Imrem: No easy answer on teens playing football

Football is in the air at a suburb near you.

From Libertyville to Aurora and Gurnee to St. Charles and to midpoints like Palatine and Bartlett …

Well, the high school playoffs are breaking out here, there and everywhere.

What a glorious time for teenage athletes and cheerleaders and their classmates, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Prep football is an American institution that brings smiles to faces and warmth to hearts.

And fear to minds.

It's difficult to ignore that just last week a football player at Bogan High School in Chicago died from playing this game.

Andre Smith suffered a blow to the head on the last play of the game against CVS and passed away the next morning.

A 17-year-old, a responsible youngster by all accounts, lost his life, and we lost whatever he was destined to contribute to society during his lifetime.

Then Wednesday, a judge dismissed a lawsuit aimed at mandating that the Illinois High School Association take drastic measures to safeguard players against concussions.

Recent hard-hitting news involving death and brain damage can dent denial and make you even more frightened that someone you know could be football's next victim.

I'm not about to condemn the game of football because seven prep players nationally have lost their lives to the sport this year.

Instead, I'm sitting here at the computer keyboard and letting my fingers do the walking through my emotions on this subject.

I have determined that football is good, football is bad, football is exhilarating, football is exasperating, football is worthwhile, football is worthless.

What in the world is football, anyway? How about all of the above and so much more and so much less?

Look, there's no denying that football is hazardous to a participant's health.

Football tragedies are nothing new. In 1981, I wrote about a suburban player who lost his life and some time later about one who was paralyzed for years until he died relatively young.

So I do get it: Football can be extremely unhealthy from youth leagues to high schools to colleges to the pros.

For decades I have wrestled with that fact of life and death, so how must the loved ones of a high school player feel?

Family and friends are charged with weighing the benefits of football against the risks of football.

Make no mistake about it: A teenager can benefit considerably from putting on the pads and banging into students from another school.

Strangely, character-building might be the least of the benefits because some former high school players turn out to be sinners and others turn out to be saints.

I'm thinking more of the benefits to a socially uncertain kid who has trouble making friends and fitting in.

Football gives that youngster an opportunity to be a part of something and to share it with peers he'll bond with for the rest of his life.

The sport can limit self-doubts and raise self-esteem, which if all goes according to plan leads to excellence in studies as well as sports.

Nobody can advise parents how to respond if their son — or daughter — wants to participate in football instead of something like chess.

Individual families must make individual decisions based on love … and then hope, wish and pray everything turns out OK.

There's no one-answer-fits-all when it comes to the American institution known as high school football.

mimrem@dailyherald.com