I was encouraged by every corner of the greater culture surrounding me in my youth to play that infernal game because I was a bigger kid and ya godda be tuff and **** like that. I was discouraged from two things I had a keen interest in doing because they were seen as weak and effeminate (music and tennis). Instead it was a steady diet of football this and wrestling that.
I absolutely remember seeing stars on several occasions from big hits. That was my brain sloshing around in my skull, but it's okay; it's character building. Am I right?
In 9th grade we were the scrimmage team in practice against varsity because at my small rural school there weren't enough bodies for them to pummel kids their own size. It's there day after day for months that led me down my first path of true depression. We don't raise quitters around here. You want glory and muscular manhood, don't you?
I did quit. And I did face many moments of "You're a big strong kid and football is good for you" from more than one adult at the public school I attended.
A guy across the street from me today had several big time concussions and injuries from being a very talented football animal. He was a key linebacker of a very good high school program around here. He had all daughters, but told me he'd never allow his boys to play football if he'd have had them. The injuries and mental problems are still haunting him to this day decades later.
Youth contact football is child abuse.
Yeah, there was this fun thing my high school did where the freshmen would scrimmage against the varsity in the afternoon during the varsity two-a-day practices. It was supposed to be helmet/shoulder pad walk through practices, but when I was a freshman the varsity hit us hard and the coaches laughed. The sam linebacker that year was Bo Sherrill; he went on to play at Mizzou. He was a mean SOB; any time I came back to the huddle from the "walk through" without having been laid out flat on my backside was a moral victory. A guard on offense had asked my sister out and she turned him down, so when I got sent in there on defense he would fire out of his stance full speed and knock me over. He would do it on plays where he wasn't even supposed to block me; the coaches would laugh. It was all just an exercise to see which of us were dumb enough to take the abuse.
I broke during wresting. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I ended up in the hospital; we had to ride a bus over from the Jr. High to the High School to go to wresting practice and I stepped off that bus and vomited every day until my parents (thinking I had some sort of stomach problem) took me to the doctor. None of them ever thought to question the fact that the wresting coach every day let the light weight varsity wrestlers kick my ass while he yelled at me for being slow and no good and the rest of the team laughed at me. It was so humiliating that I had a panic attack and threw up every damn day.
My sophomore year of football was significantly worse than my freshman year; we got abused the entire season instead of just during two-a-days. By the time it was over I was done; psychologically I was as beaten down as you can get. Depression was an understatement; I could barely function. I alternated between rage outbursts and weeks of just not doing anything. I failed to appear for wrestling. I was going to stop playing football, but the wresting coach stopped me in the hall to chastise me for not wresting and he said "You're no good a football, you are never going to play. When you graduate, you are going to wish you had lettered in a sport. The only way you are going to do that is to wrestle." Which...dude, you yelled at me for an entire season about how I sucked. Anyway, he pissed me off, I played varsity football the next season and made sure to hang out in front of his class wearing a letter jacket a lot. :|
Somehow this was supposed to build my character. It was complete B.S.
Now I'm mid-50's and my back is so messed up I can barely walk most days. My shoulders are destroyed. My ankles are shot. All so I could play football in high school? Not worth it at all.
I also only had daughters, but if we had a son he would NOT have been allowed to play football.
Also when the wresting coach retired there were articles in the paper about what a wonderful man he was and all this volunteer work he had done. I wonder if the volunteer work balanced off all the damage he did to people like me on his wresting team. :\