A few years ago, the American Journal of Sports Medicine noted that girls soccer was second behind football in percentage of concussions suffered by high school athletes. Way, way second, actually — 47 percent of concussions were suffered in football, and 8.2 percent in girls soccer. But second, nonetheless.
What is even more worrisome is that, according to a study posted to the web site of the JAMA Pediatrics medical journal, many girls are not getting the necessary care and prevention regarding concussions.
Researchers at the University of Washington Sports Medicine Clinic in Seattle, using email surveys and interviews, studied 351 girls soccer players ages 11 to 14, all playing in club teams in the Puget Sound region of Washington between 2008 and 2012. Among the players, there were 59 concussions over 43,742 “athletic exposure hours” (time spent in practices or games). That is a rate of 1.3 concussions per 1,000 hours — a higher rate “than what has been reported in other studies of girls soccer at the high school and college levels.”
Even more worrisome is that 56 percent of players (or their families) reporting concussion symptoms never sought treatment. The study doesn’t explain why. For instance, whether it is related to what other researchers have called a “culture of resistance” to report symptoms — by athletes for fear of letting their teams down or losing playing time, by coaches for fear of upsetting the balance of their teams or because they don’t take them seriously, and by parents because they feel reporting will hinder their child’s sports advancement.
Meanwhile, researchers in the JAMA Pediatrics study also noted that 58 percent of those who reported concussion symptoms said they returned to play even though they hadn’t cleared — which is generally against all medical protocols, as well as in possible violation of the Zackery Lystedt law in Washington, the first state law enacting rules for managing youth sports concussions. It was enacted in 2009, so some girls in the study wouldn’t have been affected by it. (When Mississippi gets around to finalizing its law this year, all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have versions of Washington’s pioneering law.)
According to researchers, half of the concussions were caused by players colliding, while 30 percent were from heading the ball. Already, there is a debate raging over whether young soccer players, particularly girls (for various reasons), should be banned from heading (many of the head-to-head collisions in youth soccer are two players racing after a ball to head it).
Wherever that discussion goes, it seems the more immediate conclusion that comes from this study is this: there are a lot of preteen and barely teen girls out on soccer fields with concussion symptoms.
Concussions shouldn’t be a surprise in soccer, because researchers for years have reported on them. I can guess all sorts of reasons why girls are playing in a fog, and none of them are defensible. Everyone involved in girls soccer has to take — and care for — concussions seriously. Nobody in the sport wants, instead of magazine reporters asking President Obama whether he would want his fictional son to play football, asking whether he regrets letting his real daughters play soccer.