Why Do Youth Sports Become Too Violent To Be Safe For Children?

Many sports related injuries do not just happen to professional teams but occur on youth, high school, and college teams. Concussions, knee sprains, stress fractures happen often and are now considered common injuries. Parents do not get overly worried, like they should, due to the severity of these injuries that happen to their children. In reality, the real problems are how parents encourage their children to be extremely competitive on the field and play aggressively, the amount of traumatic injuries that occur on the field, and how it is affecting the futures of young athletes. These are the reasons why youth sports are becoming too violent to be safe for children. According to Buzz Bissinger, “What matters most is the vicarious thrill dad and mom get from their sons and daughters showing fearlessness and the absorption of agony…”, which is really what happens on the sidelines of games (Bissinger). The parents do not see how they are making these sports
Cody Lehe, who is now 21, “lives with his parents, spends most of his time in a wheelchair, and struggles with short-term memory” because of a “second-impact concussion” (Bissinger). Lehe’s future was drastically changed when he got into another injury soon after his first. This goes to say that when a child plays a sport; it is very easy and common for them to get hurt. It does not occur to many people that an injury, no matter how minor, can become more severe or even fatal. “Young athletes are far more vulnerable to head injuries than older ones”, says Bissinger (Bissinger). This is especially true since younger players do not usually understand the importance of wearing proper equipment or playing in a way that protects them from harm. In a long term perspective, youth sports are growing increasingly violent and are too harmful to