I'm shocked there are not more lawsuits in other sports, it seems football gets all of the bad publicity. For example last week when the middle school baseball player who almost died during tryouts for Lafayette wasn't really allowed to do that. The paper said it was for tryouts, tryouts according to the KHSAA isn't even allowed yet. Now if it was football there would be a lot of criticism and lawsuits.

 

As of now, middle school sports are not regulated by the KHSAA.

Quick search showed that fooball has a rate of 3x to 4x that of soccer.

 

That is probably disregarding the damage that is done in small increments. There are studies that show the "smaller" impacts of headers, in soccer, can be just as damaging as the collisions in football.

Decreasing heat illness could be done if only football was allowed to be a true fall sport instead of starting in July. Once upon a time, practice didn't start until the 1st of August, games not until the 1st weekend of September. However, that was also when school didn't start until after Labor Day, also and kids spent all day outside instead of inside on the computer, too (that's for a whole 'nother discussion though).

 

It's absolutely absurd to know that most schools will have played 3 regular season games before the 1st of September this year.

Decreasing heat illness could be done if only football was allowed to be a true fall sport instead of starting in July. Once upon a time, practice didn't start until the 1st of August, games not until the 1st weekend of September. However, that was also when school didn't start until after Labor Day, also and kids spent all day outside instead of inside on the computer, too (that's for a whole 'nother discussion though).

 

It's absolutely absurd to know that most schools will have played 3 regular season games before the 1st of September this year.

 

I had a discussion over drinks with friends one night, and it was mentioned that baseball and football should swap season's. It sounds kind of sacreligious, but it makes a little sense as heat becomes a non issue for football in the spring, and there is decent baseball weather up through early November. It would also allow basketball teams to start their seasons at full strength rather than waiting for the football players to trickle in. I know it would never happen, and I'd have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea. And it would screw up recruiting..

Perhaps rugby would grow but I see a huge growth in lacrosse on the horizon.

 

The growth in lacrosse is coming anyway. I'm from the East Coast, and in 25 years lacrosse has grown from a small sport to huge participation numbers. It's played in the spring in most places, and would likely have a bigger impact on baseball numbers. From what I hear, it is on its way to being a sanctioned sport here in Kentucky within the next few years.

Lacrosse is growing by leaps and bounds, but it is a spring sport (as is rugby at the hs level).

My point is that if you remove the pads from football, you have rugby,

which is one of the places football evolved from to begin with.