Exercise is great and you can get plenty of it without football. I think kids should be kids, and they should be able to play whatever sports they want. But we should not be allowing them to participate in sports that can have long term effects on their development and health. And we should not be taking child athletics so seriously.

Parents should not be fighting at games and children should not be involved in activities so intense that they risk serious injury on a regular basis. We are supposed to be the guardians of children. Not their exploiters.

I'm sure most parents of student athletes have their hearts in the right place, but many of these kids playing football are told their whole lives that this is something they should be doing, and especially poor kids think it's their only way out of poverty.

They are put into teams before they are 10 and are surrounded by fanatical parents, coaches, and the celebrity of pro athletes.

The people these children should be able to trust to have their best interests in mind are instead leading them down a path that is unlikely to reward them economically, professionally, or intellectually when it's all over.

They might think it's their idea to dedicate their young lives to sports, but more often than not, I think there a parent or two behind them that is responsible for guiding them into the sport from the time they are very young and very impressionable. All for a miniscule chance of turning pro.

The rest wash up on the other end of a half-assed education because they spent all of their time getting knocked around at practice instead of in a classroom.

But at least a bunch of drunk people get to enjoy their violent games.

I know plenty of people who had healthy relationships with student athletics on a competitive basis in high school and in Division I schools. But none of them were footballers. And they were all rich kids with good majors. I think the system is fucked for everyone else.