Assembly Standing Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, and Tourism

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Assembly Arts Entertainment, Sports Tourism Committee's informational hearing on youth tackle football improving athlete safety. As we gather today, it's important to note that due to the interim recess, several Committee Members are unable to join us in person and may be tuning in from their respective districts. We will also be making sure that they have access to all of the materials and the recording footage.

To facilitate their participation, we have arranged for them to submit questions via text or email to our Committee consultant after each panel presentation. Our panelists have been given similar time constraints, and we will be asking everyone to keep their comments within the time limits. At the conclusion of our agenda, we will open the floor for public comments. We appreciate everyone's input and to ensure an efficient process, we kindly request that each speaker, whether present in person or calling in, remotely limit their comments to 1 minute.

For those wishing to submit written comments, you can do so through the Committee's website. The objective of today's hearing is to provide information and enhance public understanding regarding the inherent risks of injury prevalent in various sports and physical activities. Notably, football being a full contact sport may carry a heightened risk compared to other athletic endeavors. Today's information hearing will focus on the safety of youth tackle football, which involves athletes that are typically 13 years of age or younger.

In 2019, this Committee passed AB 1 Cooper, which became known as the California Youth Football Act, the Bill which established comprehensive safety measures for youth tackle football. This included limits on the number of full contact practices per week, the amount of time per practice that there can be full contact, and the implementation of specified training programs.

These training programs were designed to equip coaches and administrators with the necessary knowledge and skills pertaining to tackling techniques, blocking strategies, and the identification of symptoms associated with concussions and head injuries. AB 1 was signed into law on July 31, 2019 by Governor Gavin Newsom. These safety measures, which took effect in January 2021, were cited by the Governor in 2022 when he vetoed a Bill by Assembly Member Kevin McCarty that would have required the Surgeon General to convene a Commission on Chronic Traumatic.

Let's see if I can say this encephalopathy or CTE. This Commission would have been tasked with investigating issues concerning the risk of brain injuries associated with youth football participation. Governor Newsom stated that the effectiveness of the California Youth Football Act had not been sufficiently assessed and that more research is needed to better understand current safety measures and the risks.

Earlier this year, Assemblymember McCarty introduced AB 734, which would prohibit youth sports organizations that conduct a tackle football program or youth tackle football leagues from allowing participants younger than 12 years of age. Considering a Bill that could limit access to a competitive sports opportunity is a matter I take seriously as a result, AB 734 was held in Committee to allow for the scheduling of today's hearing.

This is not a Bill hearing and there will be no vote on AB 734 today. The primary objective of this hearing is to equip the Committee with comprehensive information and to present data to the parents of young athletes, ensuring they are informed about the potential risks associated with contact sports that can lead to severe injuries.

While today's proceedings will not determine the fate of AB 734 or similar bills in the future, we recognize the significance of this issue to many individuals, and it is likely to remain a topic of debate and consideration in the years ahead.

Today we will be hearing from panelists that will cover a variety of topics such as the latest research on concussion and brain injury, advances in equipment and helmet technology, the ways that AB one has been implemented in youth football leagues in the state, and from athletes and families that have dealt with the after effects of concussion and CTE. At this time, as I am the chair and we only have myself, and we, of course, have well, we welcome Assembly Member Kevin McCarty to the dais. We will ask if you have any opening comments.

Well, good morning, and thank you for allowing me to participate because I'm not a Member of this. Yeah, thank you, Assembly Member Quirk Silva, for inviting me and allowing me to participate. I'm not a Member of this Committee, but I am a local Member. So my commute's pretty quick, as you know, and it's a topic that I'm very involved with and have been engaged with, as you mentioned, for a number of years. And as you noted, this is an informational hearing today.

We're not taking a vote. There's no reference to bills per se, just talking about a really important issue that has got plenty of debate in the public, in the media, with community members who have passionate positions on both sides of the issue. And this is an issue that families are voting with their feet. We'll hear that as well. They're making choices on their own. But state government sometimes evaluates public health impacts for our community, our State of 40 million people and our youth.

And I'll have plenty of questions for both panels on both sides. I want this to be an ample opportunity to hear from stakeholders about this important topic. And so with that, look forward to today's hearing. Thank you, Assembly Member.

Thank you, Assembly Member. With that, we will be introducing our panelists for panel one. So if you would like to make your way up here to the table here while they are coming up, we'd like to welcome Dr. Chris Nowinski, Dr. David Camarillo, and Dr. Stella Lagarda. Dr Nowinski is the CEO and co founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. Dr. Camarillo is an associate Professor of Bioengineering Mechanical engineering and neurosurgery at Stanford University. And Dr. Lagarda is the President of the California Neurology Society. Welcome, all of you. We appreciate you being here, and we will hear from all three panelists, and then we will ask questions after that, if That's okay. All right, we will then go ahead and begin with Dr. Nowinski.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to share my thoughts on youth tackle football safety. So I have a PowerPoint deck that I'd like to walk through titled To Protect Children from CTE. We need an age minimum to play tackle football. Next slide, please.

So my background is I was a football player, loved the game. Currently the founding CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. My PhD is in Behavioral Neuroscience from Boston University School of Medicine. I'm a co founder of the Unite Brain Bank at Boston University, the largest CT brain bank in the world, as well as the Australian Sports Brain Bank at the University of Sydney. I played football at Harvard University, where I was an all Ivy defensive tackle, and really had a good experience doing that. Next slide, please.

