WHAT POP WARNER IS DOING TO MAKE THE GAME SAFER
• In 2017, our Hill Country Pop Warner League in Texas participated in a USA Football pilot program called Rookie Tackle, a transitional program for kids between Flag Football and 11-player tackle and it is already generating plenty of excitement in Pop Warner. We will offer it to more Pop Warner programs next season. It is played on a smaller field with fewer players and meant to introduce the sport.
• In 2016, Pop Warner became the first national football organization to eliminate kickoffs. The ban was aimed at significantly reducing the amount of full-speed, head-on impact in games. Instead of kicking it off, the ball is placed at the 35-yard line to start each half and after each score in all Tiny Mite (5- to 7-years-old), Mitey Mite (7-9) and Junior Pee Wee (8-10) games.
• In 2016, Pop Warner also announced a further reduction of contact time in practice across all divisions. After limiting player contact to a sport-low of 33 percent of practice time in 2012, Pop Warner now restricts contact to 25 percent of practice time.
• To help change the culture and deliver an important message of safety to parents, coaches and the public, Pop Warner also produced a PSA in 2016 that started running last year on regional sports networks throughout the country, featuring actor Alec Baldwin and the head of our medical advisory committee, Dr. Julian Bailes.
• Since 2013, Pop Warner coaches are mandated to train in USA Football’s Heads Up Football program, where safer approaches to tackling and blocking are taught.
• In 2012, Pop Warner banned full-speed head-on, blocking or tackling drills where players lined up more than 3 yards apart.
• In 2010, Pop Warner implemented the first youth sport concussion policy. Modeled after the Lystedt Law, any player suspected of having a concussion or head injury is removed from play and may not return to Pop Warner activities until he or she is evaluated – and receives written clearance – by a licensed medical professional trained in the evaluation and management of concussions.
• To ensure that Pop Warner stays on the forefront of health and safety issues and medical developments that may affect our young athletes, in 2010 Pop Warner formed an independent Medical Advisory Committee. Led by neurosurgeons, researchers and sports medicine professionals, the committee is focused on the prevention, proper identification and treatment of concussions; hydration awareness; and general health and safety issues.