Quote:
Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower
Kids don't really need to be tackling before they turn 14, IMO.
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You may be right.
That said, I didn't play organized ball until I was 13 or 14. I played pickup ball where we tackled each other, but never anything structured. Then I played organized ball against guys that had played since they were 8. Those guys did
everything better than me. They were more decisive, more technically sound and simply more in control of their bodies than people that came to the sport later. They weren't all better athletes than me, but they all know how to move control themselves a hell of a lot better than I did. They also weren't thinking through things but rather reacting and as every coach will tell you, indecision will absolutely get you hurt on that field. Be the hammer, not the nail.
So if you prevent tackling until kids turn 14 (right about the time they've started to grow out of their parts anyway), you're going to have a lot of kids that have little/no body control out there and I don't think it will actually do much to prevent serious injury. In fact, the rate of traumatic serious injury could very easily go up, IMO. I could see an argument that it would prevent brain trauma by simply reducing the volume of violent collisions kids are subject to, but I think the tradeoff would be more limb/spinal injuries and by a fairly substantial amount.