I got into this world because in 2003, a concussion changed my life and gave me lifelong post concussion syndrome and inspired me to start researching this issue. I've been an advisor to the NFL Players Association since 2010. I'm an advisor to the Ivy League since 2011. In both instances, I convinced them to minimize hitting in practice to reduce CTE risk for adults, and that is an appropriate solution for an adult.

But we need to do more to prevent CTE in children, and I believe that means having a different version of football for kids that doesn't cause CTE. Next slide, please. I'm dedicating this talk to my former teammate Chris Eitzman's children. It was originally to Chris, but I realized it's his children we need to talk about. He was the captain of my 1999 Harvard football team. Played three years in the NFL. Next slide, please.

We were college roommates our senior year. We shaved our heads together. He played 11 years of football. Next slide, please. He went after his NFL career, got an MBA at Dartmouth. Was a successful investment manager. Developed alcoholism in his late 30s. Drank himself to death a year and a half ago. We studied his brain. He had stage two CTE from playing 11 years of football. Our interventions did not save him, and he left a wonderful family and four young children. Next slide, please.

We can prevent this tackle. My perspective is that tackle football has many benefits for players, but tackle football also causes CTE. That's indisputable. At this point. The more tackle football you play, the greater your risk of CTE. In our culture, we believe that children cannot provide informed consent AB 1 will not prevent CTE in youth football players. In California. Tackle football is the only major sport in America without an age minimum to get exposed to repetitive head impacts and the tackle football industry cannot reform itself. And That's why I believe the legislation is needed in this area from the state. Next slide, please.

CTE is a degenerative disease caused by repetitive impacts to the head that causes problems with cognition, mood, behavior and sleep, and results in dementia in its most severe form. Luckily, studies suggest it's relatively rare in the population because there aren't that many Americans who get hit in the head 10,000 times in their life. But it's very frequent in longtime context sport athletes. It cannot be diagnosed accurately nor effectively treated in living, but it is preventable. Next slide, please.

I wrote a paper along with colleagues around the world on understanding what is causing CTE. And it's important to realize it is not concussions that cause CTE. This is not something that could be solved by having concussion protocols. It's caused by repetitive hits over and over again, many that cause essentially silent traumatic brain injuries. Next slide, please.

It's accepted now by both the CDC and the National Institutes of Health that this causation is there. The CDC stated research to date suggests CTE is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions and repeated hits to the head called subconcussive head impacts. Next slide.

And the National Institutes of Health, through the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, also changed their language last year on this to say research suggests it has caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries. This is different than in previous years. This is new that now our greatest public health bodies, the United States, both agree that these repetitive hits in tackle football cause CTE in some of the athletes. Next slide, please.

Your odds of developing CTE, we've also learned from our research at Boston University, is due to how many hits you take and how hard those hits are. It's simply a math problem. It's very much like smoking and lung cancer. The more cigarettes, the more years, the more your risk. Next slide, please.

We studied 618 deceased football players to learn this, more than half of whom had CTE. So I want to take a moment to recognize the people whose lives were lost to this disease, who have taught us this very important lesson. Next slide, please.

Right here you see a figure from the paper showing on the bottom number of years of football played and on the left the percentage of those who played that number of year with CTE. You see that if you have a very short career, your odds are low. If you have a long career, your odds are extremely high. In this sample that we studied, it shows a dose response relationship, although it does move around a little bit. Another way to analyze this data next slide, please.

Is just looking at the presumed based on the positions those athletes played and at the ages they played, total cumulative force of those hits, number of hits, times, strength, and it smooths out the graph very clearly. So this is something that we control. You hit somebody ahead fewer times and with less force, they will have less risk of CTE. Next slide, please.

But kids hit hard. And That's one of the myths that we need to change, is that those hits of young youth tackle players are not damaging their brains. This study, in this study that we published, we looked at every sensor study ever published in the literature, and what you see in those red circles there is that the average hit to the head of a youth tackle football player is equal in strength to the average hit to the head of a college football player.

It doesn't look that way because college football players are bigger, stronger, and faster. But we don't realize, as kids, bodies are shaped differently. They have much larger heads, smaller bodies, weaker necks, and so it doesn't take as much energy to cause their head to move violently and cause brain damage. The only thing that youth football has going for it is because they play fewer games. The blue circles, they have fewer hits to the head per season. But still, 200 hits to the head on average for a seven year old, to me, does not make sense. Next slide, please.

Here's some videos that I just pull off TikTok of young children hitting each other very hard. Just to put this as a visual, these are real injuries to real children. Next slide, please. So this relationship of CTE is similar to smoking with lung cancer. This is a paper from 2019. Next slide, or please move this forward.

So you can see that the odds of you're developing CTE go up by 15% to 30% per year you play. And That's very similar to your odds of developing cancer per year you smoke. Next slide, please.

AB 1 will not prevent CTE. It covers a lot of important things helmet recertification, concussions, opioid, TD illness. But the only aspects of AB 1 that could possibly address CTE risk, which is not mentioned as a goal of the Bill, is a limit on hitting in practice to two days a week, 30 minutes, which is more than NFL players hit. You can do a lot of brain damage in that hour.

And coaches receive certification on teaching safer blocking and tackling to remove the head from contact where there's no evidence this works. You're asking children with large heads to tackle moving objects, and they can't do it effectively. So is fewer hits the right answer to CTE for nine year olds? I would say no, because if we believed that fewer hits to the head was the right answer and we applied that to smoking, our laws wouldn't be kids can't smoke.

