Most days, when 7-year-old Luke Heffington steps onto the football field, he's the smallest player on either side. His father, Jason, isn't all that concerned.
"This is about as safe as it's going to get, at this age and this speed," dad said. "If you look at them, this is the only sport they're completely padded from head to toe. So, there's less injury in a sport like this than in soccer or baseball. Our next-door neighbor's son just got a broken nose from a baseball that hit him in the face."
Both of Jason Heffington's sons, including 9-year-old Logan, are among roughly 450 kids who play tackle football in the Keller Youth Association in Keller, Texas. They represent a small fraction of the youngest generation of players in a wildly popular American sport that, in recent years, has seen even ardent supporters question its long-term existence.
Fear of both short- and long-term injury has players and parents _ from the NFL to 5-year-old mites _ weighing the risks of suiting up.
"I talk to kids all the time and parents that are in my son's peer group, and they're telling me specifically it's because they are scared. That's the biggest concern," KYA VP of Football Garvin Fouts said.
He estimates that the KYA had about 900 players in 2011, almost double what it has now.
"As I casually talk with parents about it, they're really nervous," he added. "That NFL report has been a big factor in letting kids play. That and other celebrities saying, 'I wouldn't let my kid play.' "
The report Fouts refers to was published this past summer. It noted that Dr. Ann McKee, chief of neuropathology at the VA Boston Healthcare System and head of the Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center at Boston University, studied the brains of 202 former football players and found that 87 percent of them showed signs of CTE _ a degenerative disease thought to be caused by repeated trauma to the head.
It was a damning blow for a sport already facing a groundswell of questions about safety.
