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Should High Schools Drop Football

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Should High Schools Drop Football Because Too Many Players Are Getting Hurt? Friday night lights is something to look forward to for many high school students and community members. Being a varsity football cheerleader, I myself look forward to those nights, but, is playing for only one night a week and 10 weeks out of the year, worth risking your life for? Some think of football as one of the most harmful sports, considering all of the contact that is involved. With all of the things like blockings, holdings, sacks, and tackles, it would be hard for one to deny that. Since many have started to take these dangerous impacts that football may have on those who play into consideration, school administrators began asking, “Should high schools drop football because too many players are getting hurt?” Attempts to make changes to the roughness that comes along with playing football, trace all the way back to the 1900’s. Before that time, football was considered rugby, which was even more dangerous. In rugby, “The results were predictable: smashed noses, dislocated shoulders, broken necks and fractured skulls. Dozens of young men died, mostly from cerebral hemorrhage” (Zimmerman 2), which terrified many. Over time, the name “rugby,” eventually died out and later became known as football. Years later, when president Roosevelt got into office and noticed nearly 20 deaths that happened that fall from football, he called for a meeting with coaches from different colleges. “The 1905

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