Our laws would be kids can only smoke one pack a day. That's what this Bill is. It's a one pack a day limit. Next slide, please. There's no miracle technological solution to this. Helmets are not going to prevent CT. We need to keep improving them. They will play a role, but they're not going to solve it. Car bumpers haven't solved injuries from car accidents. The best answer is we stop hitting kids in the head. Next slide.

When is it okay to start hitting kids in the head? I don't know the answer, but I'll tell you. Youth sports have decided that each sport has taken action since CTE has started to be diagnosed. So lacrosse has made every hit to the head a penalty since CTE is seen in hockey. Hockey raised the age of checking from 11 to 13 when CTE started being seen in soccer. US soccer banned heading until age 11. Football has not made any move to prevent CTE in its players. Next slide, please.

What is the right age? Science can't answer that. That's a policy decision to be cited here. We can look at it from a risk benefit question like driving. That's my son in the passenger seat there in that photo. You can teach little kids to drive. They can learn the rules, but we don't think that risk is worth all the injuries they'll get. We don't say, you need to start driving at five so you're a good driver at 18.

You don't need to start tackling young to learn how to tackle as an adult. I also find it fascinating that California is the first state to ban indoor tanning for minors, and there's now 20 states that do it. So in California, you can't damage your skin till you're 18, but you can damage your brain. That doesn't align with me as a neuroscientist. Next slide, please.

Football is an outlier on changing the game to protect kids from CTE, partially because there's no governing body that owns youth football. Youth football cannot make this change itself. It cannot regulate itself with an age minimum. This has been openly discussed in the old days, in 2012, when head of Pop Warner talked about how 90-95% of our Members would drop out if they had a minimum age because kids want to play.

And it was discussed at that meeting that if they set an age to say, you can't play tackle till 10 at Pop Warner, that would mean that every competitive organization and these groups are competing organizations for kids in enrollment could move into town, start recruiting kids at five if there was demand. And they would run their competitor, Pop Warner, out of town, because they would never convert over to tackle football at Pop Warner. So youth football cannot set their own age minimums.

They'll put themselves out of business, each organization next slide. They can't regulate themselves. And then the question is in offering solutions. I find this quote from the head of Pop Warner fascinating. He said, first, we have a duty to football. He doesn't say, first, we have a duty to children. First we have a duty to football. This means too much to people and has for so long. We can't turn our back on it. We figured out tobacco, we figured out asbestos, and we'll figure this out.

And that statement to me is very telling because we do see this as a problem like tobacco and asbestos for kids, and we made those things illegal. We don't put asbestos in our schools anymore. We don't let kids buy cigarettes. I don't understand why we still let kids playing tackle football at five.

It's a shame, as someone who succeeded and had fun playing at Harvard, that if I started at five and I loved the game and I played that long, I would probably almost certainly have CTE from that much exposure. So if you teach these kids well and they have success when they start at five, you're probably setting them on a path to CTE. If we have an age minimum and we start later, players can retain the benefits of football without losing so much to CTE. Next slide.

Flag football is an age appropriate introduction to football. It's right there. CDC has studied this. You have nearly 50 times as many head impacts in tackle versus flag. It provides all the benefits of activity team sports without the risk of CTE. So we should be suggesting these families play flag. Next slide, please.

So to wrap up, sports have many benefits. Tackle football unfortunately causes CTE. More football is more CTE. I truly believe that these children cannot provide informed consent to getting a lifelong brain disease that will change who they are. The current Bill AB 1 will not prevent CTE in these children. Tackle football is the only sport without an age minimum, but the tackle football industry cannot create one themselves.

So if we want to protect California children from CTE, the State of California needs to step in and set a minimum age to play. Next slide. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And as we noted, we will ask questions at the end. Next we will move forward with Dr. Camarillo.

I have a slide presentation that should be coming up shortly. Good morning, everyone. My name is David Camarillo. I'm from Stanford University. Dr. Nowinski and I actually played football against each other in college. I was at Princeton. And here we meet again. We have a few differences of opinion, but I think we shared the same goal of making sports safer for kids. Next slide, please.

Okay, so I want to touch on kind of from a broader point of view, number of studies that have looked at the age of starting youth tackle football and some other sports as well. Looking at this question, does youth football cause brain damage? And I'm sorry, this is pretty small, the screen I didn't anticipate it to be this small. But if you look in the right column of these 13 different studies that have looked at various outcomes of brain damage later in life, they're mixed.

There's some that say yes, some that say no. And they're really looking at what is the age at which you start to tackle football. So although I don't debate Dr. Nowinski's assertion that football in the long term can cause damage to the brain, the question of does youth football, meaning under 12, does that cause damage to the brain? I think that's inconclusive and there is not a consensus in the scientific community. Next slide, please.

So I wanted to pull out this is a really elegant study that Dr. Novinski showed in his last few slides. I wanted to pull up one of the graphics from the slide and it's looking at the relationship between the number of times one has sustained a head acceleration. So head acceleration is when your head moves back and forth, presumably from an impact. Although there's other things that can cause this as well.

And what they did in that study is they added the number of times this happened over a lifetime of a player. These are estimates and as you see, by the way, weighted by the severity. So it's the number, each time one happens, times the severity. And you add them all up and you see there is a relationship, as Dr. Novinski said, between those who have severe mild and no CTE.

And what that suggests to me is that in fact, it might be possible to prevent CTE if it is in fact caused by youth football, which I don't think is conclusive, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible. So there's basically two ways to go about doing this. One is you can reduce the total number of impacts. Two, you can reduce the severity of impacts.

