Mark Jonas, a member of the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, knows what it takes to make kids into champions on the football field. He just took over
In this episode of WJCT's What's Health Got to Do With It, retired NFL player Ben Utecht talks about his history of brain injuries before a panel of doctors discuss concussions in sports.
charles, 5 8 , 185 pound and a star baseball player, says his middle school coaches are eager to recruit him. you would be a prized catch on any football team. do they press you to play? yeah. so i ll come home with i would tell them i m not allowed to play. reporter: charles is not alone in last several years there s been roughly a 10% drop in the number of kids playing football. now football is trying to tackle the problem head on. neurologist dr. jeffrey kutcher treats concussions in athletes from peewees to pros, and says changing tackling methods is a positive start. are we hitting just to hit? or are we teaching good technique? what is the minimum amount of hit week need to do in practice, in other words, to create football player whose can protect themselves on the field? reporter: easier said than done. one study found players as young as 7 take as many as 80 hits to the head. a number that triples in boys 9
is an innovation of his privacy. anyway, every afternoon at the end of the school day, millions of our children had to the playing fields, and gymnasium s, or hockey rinks to participate in sports. playing sports is not just make our kids stronger and healthier, it teaches them important values. they learn about hard work, leadership, and about living with pain and going through it, about working together for a common goal. the camaraderie that comes out of sports units is wonderful to see. it is real, and it lasts forever. most of our young athletes will not end up playing sports at the collegiate or professional levels, but we hope they will all carry the positive lessons that they learn on the playing field throughout life, and they will. the hearing today is about the injuries that tens of thousands of these athletes sustain every year while playing the sports they love. many of us are reluctant to talk about the risks involved in planning sports, because we know what a p
sunday, on and newsmakers senator tom harkin, who will talk about the recent work on the note child left behind act and the status of chet of job legislation. it is just to me very obvious that with all of the priorities we have, and they are all worthy, till further notice, every decision the national government makes, every close call, should be made in favor of economic growth. every time should be broken in favor of growth of the private sector. he worked in the reagan white house, and as governor of indiana he implemented spending cuts that produced a $1 billion spending budget surplus. mitch daniels on his new book, the economy, and his decision not to run for president in 2012. next, a senate commerce committee hearing on the short and long term impact of concussions on student athletes. he will hear remarks from neurologists and former collegiate athletes. this is about two hours. this hearing has come to order. there are 14 senators in front of you, b