Apr 15, 2019 2 min read

IMPACT Inc recently donated 65 helmets to the Washington School District that are tailored to help ease the impact of direct hits to the head. For those of you who don’t know who IMPACT Inc. is read the O-R EDITORAL column in Friday’s April 12 paper. An incredible organization. Wonderful people. Although the helmets are tailored to ease the impact of direct hits to the head the answer really lies in eliminating what causes the impact to happen in the first place. S&S. Otherwise known as speed and space. Picture this.Two cars colliding in a parking lot traveling at a snails pace. What do you end up with. A little bump or scratch. Now picture the two same cars traveling on I-79 at 65 MPH colliding into each other. A completely different outcome. A suggestion I would recommend is make youth football less of an impact game. This can be accomplished simply by making the playing field smaller to limit the distance a player can run and gain speed before impact occurs. It will definitely slow the game down and at times it will resemble a scrum and bore a parent to death but as a parent do you really want to see your children smashing into one another. I also would recommend that coaches and parents understand that at this young age the game isn’t the Super Bowl so don’t make it into one. That’s a tougher task than it was twenty years ago. And of course coaches should always teach proper techniques when tackling and blocking and the kids and parents should be educated as well.

Dominic Broglia

dom.broglia@aol.com

412-526-7423

1154 McEwen Road

Canonsburg Pa 15317