So AB 1 and other kinds of youth tackle football, rule changes, technique changes, those may be able to modify the number of impacts. What I was going to talk about for most of the rest of my time here is about ways to reduce the magnitude or severity of the impacts, specifically through helmet technologies. Next slide, please. Okay, so I wanted to focus on, or start with, I should say, a technology that you've probably heard about, you may have heard about if you're watching the news recently.

And it's this cover that you put on top of a football helmet called the Guardian Cap. And this is something that the NFL recently has mandated for use in preseason football. They've even made comments recently about requiring during regular season football, my own institution at Stanford, they use this in practice and preseason football as well. And there was an interesting article that came out this summer.

It was a press release from the NFL saying that the Guardian Cap, the use of the Guardian Cap reduced concussion by 52%, which on one hand is very exciting. On the other hand, it's problematic because this is not a peer reviewed scientific study. This is not openly shared data. This is just a claim the NFL is making. And as you probably know, their scientific integrity of the NFL has not been really they're not very trustworthy. It's one way to say it.

So although this is interesting, it doesn't convince me. On the other hand, both my group and another group just this year published studies of the Guardian Cap. These are in college football, and what we did on both occasions was to use mouth guard sensors that have accelerometers in them. You have college football players wear them with and without the Guardian Cap, and you can look at how much of a difference does the Guardian Cap make.

Unfortunately, we both found that there was no noticeable difference in changes of head acceleration in the field when you're wearing the Guardian Cap and when you're not. I want to make clear, though, that this doesn't necessarily refute the NFL finding. It's not been substantiated either. So one possibility here is, you see, the Guardian Cap doesn't cover a large fraction of the head. It doesn't cover the face at all. So our studies did not look at concussion. We were looking at subconcussive impacts.

And it's possible that just your garden variety, most common type of subconscious impacts aren't really affected or protected by the Guardian Cap, but more rare impacts where you might sustain a hit to the side of the head. The Guardian Cap could be effective, but we don't know that because that really hasn't been studied in scientific peer reviewed literature. So more work is needed. Next slide, please. Okay, so I wanted to show some peer reviewed literature.

This is a combination of some information from NFL data and some from my own laboratory. So if you look at these big circles, essentially what these are are different types of helmets that have been used in the NFL. And on the bottom axis, this is a head acceleration index. So if you test these helmets in the laboratory, you can determine how much acceleration results from a given impact.

And what the NFL did here is they looked at different types of helmets, how much acceleration they protect against, and what the concussion rates are, and they found a fairly linear correlation. So the higher the accelerations, the more concussions there were, the lower the acceleration, the less concussions there were on the left of the slide. I wanted to share a technology that my laboratory recently invented.

And by way of disclosure, I've started a company That's going to be commercializing this technology, and it's essentially a liquid helmet. This is only a computer simulation study, so there's a lot more work to do to prove this out. But the head acceleration reduction in this study is much more than any of the helmets that are out there on the field, and the concussion rate would go down accordingly if you believe this NFL study.

So I guess the summary what I'm trying to say is that with some of these new technologies I do believe there is hope in reducing the magnitude of these accelerations, which may have an effect on CTE and other types of brain diseases associated tackle football. Next slide, please. Okay, so I want to talk about an important problem and opportunity here, which is most of the innovation in helmet technology in the last what is this?

60 years or so has been in adults, not in youth, or there was no differentiation between youth and adults. So in 1969, response to a number of deaths in tackle football, the National Operating Committee on Standards and Athletic Equipment was formed. They're called NOCSAE. And on the back of a youth or varsity or adult football helmet, you'll see a little sticker that says, this has been NOCSAE certified. 1973, they came out with their first standard.

By way of disclosure, I do serve on their scientific Advisory Committee. It's not a paid position. By 1973, they came out with their first standard. Their standard was about skull fracture. So that was the problem they were trying to solve at the time, is to prevent skull fracture. And within about 20 years, you start seeing improvements. Improvements. By the time you get to 1991, there were the first year they had no fatalities in youth football.

So I do think that that standard against skull fracture helped and made the sport safer in some respects. However, skull fracture isn't what we're talking about here today. We're talking about other kinds of damage that happens to the brain and accumulates over time. And it wasn't until 2018, just a few years ago, that NOCSAE, for the first time, made a new standard that addressed concussion. So the helmets are going to be tested against their ability to prevent concussion. So that was an important development.

However, it wasn't until only two years ago, 2021, that the first youth specific helmet standards really actually were even proposed. They haven't fully come into effect yet. There was also a group at Virginia Tech which some of you may have seen. They publish a so a standard is a pass fail. Your helmet is safe enough or it's too dangerous. Another way to look at safety is to rate the safety on a scale from one to five using a star rating.

And this is something that Virginia Tech has done, and they just released these youthful ratings a couple of years ago. But I think That's the type of direction that we need to go is to have a more refined scale to evaluate safety. Next slide, please. So, in summary, I actually believe that youth football can be made safer. The negative brain effects of youth football are still unclear. There's not scientific consensus in the community reducing head accelerations may prevent CTE.

We don't know this for sure, but as I showed in that first slide, the less exposure you had sorry, the groups that did not have CTE had lower exposure, which leads me to believe it. Might be possible. There have been significant helmet innovations. However, they've really been focused on adults and in some case, adolescents. There's been no differentiation with youth.

And I think that's particularly dangerous because there is a lot more energy in the adult game, in the NFL game, and when those helmets are being designed, and then basically the same technology being passed on to youth, That's particularly dangerous. I think you end up with a helmet That's way too hard for kids. So where I believe we need to go here is to further develop safety ratings. And safety ratings do work. They are effective. I wanted to give an example here of car crash ratings.

