IlliniKrush

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 06:57 PM) Ya this is me basically. Every now and than(like once every 3 years probably) I'll ask for a jersey but usually my mom will just buy me some random White Sox and Bulls stuff that she finds. My dad still just gives me money which is great. My go to is basically some sort of umping gear that needs replacement etc. I also asked for golf shoes. It's more on my list than I've had in 5 years probably. My Mom was thrilled to not have to guess. And those are the exciting gifts. You start asking/getting more practical things rather than "fun" gifts once you're in my position. i.e. tool set, vacuum cleaner, suit or nice clothes, dress shoes.

Shots fired.

Yeah, my sister's been buying her own gifts since she was 15 or 16. Then they still get wrapped and opened, for some unknown reason. Sometimes I have a few things to suggest to my parents when they ask, but other times my Mom will just come up with stuff.

QUOTE (Jake @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 05:07 PM) Even in the absence of injury, I've always felt there's less to be gained by playing youth football than any other sport. If you start out in high school, you'll be fine if you're a good enough athlete. If you're a QB, I might suggest starting a year before high school on technique. There's always flag football too for those things. I agree that it is important not to jump to conclusions, but the theorized link between micro trauma to the brain is much more credible than micro trauma to the muscles. Good point. Little kid football just appears to be "here, go run into each other for an hour, and one of you gets to carry the ball." It does seem like a sport that you'd be able to "catch up" easier than some others.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 05:15 PM) Those are hideous. Should have stuck with the glorious alternatives that were born from the Wrigley Field Winter Classic. I was always fine with the black jersey, since it didn't have any gimmicks to it, just the same jersey different color, but the f***ing logo is horrendous. I don't understand this whole chrome logo thing for all the teams. It looks absolutely stupid. And the Hawks one is by far the worst. But idiots may buy this s***, so I guess that's why they do it.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 12:44 PM) And none of those slobbering, mindless fans understand what WAIT FOR THE WHISTLE means. It keeps getting worse and worse. I need nachos, f*** off.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 11:28 AM) Patrick Kane won the Conn Smythe, and rightfully so. Corey Crawford is an average goaltender at best who played behind a stacked roster and continues to do so. It took him almost TEN YEARS to make the big club, because they had no other option. Then they sign him to a 6-year deal at 6 years per when their main goal should be keeping the players that actually make a difference on the ice. Long-term contracts to even the best goaltenders are a horrible idea, just ask the Canucks. Corey Crawford has become the poster boy of the slobbering, mindless new Blackhawks fan in my mind. "YEAH CROW IS GREAT WE KEPT CROW WOOO GO HAWKS" yells dude who's wearing a matching $300 sweater as his fat f*** wife who are "obsessed with the Blackhawks". Blackhawks fans have become worse than f***ing Cubs fans for the most part. I will only disagree with this part of the post, I think Crawford should have won it. Hell, even Kane thought so. But not a big deal. Oh and the guy isn't wearing the $300 sweater, he's wearing the $40 one he found online that looks awful. Wait a minute, weren't you the one telling me months ago to calm down about the bandwagon fans and just to relax and enjoy it? I f***ING LOVE THIS POST! Oh, and Cubs fans are Blackhawks fans now...there's your answer.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 10:47 AM) So Beckman was able to pull in 2 of the top 30 JUCO guys, including the #6 rated guy, a d-lineman. That should help next year. Yeah, I threw it in the recruiting thread, but it should help. I don't know if your tone is joking or not, but it absolutely should help. It sucks we have to rely on JUCO's right now, but it's better to try to fill those gaps and help win games, and hopefully turn that into better 4 year recruits. That's what has to be done for the 2015 class. Also getting Paul James back on board can help down the road. Obviously, we need all the d-line help we can get at the moment. Stopgap is better than nothing.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 11:12 AM) There are 7U all-star tourneys and sadly yes travel baseball has taken on a mind of its own and it sucks. All leagues start their teams at 8 and by 11 just about every player is playing some sort of travel ball with in-house (neighborhood) leagues becoming non-existent. People running these leagues have to bust their ass to get the neighborhood kids competition. Youth sports in general are out of hand but for some reason baseball brings out all kinds of stupid. And that sucks. The Barrington in house league for 11-12 and then 13-14 used to be pretty good, as there was only one travel team for each age level. There used to be 12-14 teams. There were good players that played for the HS team later on. Last time I checked it was down to like 4 teams. There should be an avenue for kids who are decent, but either not good enough/can't afford/don't want the commitment of travel to still be able to play somewhere. Everything now is travel or nothing, and I use the word "travel"very lightly, obviously. I look at some of these kids on travel teams and I feel bad for them. Some legit travel team is crushing them, and this likely happens every game based on their skill level. I know winning isn't everything, but getting crushed every time for an 8-14 year old has to to be tough. Those parents don't realize that at that point, it's just about playing, not about bragging to everyone that you are on the 5th travel team in the town and have a fancy uniform. And I got news for you, you can make the HS team even if you don't play travel. If you play enough and are active and have the skills, no one will care what travel team you were on. At least that's what happened at Barrington.

