifelong serious issues.
I sort of agree, some of the most brutal injuries in the sport come from players colliding, not from heading the ball itself. I think they should implement a foul system where, when colliding with another player in the air in a dangerous manner, a player receives a foul, and after a certain amount of fouls, players get a yellow card.
One of Jackson’s’ sources, Dawn Comstock, states that, “ The largest risk lies is when a player, going to head the ball, either collides with another player’s head or elbow or is slammed to the ground,” which I agree with.
Comstock also suggests that there should be more strict rules when it comes to leaping in the air for a header, similar to rules in basketball where you can receive a foul for going over someone’s back while going up for a rebound. I do believe that this would help.
I have been playing soccer for 15 years. From recreational leagues to high school where my team finished the season fourth in the state of missouri. I know how badly some of the coaching can be when it comes to heading the ball, at first it did hurt to head the ball, but once I was properly taught how heading was never an issue.
The solution to the problem would be to teach the youth players the proper heading techniques. These days, coaches to the younger athletes teach more on proper shooting and passing techniques and hardly ever focus on proper ways to head the ball. I do not believe that heading the ball in soccer should be banned. I believe that the rules should be slightly changed as most injuries occur when players collide attempting to head the ball, not just heading the ball itself.
If we attempt my solutions, I know that the number of head injuries would drastically decrease. The systems implemented today seem very out of date. There needs to be a new set of rules added into soccer leagues around the world, on what coaches need to be teaching their athletes proper techniques for. The question we should ask isn’t if we should ban heading in youth soccer, but how we can improve technical skills in these young athletes to prevent brain damage.
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