kindred spirit with them that might not occur with other athletes. lebron staying he would like to stick around long enough to play with his son or sons, bronny being the older of the two, jim, that hits home. so many people can think of their son and daughter. tiger woods has talked about his two kids playing sports. his son playing golf, his daughter playing other sports, he wants to be able to play with them. i think it s the same thing with lebron which makes it all the more poignant and meaningful for so many americans today. tell us about lebron s relationship with his sons, too, right? he talks about his family all the time, clearly dedicated. he zmgdid something that i can imagine as a kid, he coached, i can imagine, you show up at the gym, there s lebron james coaching the team. he s a family man, but, man,
behind all kids playing sports. but i think we need to play some of the sports at high risk of head injury in a little bit safer way. and that is taking some of the most risky parts of those sports out of it and modifying them. we re looking at images there are girls on the soccer field head butting the balls. we ve seen some pro athletes come out and say that practice should be banned. what do you think for people under a certain age anyway. i think for under high school age you can make the case because there now is emerging science showing just from heading the ball, even some concussive levels of brain trauma that don t produce any symptoms that individuals can have structural and functional changes in their brains as a result of it. bottom line, knowing the science as you do and looking at clinical cases like this, would you let your kids play contact sports? well, i think prior to high school, tackle football should be replaced with flag football. i think that soccer, the
football player and wwe superstar. he s now using his expertise and wisdom to warn others about the dangers of head injuries. brian: his sports legacy project is tremendous. chris, welcome. thank you for joining us. thanks for having me. brian: if you notice, the nfl changed their tackling techniques. it rocked the pros. we really want to make people safe from the time they start playing until they go pro, right? when you start this conversation, we have to appreciate that football is just more dangerous the younger they are. so we really have to emphasize safety, teach them properly but consider how young you are when you start to tackle. elisabeth: i want to introduce our young players here. what s your name? sam. elisabeth: hi. damon. elisabeth: you guys play hockey. i know we were talking and you play football. the importance of avoiding concussions, over 25,000 medical reports came in with head injuries for kids playing sports, right? yes. elisabeth: what do
football, if you can walk, you can play. these guys, they want to play. how do you take them off the field when they re so motivated to be out there. you were a coach yourself. the coaches are highly motivated to get those guys playing again. yeah. it has to be done by the doctor. the coach will want the player to play. the player wants to play. i had a concussion, and i played the whole game with it, but when i looked at the film, i don t remember one thing that hatched in the game. i played. i functioned. i played okay, but remember any of it. i didn t remember a thing when i saw the film. it s a macho thing. players don t want to come out and say you got your bell rung or you got a dinger or whatever you want to call it. but it is a concussion, and like the doctor says, when you collide with your head, the brain moves around in the skull and you have a lot of things happen. i want to end it with the doctor here because obviously a lot of parents are concerned about their kids pl