The argument is really "I don't want to sign a goaltender to X years for X money because and would rather play mix and match goalies because you can win with a lot of them, and not a ton of guys stay consistent for a really long time." I'm on that side of the argument with Steve. Grabbed Niemi, won a cup. Crawford, won a cup. Raanta = next Niemi? Who knows, maybe. It's easier to find answers in goal nowadays, a decent amount of teams have been able to do that, including the Wings when they were winning. That was the Bowman model. Stack the team, don't commit long term and big money to a goalie, and figure it out as you go. Which is why I was really surprised they signed Crawford long term. Right now you could grab a decent men's league goalie and stick him on the Hawks and they'd win. I'm not trying to take anything away from Crawford, just talking about the model and the thought process behind it. I hope like hell Crawford turns into Patrick Roy at this point since he's signed long term.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 20, 2013 -> 08:58 AM) I consider junior high past the "kid age." I was playing year round sports starting at age 7. It was too early. Travel baseball used to be 11U, 12U, 13U, 14U. Then 10U's started creeping up. Recently, I've seen 9U's. I've actually heard of 8U's. I've umped those 9U games in a pinch. I may as well had a chair. There's nothing travel about it, maybe the kids are slightly more athletic and interested, but there's no real need for travel teams at 9U besides parents saying "I need my kids to play travel!" And if they play any sort of regular travel schedule, those kids will be wiped. Play once or twice a week in house, have a tournament or all-star team at the end, and call it a day. On top of that, EVERYONE has to play travel. Growing up, each town had one travel team. You don't make it? You play in-house, and the play would still be decent. If it was a really big town, maybe, they'd have 2. Now? Each town has 3-4 travel teams and at least 2 of them are filled with in-house players and have no business being travel teams. But anyone can put one together so they can say they are playing travel. Oh, and they've dropped A, B, C from teams, now it goes by color so you don't hurt anyone's feelings. As a result, you get games in tournaments that are 16-1. Fun for everyone, and brutal to umpire.

Pretty good couple days for Illinois recruiting. Good to see.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 05:46 PM) Funny you mention this. My father a few years back had a massive heart attack in SW Michigan. The ambulance, hospital and helicopter crew all saved his life en route to Kalamazoo. The EMT's in particular saved his life in the first several minutes. Last year the township decided to cancel their service and use a neighboring towns private service as it was a cost savings. My father stood up in front of the entire town and told them his story. They voted overwhelmingly to cut the costs and cancel the service. Crazy, everyone was totally straight out of the "well, it won't happen to me so I'm not worried about it" camp.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 05:27 PM) You play a sport where people shoot frozen pucks at speeds that reach the triple digits...are you going to disallow your child from playing hockey? Where does one draw the line? At some arbitrary point. I guess what I am saying is I haven't seen enough to draw any lines yet when it comes to playing football. We all have or will have choices when it comes to our children, and I wouldn't criticize your choice to hold your kid out of football. I just think it's wrong for you to tell someone else to hold their kid out of football. To answer your first question - quite possibly. Which shows you where I'm at on this. Right now I don't have a son, I do have a daughter. Women's hockey is no check, which helps. In that regard, it's like soccer, just with walls instead of an open pitch. Anyway, this shows you it isn't a battle against one sport since I didn't play football. I'd love to have a son that plays hockey, but as information comes out (there's not nearly as much on hockey as football), I'll make that decision if/when the time comes. So, I'm not biased by sport here. There are definitely concussions in hockey, there just aren't as many sub-concussive hits and head to head contact like there is in football. Definitely want to see more research done there. As an aside, hockey has a similar issue to football in that they are trying to teach youngsters how to hit correctly, i.e. shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to chest, etc. Too many kids hit with hands going up towards the head when they are in their teens. ****** It's an opinion. I don't know how any parent can let their kid play football given the risk and the information we've seen coming out. But as I've stated many times, that's for every parent to make themselves. It'd be the same thing if you said your kids don't have to wear their seat belt. I would think you're crazy given what we know about car accidents. Do whatever you want, I don't control whether or not anyone's kid plays football but my own. Really, it's a discussion about risk for your child. Everyone's going to draw a different line.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 04:10 PM) Youth hockey and cheer-leading are just as dangerous as youth football if not more dangerous. Hockey players are moving faster than football player and rapid deceleration is greater in hockey than in football at a younger age which along with ice makes for a harder impact when you fall. One of the best wrestlers in high school had to quite the sport because of concussions. Here is one of the more recent reports I read on this matter and it again basically says, nobody has a degree of certainty about what is going on or if any of this is even new. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/hea...a4dd_story.html Hockey is certainly dangerous, too. It has the potential for bigger hits, but not as many are head shots, and there aren't the number of sub-concussive blows like there is in football on every play, especially for lineman. You'd be kidding yourself if you don't think I'm hoping a lot more information comes out for hockey. The one thing I found in that article which was odd was that there's a high concussion rate in women's hockey, since it's no-check. That obviously doesn't mean no contact, but no checking takes big hits out of the equation. That's pretty interesting. QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 04:20 PM) There are studies but no good results. As the discussion has said, since the only current data is post mortem there isn't a good relevant study. However you are right it's a choice. But to make the choice based on the current evidence isn't really an informed choice. If you feel that way regardless of the evidence that's different. Disagree with that. There's plenty of information out there, even if it's not a complete black and white picture at this point. There's enough out there for me, and plenty of others. I don't need to be convinced to 100% certainty that I shouldn't let my kid play football. That's just where I draw my line, though.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 03:41 PM) It is not out there. Show me a study where it clearly shows that children who play pop warner football are at some increased risk for traumatic brain injuries or other adverse health affects later in life. "Stories" are just stories. You can find a story for anything. And it is a football or nothing debate if your child happens to love playing football or be incredibly gifted at it. You played hockey, right? There are studies out there that clearly point to it being dangerous. You can dismiss anything you want at this point because we don't have 100 years of data, I guess. Your choice. No, it's not football or nothing. There are other sports or activities. And he's only good at it if you let him play in the first place. Your kid might love juggling knives, but it doesn't mean you have to let him do it. Who's in charge? Yes, I played hockey. I know where you're going, but it's not going to end how you expect it to.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 02:45 PM) ...how did you end up with him Not a referral, I'm assuming.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 12:57 PM) Yes, it is arbitrary. Is there data which shows children playing pee wee football or pop warner football are suffering from cte or some other significant health affects down the road as adolescents or adults? Do we know if these same children are suffering from adverse health affects from other sports or other activities? Can my child play touch or flag football and escape some of these potential adverse health affects? At what age is playing football the most dangerous or carry the most risk? The questions can go on and on. Is football more dangerous than not playing football? What are the health benefits from the increased exercise and activity as a result of playing football versus playing video games? What are the social benefits of being a member of a team versus being isolated at home or not exposed to as many children in the peer group? It's an arbitrary decision. Yes, it's out there. As for your last paragraph, you can do those things without football. Plenty of other activities. Stop turning this into a football OR nothing debate. The data and the stories on TV have been out there. Everyone can use Google, and then make decisions for themselves as a parent. QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 02:21 PM) The problem is...what if it's not the concussions, it's the regular impacts during practice that really do the long-term damage? That's exactly the case.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 02:02 PM) Braggin' Rights is a 4:30 tip-off?? That blows. Yeah, wish it was a touch later.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 01:01 PM) It is free attention, which is the #1 reason he states most of the things that come out of his mouth. He is a highly paid troll. Haha, whatever.

