Jim Nantz: College Women's Soccer Player 2 1/2 Times More Likely to Get Concussion Than Football Player
While liberal media members such as NBC's Bob Costas call for radical changes to the NFL as a result of all the injuries, few seem willing to look at the issue from a broader perspective.
CBS's Jim Nantz added such perspective on Face the Nation Sunday saying, "Research shows that at the college level, a women's soccer player is two and a half times more likely to suffer a concussion than a college football player" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JIM NANTZ: We're talking about should your children play football? You have daughters. I have a daughter. We have the Nantz National Alzheimer's Center down at Methodist Hospital in Houston. We're all over this research right now. I have committed my life to this. My father died of Alzheimer's, and I believe it was the result of a football injury he suffered in college. Research shows that at the college level, a women's soccer player is two and a half times more likely to suffer a concussion than a college football player. I don't hear anybody saying right now, should we put our daughters in these soccer programs?
The point is this issue spreads well beyond the NFL. They're at the top of the ladder so everybody looks up to the NFL. But what are they going to do at the college level? The NCAA has just hired a chief medical officer, Dr. Brian Hartline, for the first time. They're opening up the NCAA Sports Science Institute. They really want to get their hands on this to affect everybody, because you go the level below that to the high school level. I mean, concussions are happening in all these various sports. It's not isolated to the NFL.
It most certainly isn't.
As a child, I got a concussion playing football, but also got two playing hockey.
As an adult, I coached my kids in baseball, soccer, and softball, and saw my share of injuries on the field.
Sports are physical, and injuries occur.
Sadly, America's media today for the most part seem hellbent on watering down such activities without regard to the actual statistics across the landscape of these sporting events.
Of course, why should anyone be shocked by media members not caring about facts?