So cars have become much, much safer. The deaths per mile have gone down significantly over time. And one of the things the federal government has done particularly well here is it's called the NCAP, the New Car Assessment Program. And if you buy a new car, you see on the window sticker a set of ratings of stars for how the car performs in various kinds of crash tests. And so the buyer can be informed, we don't have this for football or any other kind of helmets.

I think something like this would be useful for youth football and many other types of helmets. And as Dr. Nawinski noted, California can be a leader in respects of safety. They have been in the past. And so I'd love to see something like this come to fruition in the future. I think That's all I have other than that. Sorry. One more slide. I wanted to acknowledge as a Professor, most of the work in my lab comes from my students, postdocs and colleagues. I want to acknowledge them and the sources of funding that have supported us in our work. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, next or finally, on this panel, we'll have Dr. Lagarda. Welcome.

So I will be talking about youth tackle football and the developing brain. And oops. Could you go back to the first slide? All right. So I actually am a neurologist, but I am also a pediatric neurologist. I'm a card carrying pediatric neurologist. So I see these kids all the time in my practice. And what we're talking about here, if you look at the pyramid on the right, is that the majority of individuals who play tackle football in America, 3 million.

Over 3 million of them are children ages six to 14. Okay? That's what we're talking about. Individuals who play professional tackle football, 1696. People who play scholarship football in college, 19,000. High school players, 1 million. Pre high school, over 3 million. And the next slide will tell you where I get my source. One more click, please. So in 2015, That's when studies about CTE were beginning to come out. So you can see there has been a reduction in tackle football.

This is children over age six up to adults. Of course there's been a reduction overall, but there's beginning a climb again in numbers of individuals playing tackle football. Next one, please.

So I depict here a bell and the bell being clanged. And I'd like to make an analogy to the brain. When the brain is hit, like a bell is hit, it will clang. And when the resonator comes back to stability, the clapper does too. In concussion, the clapper does not come back to stability until that patient's symptoms are resolved. And you're going to be seeing me use this analogy.

So the background of this talk is that early childhood brain development lays the foundation for long term cognitive and mental health, emotional behavioral health outcomes, successful maturation results in healthful preparation at puberty and adolescence. These are very critical stages of psychosocial development. And we've all had our puberty and adolescence, so we all know what I mean. So the fact is, compared to other sports in youth, the number one injury coming to the emergency room of children ages six to 12 is from tackle football.

And youth athletes who play tackle football have the sustained 23 times more high impact hits to the head than children who play flag football. Next, please. Regarding flag football, this is the problem. Youth living in communities characterized by lower educational attainment are less likely than other youth to have the option of a lower contact alternative to tackle football, such as flag football. And that is why this needs to change. There are communities in America that do not have the ability for the parents to have their children play flag football instead of tackle football. Relying on voluntary community level adoption for this results in inequitable access to flag football for these kids.

And therefore there is an inequitable burden of brain trauma in society. Next, please. So high magnitude impacts to the head may lead to a term called, quote unquote, mild traumatic brain injury or mTBI and or concussion. So let's talk about mTBI. mTBI is single or repetitive injury. Injury, not necessarily head impacts in children, especially resulting in transient changes of brain function with or without the diagnosis of concussion. So when there is repetitive injury, as my esteemed colleagues have mentioned, it can give rise to chronic traumatic encephalopathy. So there is the bell being rung. Next slide, please.

And so when the bell stops ringing, the clapper is felt to be at midline because there's no diagnosis of concussion. Hey, go back and play. But you just heard repetitive hits without the diagnosis of concussion can lead to CTE. All right? Okay, next, please.

Concussion. So concussion is single or cumulative mTBI occurring, causing changes in the child's behavior, learning ability, emotional well being, sleep, and relationships. And in this example, the bell is rung and it keeps trying to come back to center, and it just doesn't. And these patients walk around not just for less than 24 hours, but for days having symptoms. Next, please.

And what happens in the brain? There's been a lot of research in this regard, and in concussion, the symptoms are basically clinical manifestations of infrastructural microstructural brain injuries called diffuse axonal injury and demyelination. And you won't see this on CT scans. You won't see this on MRI brains. You need to get special MRI studies that are very expensive called diffusion tensor imaging, which is not routine. So neurosurgeons see these patients, zero, normal head CT, normal brain, not a problem. Okay, we neurologists pick up these patients.

There's a picture there of what goes on in the brain during this. And you can see it says days, hours, weeks, and months. All right? And there is a flux after each significant hit resulting in concussion. This is what's happening. Next, please.

And then in the developing brain. Now, genetic influences predominate in the first five years of life. But after five years of life, white matter development is very dependent on the experience of that child. You'll see that the accidents in the brain, in diffuse external injury, are the brain fibers. The fibers in the brain are responsible for connections between hubs in the networks of the brain. When those connections are hurt, you're not going to connect well.

When the myelin is disrupted, the speed of your connections slow down. So it impacts learning. It impacts a lot of cognitive abilities. Regulation is a big thing. So white matter development proceeds and only based on experience. Therefore, if you're going to have a lot of impacts to the white matter development, you're going to have a very different brain. I don't care what age you start, That's what's going to happen.

And again, my esteemed colleague slides say that now, notably, the major genetic factor for Alzheimer's disease called the APOE four allele has been associated with altered early brain Myelination. And large epidemiological studies are saying that the onset of frontotemporal dementia, never mind CTE, but frontotemporal dementia is a risk factor for individuals who have a lot of problems with Myelin development and head trauma. Next.

