![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/dentonfracking/20141029181249im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/10/23/us/motherlode-soccer1/motherlode-soccer1-tmagArticle.jpg)
What if your trusted pediatrician looked at your 10-year-old, sitting on the exam table kicking his legs and wearing his jersey, and said, “I hope that when I see you next year, you’re not playing soccer anymore”?
If you, like Tory Brangham, were the mother of three avid and passionate soccer players in what she calls the “soccer-crazed” town of Montclair, N.J., (where the local soccer club says one in three children play or have played), you might want to disregard what proved to be the beginning of a discussion about the concussion risks of the sport, especially after you realize that the pediatrician — trusted family friend that he is — gives the same talk to all of his patients. But, she said, she and her husband started to hear stories, of the children of friends with concussions sustained on the field, and grew increasingly uncomfortable with the risk they were accepting.
That discomfort ultimately became the subject of a video report by Tory Brangham’s husband, William Brangham, a producer and correspondent for PBS NewsHour weekend, which will air on Saturday, Oct. 25 (watch the trailer here). What it didn’t do — then or now — was to persuade them to ask their children to quit a sport they love.
Instead, both Branghams became more convinced, along with Brandi Chastain, a former United States women’s national soccer team player, and Dr. Robert Cantu, a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the Boston University School of Medicine and co-author of “Concussions and Our Kids,” that the problem wasn’t soccer. It was one element of soccer: heading the ball. And heading the ball, many adults believe, is something the game could be played without.
Concussions in soccer can occur when a player heads the ball, but are more likely to be sustained during a head-to-head collision with another player — an event that often occurs when two players are simultaneously trying to head the ball, particularly if the intent is to fling it backward. Some research suggests that repeated heading of the ball (more than 1,100 times a year) itself may cause long-term damage similar to that seen in traumatic brain injury, even absent a concussion. Although there is no consensus on whether heading, as performed by younger players, has similar effects, Dr. Cantu suggests that the collected research supports erring on the side of caution and taking heading out of the game until high school or later.
That has yet to happen, and it’s unclear whether any national organizations are considering the possibility. After a lawsuit filed in California alleging that FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, along with American soccer organizations, including U.S. Soccer and the American Youth Soccer Organization, have been negligent in monitoring and treating head injuries, soccer’s governing bodies aren’t commenting on the question. “As Brandi Chastain says, it’s not likely any leagues will unilaterally disarm,” Mr. Brangham said. It’s a change that needs to be widespread. In the long run, she says ending heading, at least for younger players, would be good for the game. “If you take out the single act that’s most likely to get a child’s head injured, then more people will let their kids play.”
His own children are unconvinced. One says his father is “ruining” the game, and argues that if young players don’t learn to head the ball, the change will ultimately hurt the U.S. national teams. Their father understands.
There is this part of me, he said, that is aware that “it’s the fashionable risks that freak us out.” Is the risk of concussion overblown? Pediatricians less impassioned on the topic than the Branghams’ doctor worry that fear of concussions will cause parents to pull their children out of sports. “That’s the worst thing they can do,” Dr. William Meehan, co-founder of Boston Children’s Hospital’s sports concussion clinic, told The Times last year. “A concussion is a problem and a serious one, but at the same time, obesity and sedentary lifestyles are having a much greater impact on society. The worst thing we could do is make kids less active.”
![William and Tory Brangham watching a soccer game.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/dentonfracking/20141029181249im_/http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/10/23/us/motherlode-soccer2/motherlode-soccer2-thumbWide.jpg)
The best thing we could do to keep children on the soccer field, Mr. Brangham said, is not put the onus for preventing head injuries on them. His two older children are less than enthusiastic about their parents’ suggestion that they not head the ball during games or in practice. (His 9-year-old is “happy not to have to do it.”)
“It’s a hard thing for them,” Mr. Brangham said. “They have competitive juice. They want to do well, they want their team to do well. Talking to them about personal safety is like talking about retirement planning.” That’s why, Mr. Brangham said, adults need to make this choice for the children who play the sport they love.
Meanwhile, the Brangham children are still playing. “We have games this weekend,” Ms. Brangham said. “I grew up playing sports. It’s very important to me. I love what my kids get out of soccer.” But if they were to get hurt, she said, “I would feel like, how did I let that happen? Every weekend, there’s this element of holding our breath.”