As football, America’s Game, continues to receive more and more well-publicized flack from critics and former players who find the sport risky, a group of local football coaches wants to ensure their community that the sport is as safe and valuable as ever.

Jim Galasso is the Head Coach of the St. Anne’s Falcons. The Falcons compete in the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Football League, a faith-based youth football league sponsored by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The league is free to play in and is open to all boys who are either enrolled in Catholic school or in CCD classes. Galasso helped start the program in 2006. In that first year, around 120 children signed up to play on St. Anne’s JV and Varsity teams. Eight years later, coaches are seeing the neighborhood’s interest in football dwindling.

“I held a football camp back in March and I had only nine kids sign up for it. It seems just like football is dying in this area and I don’t know the reason why,” Coach Galasso said. “It’s America’s No. 1 sport but we don’t even have enough kids signing up to fill two teams.”

Galasso thinks that recent studies and news about concussions have deterred parents from signing their children up for football at younger ages. Instead of football, concerned parents are opting for baseball and soccer as a way to lessen the likelihood of head injury. And parents do have a point—in 2012, a report by the American Journal of Sports Medicine on the Epidemiology of Concussions Among US High School Athletes in 20 Sports showed that the majority of concussions come from participation in football (47.1 percent), ahead of sports like girls’ soccer (8.2 percent), boys’ wrestling (5.8 percent) and girls’ basketball (5.5 percent). Football had the highest concussion rate, followed by boys’ ice hockey and boys’ lacrosse.

However, concussions represented a greater proportion of total injuries among boys’ ice hockey (22.2%) than all other sports studied (13.0%), and in gender-comparable sports, girls had a higher concussion rate (1.7) than boys (1.0). That all said, 1,936 concussions were reported during 7,780,064 athlete-exposures over the study period, for an overall injury rate of 2.5 per 10,000— a very small number in the end. The study concluded that although interest in sports-related concussions is usually focused on full-contact sports like football, concussions occur across a wide variety of sports and rates vary by sport, gender, and type of exposure. An understanding of concussion rates, patterns of injury, and risk factors can drive targeted preventive measures and help reduce the risk for concussion among athletes in all sports. The most important part of the equation is good coaching and education.

“We teach all the proper safety techniques,” Coach Galasso said. “I personally keep up with all new safety protocols by checking on the computer and buying the latest safety videos. We only teach proper tackling and blocking techniques, keeping your head up. We are not a program that just throws kids out onto a field and lets them hit each other.”

Football aside, Galasso and his coaching colleagues, Kiernan McGovern and Gene Bryan, just want to see neighborhood kids actively participating in athletics instead of sitting inside in front of a television, computer or mobile device.

“It’s important that you get your kids involved in something,” McGovern said. “I don’t care if it’s football, soccer, basketball—just get off the couch, get outside, breathe in the fresh air and live life because if you don’t, you’ll pay for it down the road [with health issues]. No matter what, the kids should get out so why not play football?”

“Football is a rough sport but it does get you in shape and you will break a sweat at practice,” Coach Galasso said. “I think kids say to themselves, ‘why should I go out and break a sweat when I can stay inside with the air conditioner and play video games?’ Times have changed, I understand that, but I wish kids would get out there and play football.”

St. Anne’s coaching staff also believes that playing football in the CYO better prepares young athletes for high school football. Whereas other youth football leagues are structured around weight classes (i.e. all 80 pound players play on one team while 90 pound players play on another), the CYO places children based on grade. This allows for children to play against bigger competition and learn the proper positions for their body type.

“There’s some intimidation when weight-ball players move on to high school and start playing against kids who are close to 200-pounds,” McGovern explained. “Our kids aren’t intimidated when they get to high school, they are used to it from the word go.”

“If you played CYO ball, once you start playing [high school football] freshman year, it’s not a shock,” Jimmy Galasso, Jim’s son and former St. Anne’s Falcon, said. “You’ve been playing with bigger kids the whole time. In pound-ball, a kid who played on the line may not beat out a 200-pound freshman in high school. In CYO ball you have a better outlook on what you’ll play in high school and get used to the contact.”

Jimmy played high school football at Father Judge, graduating this past year. In his senior year, he was selected as All-Catholic. But he wasn’t the only former Falcon to receive the honor.

“I think it was great playing for St. Anne’s growing up. I wasn’t the only player on my team who got All-Catholic. We had like five players this year make All-Catholic off my St. Anne’s team. Those same coaches who taught us are still coaching now, teaching the same things they taught us.”

“That’s why we coach,” said Coach Galasso. “When you see these kids years later and they say, ‘Hey coach I got a scholarship to play in college,’  you know you had a part in that.”

The Falcons begin practice on Mon., August 4, 6PM at Cione Playground. Practices are Monday through Thursday and run from 6PM to 8PM. Children can sign up by simply attending the first practice.

“Parents should know that even if their kids aren’t any good at football right now, it’s just amazing how much improvement you’ll see from year to year, especially from the first and second year,” Coach Galasso said. “You’ll be surprised how much better your child will be at the end of the first year of football. But get the kids involved no mater what sport it is. We are all football coaches right now and think football is the best sport, but they are all great.”