In addition, a strength and conditioning coach at one Oakland high school told us there’s a major need for the city’s strength coaches to receive free training that can help with injury prevention.
youth (27%) play tackle more frequently than White children (7%); their flag participation rates are nearly similar (Black 17%, White 13%). In 2020, California adopted a law limiting non- scholastic youth football full-contact practices to 30 minutes, twice a week and no full-contact offseason practices. 44 State law limits full- contact practices for middle and high school teams to 90 minutes, twice a week. The state requires a medical professional present for all football games and an independent person must attend all practices with the authority to remove players who show signs of an injury. The state doesn’t lodge penalties against teams who break sports safety laws. A survey of Bay Area youth leagues from various sports found 47% of respondents don’t follow all of the state’s safety requirements. 45
FOOTBALL PARTICIPATION RATES BY NEIGHBORHOOD
Community
Tackle Flag
Deep East Oakland
24% 12%
West Oakland/Downtown/ Lake Merritt East Oakland/Maxwell Park/Seminary North Oakland/Emeryville/ Berkeley Border Chinatown/East Lake/San Antonio
22% 12%
18% 5%
16% 8%
Many Oakland children don’t know how to swim.
8% 7%
Montclair/Dimond/Laurel
7% 15%
“It’s a huge barrier for water sports like ours and general safety around the water,” said Dana Hooper, executive director of the rowing program Oakland Strokes. “You think you can solve the swimming fear problem with the child and you’re good, but you really need to solve it with the parents. It gets passed down from each generation.” Nationally, 64% of Black children have little or no swimming ability, higher than Latino/a (45%) and White (40%) children. 46 The trend was noticeable in our Oakland survey with 72% Latino/a, 70% Black, 61% Asian and 39% White youth saying they have never tried swimming more than once. Deep East Oakland has the second-highest rate of youth (17%) who want to try swimming and the lowest percentage who swim regularly (6%). Oakland Parks, Recreation and Youth Development offers American Red Cross swim courses to help people of all ages develop water safety. Youth scholarships are available for the program but often go unused. Oaklantis Swimming serves about 182 students year-round, but it’s running below capacity due to COVID-19 shutdowns and infrastructure issues at its pool.
Fruitvale/Jingletown
7% 7%
Note: Percentage of children who play 20+ times in a year Source: Aspen Institute Youth Survey
Long-term brain injury risks are causing youth football to evolve. Youth tackle football players ages 6 to 14 sustain 15 times more head impacts than flag football players at practices or games and 23 times more high-magnitude head impacts, according to a 2021 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 43 CDC said the findings suggest that non-contact or flag programs may be a safer alternative for reducing head impacts and concussion risk for youth under age 14. In our Oakland youth survey, 26% of boys reported playing tackle football regularly vs. 17% who regularly play flag. Oakland kids who are elementary-school age are three times more likely to play tackle than older youth. Black
STATE OF PLAY OAKLAND
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