So normal white matter development is positively correlated with educational and vocational attainment and favorable environmental influences, whereas slower or impaired white matter development is associated with early deprivation and negative environmental influences. Next.

So what happens in my clinic? They come to me with not doing well at school, not sleeping well, headaches. These are the symptoms of concussion on your left. This is called the Rivermead concussion questionnaire. Very helpful to let me know how severe they are. Zero to four and the duration of symptoms. Next, please.

The symptoms are because the part of the brain that gets impacted is the top of the brain stem. And it doesn't matter whether you hit somebody here or whether you are flung to the ground and have a rotational or a sideways or a forward. Children's necks are very weak, their torsos are smaller, it's like a lollipop on a lollipop stick, and they are more prone to these injuries. Next, please.

So I diagnose them in my clinic with either post concussion symptoms. When these symptoms follow a head injury, you need to have an Association of head injury and they basically recover. The majority of them, 66% recover in three months. But over 95% of them have normal routine CT and MRI and the other 5% are normal variants. Next, please.

In persistent post concussion symptoms, the concussion symptoms persist beyond three months. And That's the only difference. When you continue to have symptoms beyond three months, your quality of life goes way down. Up to 33% of a study of these individuals with so called mild traumatic brain injury, who had symptoms severe enough to warrant a head CT scan were followed. Up to 33% of them continued to have persistent post concussion symptoms. Up to 25% of those remained impaired at 12 months. So this is rather significant. Next, please.

So, let's talk about youth tackle football. There were investigations using that tensor imaging with MRI, special technique on the subconcusive impact exposures and white matter tract changes just in a season of football. And they had accelerometers in the helmets of these kids. And there was a clear association, as my other colleagues said, between the effects of these white matter changes and the number of times they got impacted by their play.

And this is in the absence of a diagnosis of concussion, you are changing your brain every time you have head impacts, regardless of whether you get diagnosed with concussion or not. And this is just a matter of imaging. And then age of first exposure to American football and long term neuropsychiatric and cognitive outcomes has been clearly shown to have an Association. And I'll say enough about that. The final slide is the most important slide. Next, please.

This is a summary of the people who have deceased from tackle football as adults. And this study looked at the brains of these individuals, neuropathologically, and the neuropathologists did their exams. And then Clinicians interviewed the relatives who knew these individuals at least 20 years. The average was 40 years or more, and got the clinical picture of how they were doing before they died. And also they asked the question, at what age did they start playing American football, tackle football?

And they found out that although there was no definite change in pathology between age of onset of playing tackle football and the degree of pathology, what they found was that individuals exposed to tackle football before age 12 were likely to die earlier were likely to have onset of symptoms of CTE 13 years earlier than individuals who started playing tackle football after age 12 years.

Their conclusions are that the resiliency factor of the younger brain is clearly not there compared to the resiliency of the more mature brain when tackle football is started to be played. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, I think we will go ahead to have a few questions. Assembly Member I'll ask a few, and then if you want to chime in okay. Not in any particular order. So I will go ahead and start with Dr. Lagarda.

Your presentation says that youth living in communities characterized by Low educational attainment are less likely than other youth to have the option of a lower contact alternative to tackle, like tackle football, meaning that flag football is more accessible option in areas with higher educational attainment. Can you kind of expand on that and how you got that data?

So all my data comes from articles which I have placed in a folder, which I did submit to Brian, and it comes from a specific article that was published that came to this conclusion. And when I read that, it's what made me want to do this presentation.

And I do want to note that for the people that are attending, I want to thank our consultants here, Brian Henderson and Tabitha. How do you say your last name so I don't mess it up? Vogelson for putting this together. All the PowerPoints and so forth are in here, so we want to make sure people understand that there's been a lot of work put into this. So you gave us that data.

But if you were just focusing on California and you were a parent of a six year old, would most parents go to Parks and Recreation or go to Pop Warner, or how do most people that you know find out if there's one or two choices in their communities?

I don't think people know they have a choice.

But there are some communities across California and probably United States that offer both.

Probably. I'm not at that level of functioning. I see them after their injuries, and I don't do the homework to find out, well, why isn't your kid playing tackle football? Flag football? That would be accusatory on my part.

Thank you. And then for sorry.

Dr. Camarillo, you had a lot of information on helmets and yet you said there's still quite a bit of work that could be done with the younger ages. Can you expand on that of are you seeing that kind of vision coming forward as far as development of these, just say, six through 12 year old type of helmets?

So the organization that does standards for helmets NOCSAE, they have right now a draft standard that hasn't been ratified yet for youth football. And what it'll do is it will basically test. So one thing it'll do to reduce the weight of the youth football helmets so there'll be a weight limit, which there isn't currently. Now, the other thing is they'll test the helmets at lower Velocities, which we know that the youth experience lower velocities. And by the way, this needs to be ratified.

So I don't know that this is going to happen or when it will happen. And it will also provide a lower criteria, meaning you have to have lower accelerations than the adult helmets, adolescents and adult helmets for them to pass the standard. I guess one thing I should mention about NOCSAE, they are an industry organization. They're funded by the helmet industry.

So I've seen in their standards making process, they're not going to make a standard that the industry can't meet or there's a tension between pushing to try to improve the helmets and not having all their Members who are paying the bills lose a bunch of business. I'm not sure that Noxi on its own is going to make the standards strong enough to make youth football safe as we could.

