On March 6, 2013, National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell spoke about concussion safety at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was there at the invitation of a leading concussion expert, Kevin Guskiewicz, PhD, ATC, Kenan Distinguished Professor and Director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center at UNC.
In a wide-ranging speech (see video below), Commissioner Goodell indicated that the NFL "stand[s] ready" to "share any of our research with any other league," and expressed the belief that "we should all be working to make youth sports safer."
We at MomsTEAM couldn't agree more.
Here is a video of what Commissioner Goodell had to say:
In honor of March as National Athletic Trainer's Month, MomsTEAM wants to give a big shout out to Dr. Guskiewicz for all the incredible work he is doing to make contact and collision sports safer. I have had the honor of speaking with Kevin on a number of occasions, and interviewing him at the Third Annual Youth Sports Safety Summit in Washington, D.C. in December 2011.
One of the things he spoke about was the controversy on when it is safe for kids to start playing tackle football, an issue on which, in a rare instance of disagreement, his views differ markedly from those of Dr. Robert C. Cantu, who recommends that kids not play tackle until age 14.
Here's a video of Dr. Guskiewicz's thoughts on the subject:
