Should Body Contact Be Allowed In Sports?

Aggression has become a common tactic used by players willing to win a game at any cost. It allows players to take control of their opponents, create scoring opportunities, aid with defensive positioning and coverage. A team’s defensive line plays against the opponent’s top scoring line to minimize their scoring opportunities and tire them out. During intense games where a team is facing elimination, body contact is used as a mental and physical intimidation to gain control of the game and increase overall team play. However, body contact has proven to be a major risk factor causing injury as it allows players to deliberately and forcefully hit another player. Body contact is defined as an individual defensive method designed to legally block
A single tactic or skill, body contact in particular, should not be ignored as the cause of too many youth being exposed to rising incidents resulting in injury caused by rough play. On the topic of body contact, there are those who are in favour of body contact. They believe that sports demand it and that if youth are exposed to it at an early age they will have the ability to avoid injury. Also, they claim that injuries will only result if players use improper technique while executing forms of body contact and as a result, leagues should not enforce rules with age limits concerning body contact. On the other hand, they are people who would argue that focusing on educating players and coaches and teaching them the proper skills at different levels will not decrease the risk of injury. They would appreciate the introduction of age limitations when it comes to introducing body contact. Moreover, they would rather it be eliminated all together and argue that it was designed only for trained professionals. Therefore, the relation between body contact and age limitations has become a debate which concerns leagues across the