I think that this idea of ratings kind of what we do with new cars would be a better way, a more effective way for consumers to know what's a safer helmet and what's not a safer helmet. Another thing I should mention, another problem with the helmet industry is the parents often are not the ones that are purchasing the helmets. It's the leagues. And so the parents don't have that much choice and they don't have much knowledge either.

So at least if there was something on the back of the helmet that had the number of stars like you saw in the new car, and once the league hands it down to the parent, the parent at least has something they can see, something they can talk to the coach or talk to the Commissioner about. I think that would help. But there's been almost nothing until the last couple of years.

And then again, I know this is getting really into the weeds, but whether it's downhill skiing, some of these other impact sports and either of you can answer it. Motocross some of these sports where they are wearing different types of helmets and we've seen them we just had the Olympics with the downhill seeing some pretty major impacts. Are there any taking of some of their technology on their helmets you mentioned like a prototype of a water. I mean, are there things that just aren't be done where you could take other helmets or either one or both?

Potentially. There's a big difference between football, hockey, and some of these other high collision sports where the helmets need to sustain multiple collisions. Downhill skiing, bicycling motorcycling. You're supposed to discard your helmet after a single use. Right? And there are some newer technologies, again, just in the recent few years that are coming out for those other domains, but they're almost all single impact. So whether they could be translated to multiple impact, not a lot of them.

And I would say that football is actually at the NFL and adult level has been leading the way. These other industries are kind of following behind, so they're starting to make some changes as well. I don't know if that says much for those other industries, but That's kind of what I've observed.

Doctor, can I just add. That let's all keep in mind why helmets are being made in the first place. Helmets are to prevent physical bad injuries to the head and the brain. That's what they do. They can never prevent what's going on in the brain, which is inside a fluid filled cavity and a skull. And it's just unless you can do zero gravity dynamics, I don't see how you can prevent that.

I disagree with that.

Yeah, just maybe on that same train of thought. So for Dr. Camarillo, I want to dig into this about the helmet. And I'm kind of thinking it's kind of like cigarettes back in the day, they smoke cigarettes without the filter, and then they got a filter, and it says you're better off with a filter so you don't get as much damage to you because we filter out the harmful elements to your body.

And we later realized decades later that none of that really matters. So with the helmet, as the Neurology Association said, it protects the skull and not the brain. So I first learned about this because I did the Bill on concussion protocol. And in 2000, I think, 16, I met Dr. Amalu right out here, and he said, this is before the movie came out. He said, remember, he liked that thing in the movie?

He's like, this is the helmet, and the brain is the piece of it just it protects the glass from being broken, but the brain still hits the outside of the skull, and That's the damage. And so the helmet, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when the Niners did Bubba Paris in the he had a bunch of concussions. He had his big styrofoam thing on his helmet, and people used to laugh at him.

And John Madden kind of made fun of it because it fell off his helmet. But that was the issue then, it's the issue now. And so I'm kind of at a loss for this whole thing. Is it the skull and protecting concussions or the brain inside the thing that matters the most with CTE? Because it's not concussions. That's the end game problem with health of young people and adults. It's CTE.

Well, your last point I debate, I don't think it's clear that concussions I don't believe that there's scientific consensus that concussions don't matter for brain disease. I don't believe that. I think there's a confusion here that I want to try to clear up. So helmets, the original intent of helmet standards, including NOCSAE, I showed you, was to do what you said. It's to protect the skull. That was what these helmets were originally designed, tested, and approved for. That is changing.

And it's possible for a helmet to do both to protect the skull and the brain. But what I'm saying is that opportunity has not been realized for youth football because up until very recently, the only thing they're designed and tested for is, as you said, to protect against protect the skull. But with your example of the bread and the water, how hard you shake the water matters, even if you don't break the glass. Right. So what a helmet can do is it can attenuate.

And I think the cigarette filter argument is way too broad of a stroke. I mean, I think looking at car crash safety, I think is much closer, much more closely related to trauma That's happening to the brain. And that airbags seatbelts, various design changes in cars have made them much safer over time, and I do think it's possible for helmets as well.

So, Dr. Nowinski, you want to talk about the helmets skull?

Well, I'll just briefly add, I think helmets were first brought the skull. They've gotten better for the brain. But it's important to say that the first job of the helmet in football is to protect itself, because you have to have multiple hits on multiple plays. So we mentioned bike helmets, and motorcycle helmets are meant to fracture and explode and dissipate energy. Football helmets can't do that, and therefore there will always be severe limits to how much a football helmet can protect the brain. And so I think That's what we have to think about when we think about children is that football helmet will never eliminate the risk of CTE.

First of all, I'll talk about the next panel, but I'm not an anti football guy. Now, my kids are cheerleaders. I go out to the high school football games, and I was talking to some parents last week, and they were talking about helmets. And so there's this belief that if you get the better helmet, if the team buys helmets that ensure the team buys helmets every two years and every six years, what have you, then you'll be safe. And so it'll make you safer. Right, but it's not necessarily safe from the repetitive hits. And I guess That's the issue correct.

In the article that Dr. Nowinski and his team recently published that I showed a slide on, they looked at both. It was the number and the severity. So I think that as far as we know, both are important. It's not one or the other, it's both.

OK, and I have a series of questions now for Dr. Nowinsky. So one of the things that we hear when we bring up this debate about youth tackle football is why football? Why not swimming, water polo, soccer, gymnastics, cheerleading, girls fall off the stunts. So why zero in on youth tackle football?

