SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Just as football season kicks back into gear, a new study was released this week about former NFL players and the degenerative brain disease known as CTE. Researchers found that at least a quarter of former NFL players who died between the years of 2016 and 2021 had CTE, which is associated with symptoms like memory loss and mood swings. So with millions of youngsters set to play youth and high school football this fall, families and officials are renewing conversations about safety. NPR's Becky Sullivan has the story.
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BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: It's a lovely late afternoon in Tonawanda, New York, the sun shining low over the football field at Kenney Park. More than a hundred kids are here, split up by age, practicing blocks and tackles.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Let's go, folks.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Ready.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Low. Come out strong together. Ready. Set.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Ready.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Go. Good. Drive your feet. Keep driving. Keep driving.
SULLIVAN: About 20 miles away is the NFL stadium where the Buffalo Bills play. So all the boys here are wearing full-on Bills gear - white jerseys, blue pants, helmets, pads, the works.
JONATHAN ELIAS: Yes. Bills everything. We got lights, lamps, carpets (laughter), you name it.
SULLIVAN: Jonathan Elias (ph) is a huge Bills fan. His two young sons are out on the field, Dom (ph) and Caleb (ph).
ELIAS: Forty-four to the right. Eleven's right there to the left. He's the one that can't stand still - can't sit still, dancing and moving, everything else, in line.
SULLIVAN: We asked whether he'd seen the new study that put that stark number on CTE and former NFL players. Elias hadn't, but he's always been worried about the risk of brain injury for his sons.
ELIAS: Oh, definitely - with all the concussions and everything that can happen, all the movies and articles and everything that we see.
SULLIVAN: Not every kid who plays football will get CTE - far from it. The risk of developing the disease goes up the longer a player's football career goes on. Still, though, CTE has been found in the brains of some people who only played through high school, and about 1 million American high schoolers will play 11-on-11 football this fall.
MICHAEL KRUEGER: When the article came out this week - we're aware of it, we shared it, you know, and talked about it.
SULLIVAN: This is Michael Krueger (ph). He's the director of the Colorado High School Activities Association, which oversees all high school sports in the state. This past week's news won't move the needle too much in Colorado, he says, because the needle has already been moving for years now.
KRUEGER: So in terms of change, I think it's ongoing. I don't think it's all of a sudden, we're going to go, oh, my gosh, you know, this article came out. Let's look at football. I think it's constantly being evaluated for ways we can improve the game.
SULLIVAN: He points to new recommendations issued just earlier this summer by the National Federation of State High School Associations. It advised that schools ban certain drills, like the Oklahoma drill, where two players line up in a tight area, then run right at each other, full speed, full strength, in a classic football test of toughness. Krueger says Colorado wasted no time in enacting those recommendations.
KRUEGER: Colorado was right at the forefront of that, and we started out with - you know, to remove those drills from our high school football practices. We shouldn't be doing those anymore.
SULLIVAN: Dr. Greg Canty is the director of sports medicine at Children's Mercy in Kansas City. He's been seeing patients for about 20 years now. These days, he gets a lot more questions than he used to from young athletes and their families about football and concussions.
GREG CANTY: When I first started practicing sports medicine, those conversations were ones I may have wanted to have as a physician, but no one else really interested in hearing it as much.
SULLIVAN: Canty saw the new study, of course. He points out that the cohort of former NFL players the researchers looked at had largely played their pro careers a long time ago, like in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.
CANTY: And so I don't know how to take the data that was recently released and apply that to my young athletes, other than trying to let their families know there's probably never been a safer time to play youth sports because of the recognition when it comes to concussion, because of the recognition we now have.
SULLIVAN: Football, he says, definitely does have more risk for injury than non-collision sports. But there's benefits, too, he says. Research has shown better mental health outcomes for kids who play team sports.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Hurry up. Hustle up.
SULLIVAN: Back in New York, the peewee kids are mostly just running around with the ball. Mom Nicole Brogan (ph) is watching from the sidelines, dressed in green scrubs. She's a nurse - works at a high school, where she has seen plenty of athletes come through with concussions. So she was hesitant to sign up her 6-year-old son, Cooper (ph), for tackle football, she said. But her dad told her, let him be a kid, and convinced her Cooper would learn things bigger than the game.
NICOLE BROGAN: Respect for the adults and for the teammates. Even if one kid goes down, everyone drops and takes a knee. They all will help the players up. It's very good community.
SULLIVAN: And at the end of the day, playing football makes Cooper happy.
BROGAN: Even before practice, I'm like, try to rest a little so that your body's good to go. No, he's outside throwing the football with my dad. After the games, they are out here, throwing, he's - any chance he can.
SULLIVAN: It's tough to beat making your kid that happy. So for now, she says she'll place her trust in the equipment and the coaches and hope for the best.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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