It's a great question. The way I'll answer that question is that we need to make sure that the coaching staff is paying attention to the total number of impacts that these young players are receiving during the course of the season. One of the things we've been able to figure out in football is that 75% or 80% of the impacts that athletes were receiving were happening in practice. We've counselled football teams. It is good to hear that your son waited until he was a teenager and his brain and body were more developed to be able to better handle the contact.
When it comes to the practising, how they actually practise the games, coaches have gotten much better at coming up with drills where they're minimizing the total number of impacts that are happening. Rather than doing one-on-one blocking, they are using sleds or bags to simulate that blocking and to work on technique, really trying to limit the amount of live action that happens in practice. You need to have some of it to prepare. You don't want to take a kid and put them in the game where they're seeing live action for the first time. There does need to be some of that. Coaches ask, what is the right amount? The answer to that question is to minimize it and use contact only when they absolutely need it and when they truly need to teach a technique that is going to be directly applicable to the field. If your coaches are doing that, you'll have reduced the head injury risk by 75% or 80%.