Header ban will hurt soccer

Two weekends ago, I was as proud as I’ve been all year.

That’s because the U8 youth basketball team that I coach won a huge game to all-but clinch that we’d score an undefeated season.

The game wasn’t easy. Our opponents were very, very good. But we played a heck of a game, executed the game plan set out by our head coach Damien St. Pierre, and ended up walking away with a pretty comfortable win.

Youth sports are the best. They are played for fun and the love of the game – not for money or fame. They are 100 percent about kids and their development. When done correctly, they are about teaching life lessons – lessons that stick with the young athlete through their entire lives.

Through being a youth sports coach, I have learned a lot about who I am as a person. For example, practice, indeed, does make perfect. Kids get better at the things you work on most. The things that slip through the cracks are the things that are forgotten in game situations.

So with all of this having been said, I cannot for the life of me understand the U.S. Soccer Federation’s recommendation to ban headers by children ages 10 and under during the game. The wording of the soccer federation’s statement makes absolutely no sense. If executed, it will do far more harm than it does good.

Any header that takes place at these age groups will be deemed illegal and will be penalized – if not carded as an in-game infraction. It will basically be treated as a handball and penalized as such, as well.

Local coaches say that it’s a small setback, but not a huge one because most kids don’t head the ball very well when they are ages 6-9 anyway. That age is mostly about development, teaching the game and polishing fundamental skills.

The recommendation is to keep younger kids safe and concussion free. And that’s 100 percent OK and 100 percent what the focus of this investigation should be about. Taking the header away from the smallest children isn’t the source of anyone’s anger.

What happens next is where the gas is thrown onto the blaze.

The recommendation states that children ages 11-13 are allowed to head in games, but they aren’t allowed to utilize them in practice.

Wait, what?

Children – the ultimate creatures of habit in the world – will be asked to do something in live situations that they’re banned from practicing.

And not just any regular old something, they’ll be asked to perform an act that involves their heads and hitting something with their skulls.

Without practice. Without the proper teaching.

“Just go ahead and headbutt that soccer ball when it comes your way, little Mikey. It’ll be OK.”

What a nightmare.

The only way to safely head a soccer ball is to be taught how to do it. From there, you have to then practice it and master it – over and over and over again. Just like shooting a free throw in basketball or completing a touchdown pass in football. It’s technique-driven and repetitive in nature.

Without those reps, players will be in harm’s way every, single time they take the field, and MORE concussions will be endured in the game.

If you’re not ever taught how to do something, how can we expect it to be done right? It’s like if we let children out on the road before they took driver’s ed. It’s like taking the big final exam without studying or ever going to class.

It’s the wrong approach and it’s just a bad idea all around.

The U.S. Soccer Federation needs to do one of two things.

It needs to either ban headers from the game forever or it needs to suck it up, accept that injuries sometimes happen in sports and let the rules of the game be the same – just as it’s been for the past 150 years.

Sometime here in the near future, we have to understand and realize that bad things can happen to people in sporting activities. It’s part of the risk that is involved with calling oneself an athlete.

To do what’s being recommended is rash, poorly thought out and unrealistic.

Let’s hope the powers that be agree and fix this legislation before more kids are placed in dangerous situations. •