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EDITOR’S NOTE: Ninth grade students at Belwood-Antis were asked to read a recent article about a mother in Wisconsin suing a Pop Waner football league over the suicide of her son, which she claims was brought on by the head trauma he suffered while playing football.  They were then asked to write an opinion piece referencing the article and addressing the question: should hard contact sports like football be banned for young people.

Many people may think getting rid of football to prevent concussions and CTE will be the answer. One Wisconsin mother  is even suing Pop Warner football over head injuries she feels led to her son’s eventual suicide.

I think getting rid of any football programs, whether it is youth, jr.high, varsity, or other hard contact sports is a bad idea.

To begin with, people can make their own decisions, or their parents can decide for them whether or not they want to play or their children to play.

Furthermore, people should know the consequences of a sport that they want to play. I do think the coaches should tell them about the risks of playing hard contact sports; however since that is not a requirement, people playing the sports obviously still agree to play them.

To continue, getting rid of or putting off hard contact sports would ruin the chances of athletes getting scholarships to college for a sport, which would then in turn ruin professional sports as well. Not only would it limit or ruin athletic opportunities, but it also would limit people from doing what they like.

Although concussions are something to be concerned about, they are a result of many other activities not including hard contact sports. There will always be ways you can get injured and you can’t stop that from happening so limiting what kids play isn’t solving anything.

In conclusion, banning hard contact sports or even limiting them is a bad idea and should not happen.