(3rd Person)
American football is a mainstay in U.S. culture, sustaining its status as the country’s most beloved and most watched sport. However, football is becoming hazardous in the eyes of the general public, causing its popularity to decline considerably. Most of the negative feelings towards football come from its high-frequency of concussive injuries to its players, leading organizations such as Pop Warner and other youth football groups to lose some of its likeness.
Despite these health concerns, the football community has responded with improved institutions to create a more positive environment for young players. The USA Football organization has developed the Heads Up Football movement, which promotes safer and more cautious protocols across youth football. These revisions include ensuring equipment is to the highest health safety standards, as well as having coaches go through more rigorous training and procedures to help them keep their players as secure as possible.
For any parent, enlisting their child or children in football programs can be a huge risk. However, thanks to the added awareness to concussions and injures in general, parents can feel more secure about the sport of football and their kids health.

(1st person)
Like any high school jock, sports meant more to me than just after school exercise. Unfortunately, that ‘more’ was me using it as a opportunity to show off in front of my friends who attended the games, especially girls I had crushes on. Of course, this backfired in a major way during one preseason practice.

The past summer, my dad and I worked tirelessly to improve my game and make the jump from the junior varsity basketball team to the varsity one. The biggest aspect of my game that was coming along was my verticality, and I was basically able to dunk. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to show off my new skill to my teammates.

So the day comes along for the team’s first preseason practice, and I can’t wait to display my hops. All my teammates gathered around the basket, waiting to see if I was all talk. I got a healthy running start, and grabbed the rim with ease. My teammates were impressed, and a flurry of them started to try and do the same. I successfully grabbed the rim several more times afterwards, each time getting more and more cocky; with each grab, I was hanging on the rim a little longer each time, gloating in the air to my less vertically gifted friends down below. All the while, my big head distracted me from the reality that my legs and arms were growing quite tired from all the monkey business and, boy, things could not have gone worse for me soon after.

It came to my attention that a girl I really liked was interested in becoming the team’s manager, and she would be stopping by the practice to talk to the head coach.

Perfect. I thought. Here’s my chance to impress her. 

That, folks, did not happen.

In she comes, and my heart starts racing. She waves hello to me and smiles, and I play it as cool as I can. She takes a seat in the bleachers, and starts watching us shoot around.

Here we go. This is it, Mat. 

I yell at my teammates to make some room, that I was going for one more fly by.

Taking the same running start, I leap and grab the rim. But my arms and hands were so tired from the other attempts, I immediately lost grip and fell straight onto my back onto the cold, unforgiving hardwood.

Naturally, my teammates lost their minds, laughing hysterically. They would also later tell me that she was laughing too.

The fall hurt everywhere for weeks, and we’ve never been on a date to this day.

As my dad always says, “We can’t all be the greatest.”