Trump not big on son on the gridiron
U.S. president’s concerns at odds with his previous criticism of the NFL
ATLANTA— Hours before the sport’s biggest game, U.S. President Donald Trump joined the growing ranks of parents anxious over tackle football, saying in an interview he “would have a hard time” letting his 12-yearold son play.
“I mean, it’s a dangerous sport and I think it’s, I, it’s really tough” if his son wanted to take up the game, Trump said in an interview with CBS before its Sunday evening broadcast of the Super Bowl.
The president’s concerns are at odds with his previous criticism that the NFL has been making the game too soft to avoid concussions and other injuries, and suggest that he is struggling with many of the same questions that parents across the country are asking about the safety of youth tackle football.
Trump said he would ultimately let his youngest son, Barron, who plays soccer, decide if he wanted to play tackle football and would not steer him away from the sport.
But the president said he had seen reports about the dangers of playing tackle football, and heard that some NFL players were not letting their sons play tackle football.
Trump’s comments added another wrinkle to his ambivalent relationship with the game he often celebrates, but also laments.
His doubts about the safety of the game come five years after then-U.S. president Barack Obama said that if he had a son, he wouldn’t let him play professional football.
Some studies have suggested that playing tackle football before age 12 puts athletes at a higher risk of developing cognitive problems later in life, but the issue has not been widely studied.
In general, there has been growing awareness of CTE, a degenerative brain disease many former players have developed from repeated hits to the head.
Yet while Obama held a forum at the White House on the dangers of concussions, Trump has repeatedly said the NFL is being overprotective.
In September 2017, for instance, Trump complained that the NFL was ruining the game because the referees were trying to control unnecessarily rough tackles.
“Today if you hit too hard — 15 yards! Throw him out of the game!” he said, adding: “They’re ruining the game! They’re ruining the game. That’s what they want to do.
“They want to hit. They want to hit! It is hurting the game.”