Yeah, Bernstein's right on this one. Rose keeps getting hurt, unfortunately...but he already ruined his image with a ton of fans because of what he's done outside of that. I have Rose fatigue.

Cheryl Scott is great. That's why NBC is the 10pm news choice for me. f*** YOU BRANT MILLER GET OFF MY SCREEN.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 11:15 AM) Im not sure that I am the best comparison for what people should do. But I do wear my seat belt, I try and avoid completely unnecessary risks, but I dont find sports to be a completely unnecessary risk. Its the same theory. You either run the numbers and create a baseline that is unacceptable risk. If football is above that threshold any non-necessary activity that is more risky than football should also be. IE You may need to drive a car to get to work. But do you really need to take your kid in a car for a ride to a baseball game, if there is a higher risk your child will die in the car getting there than playing football? I cant answer that question for you, I can only say that I accept a certain level of risk in life and I will allow my child the same. Yes, this is what it comes down to. Everyone has to draw that line somewhere. Yours just seems closer to "do anything" or "do nothing" than some others. I accept risk too - I'd take him to the baseball game. I just won't let him play football, because to me, the odds are way less than the baseball game. If every single time I drove to the baseball game, he'd suffer brain damage, I'd probably avoid that too. One comes with risk, but most time will have zero damage, the other one you know is endangering them every single time they do it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 11:08 AM) Getting in a car is a pretty necessary part of daily life for most people, but playing football isn't. There's quite a bit of excluded middle between "football may be too dangerous for children to play" and "no child should ever do anything with any risk ever" Exactly.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 10:58 AM) No, that's not what I am saying. I guess what I am getting at has been stated more eloquently by others already; (full disclosure, I am NOT a parent) I guess I am hesitant to make arbitrary decisions about my children's future FOR them. I believe parents have the duty to protect their children, but that needs to be balanced against every child's opportunity to make his/her own life and legacy. The issue is that 9 year old Timmy can't weight risk vs reward and understand the research and consequences of the whole thing. I see what you are saying, but sometimes parents have to make decisions for them. QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 19, 2013 -> 11:01 AM) If you think that football is as dangerous as playing with bleach and knives that is your choice. I dont. I find football to be closer to getting in car. http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/ That's where we'll disagree. Even so, you'd probably tell your kid not to text and drive. I also never said dying is the only risk, it's quality of life after the damage is done.