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Parents struggle with the potential dangers of youth football

Posted at 6:10 AM, Oct 02, 2019
and last updated 2019-10-02 07:18:38-04

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Our series on concussions in football continues with another look at youth football.

Today, reporter Jon Kipper looks at parents who decided to let their kids play, and the different ways they reached that decision.

It's been less than 10 years since receiver Brandon Kinnie was lighting up secondaries for the Huskers. When he played, the attitude on concussions was a tad different than nowadays.

"I feel like it was like, go to the sideline, take a knee, are you alright, alright get back in, type of thing. Especially if you were one of those players that always wanted to play, you didn't want to hear anything like 'I'm sitting out', no way, I'm going back in." Kinnie said.

Now, Kinnie has a different perspective. His kid plays on the third grade team for the Millard Junior Wildcats, and Kinnie even helps coach. It was an automatic decision to let his son play.

"I mean it was something I thought about after leaving football because you know there are so many things going on with the sport being a violent sport and concussions and things like that, you think about it." Kinnie said.

After some thinking, it was an easy decision.

"And I was that dad like look, how can I tell him no when I played football, so it was one of those things that was an easy decision, it was kind of exciting to know, like hey, you want to go out and play football, let's work and go do it." Kinnie said.

In other families, it was about making a deal. For Mike Wilbern, he bought a specific helmet so his wife would agree to let their son play in third grade.

"I shelled out, you know, what it took to get a Visus helmet after all the research was going on about the helmet technology so we kind of compromised in that area." Wilbern said.

Others, like Don Ricketts, say it makes sense to start your kids early so they can learn the game and gradually get more physical.

"I can't even imagine my son starting now, in 8th grade, as his first year. Kids are getting bigger, kids are getting faster and not having some of those fundamentals, things learned through the years. I think it would be a very difficult transition." Ricketts said.

Team director, Jeff Merkley says concussions don't happen much with the younger kids anyway.

"Third grade, fourth grade, it's pretty much like, pillow fighting, there's a lot of bumping around, the kids aren't really hitting real hard, as they get older they start hitting harder." Merkley said.