So I tried to address that with the slide, looking at other major team sports that other sports have been able to make changes to eliminate purposeful, repetitive head impacts in their sports, Lacrosse, hockey, soccer. football is one who hasn't been able to make a change because it cannot make that change itself. It does require an outside influence because there's no governing body that controls youth football. And all the youth football organizations are essentially small capitalist organizations competing for enrollment.

And so therefore, they're all racing to the bottom of how early can you get enough kids to field a team where they can actually remember the plays? And That's why we start at four or five rather than younger is at three. They can't remember the plays. But you can have kids start at four or five because they can. So it's not to pick on football, but football, from our research in the US has the biggest CTE problem that we know of.

There's more football players being diagnosed with CTE in America than any other sport by orders of 10 or 20 times. And the other interesting thing about football is football is a natural cap in how long you play. So 95% of football players will never play after 18. And That's because I think at that age we start to learn how dangerous it really is.

And there's a reason why David and I don't put on our helmets and go play on the weekends is because we recognize the importance of our brain as we get older. And so unless you're getting paid, there's almost no football players in America play over 18. So football also has a magical solution to the CTE problem, which is if you waited until 14, 95% of American football players would play four years or fewer.

And you have a very Low risk of CTE by playing just four years or fewer. And soccer, ice hockey, people keep playing their whole lives because they're different sports.

Let's zero in on that because That's my next question. So we get a lot of questions when we talk about such a cut off, whether it's California or Illinois, New York, this is not Pennsylvania. It's not just a California debate. And there's an arbitrary age of whether it's 13, 12, 14. So twofold, you're saying that one, that the brains at seven just aren't as strong with the sprain body balance of bobblehead impact. Plus that the number of years you will play diminish if you start at 14. So That's why you picked this number. Can you go on?

That's one of the reasons why, yes. Part of it is brain development. The ages nine to 12 is probably the worst time to be hitting a child in the head hundreds of times. You will change who they become. I thought that was a great statement. There is the biomechanical perspectives that your body catches up to your head. I mean, I remember playing you can't get into a weight room in most places until high school, right? Because we're worried about your joint development.

But think about the fact that when you play football, one way to get your head out of the play is to be able to push people. So if you can't even go bench press because it's too dangerous to protect yourself in football as a blocker, that is crazy to me. So That's part of as well. And then oversight, right? The California Intersclastic Federation has oversight. When we do football through schools, at least there's more oversight.

We don't have that same oversight necessarily through youth football, the same training for coaches, all those things. And I do look at this as a driving issue. There is no perfect age, right? It is a risk reward issue. Just like there's no perfect age. We tag kids can start driving cars. We look at the data, we choose the best risk reward for them. And I think that best risk reward starts at 14. I'm open to 13 or 12, but once you start getting below that, I don't understand what the benefits are to the kids that are worth CTE for kids.

Okay, a couple more questions here and I don't want to preempt our second panel. It's going to talk about this law in California, it's four years old, which I supported for to bring more safety to football leagues, SB 1. So is your concern that there's not enough protections in there or that some leagues and programs just won't follow the rules in and of itself? Give me an example. I asked a youth tackle football league just last week what's happening in their area with flag versus tackle.

And we'll get to there and I talked about this issue and they're torn. They say I see it both ways. And they say one of the things that even though they have new rules, I know coaches in our area here that are still doing Oklahoma drills. And for those of you who don't know.

That's when you just put the kids at both ends and so most programs have stopped that and you see on TikTok every now and then. So let me ask the question again, is the concern of you and other advocates that these policies don't go far enough and have real protections or that people ignore them in the first place.

That they don't go far enough. The rules I'm concerned in this discussion about preventing CTE in any sport where you ask a child to tackle another child is inevitably going to result in repetitive head impacts. There's just no way around that. No amount of training is going to teach a seven year old how to tackle better than an NFL player and keep his head out of every impact.

So basically the idea is we don't think it's fair now that we've seen 1000 cases of CTE in America over the last 15 years at the BUCT Center to be exposing any children to the thing that causes CTE, which is repetitive head impact. So our campaign that we started last year is called Stop Hitting Kids in the Head.

And so even if you put all the practice things in place in games, kids are still going to be getting hit in the head over and over and over again, doing the activity we're instructing them to do. And so the reason why I don't think the Bill goes far enough is some of those kids playing will still be getting CTE in those games and practices under these guidelines. And the only way around that is to eliminate the tackling part of the game. And that would mean moving to flag.

Got you. So two more questions. I'm going to move to the next panel. One of the things that we hear quite often is that unlike tobacco, there's no crystal clear research here. And we've alluded there's research. It's growing every year. It's more and more. And if you look back at history, 75 years ago, you had doctors smoking tobacco. And even in this legislative hearing room, I've seen pictures of Members up here in the dias smoking. And then time went on.

We're like, I can't believe we did that. So maybe history will show, I can't believe that we did this. But that being said, there's no total clarity today. And CTE is a very rare thing to evaluate. You don't evaluate until someone's gone. You can evaluate somebody tore their ACL or they have heart disease, what have you, when they're alive. So this one is at the end, which is why you have the brain bank and the research that you all do. So how would you respond that we may not have enough research to make certain directive on such an important topic in youth and choice and parents and kids?

Yeah, I would answer in two ways. First is the ethical question, which is, should children be able to do an activity which the scientific consensus from CDC NIH says causes CTE? Should they be able to get CTE through a sport? I would say no. We should not be putting kids into sports that we know some of them will cause CTE.

The second point, which is an important one, I'm a big fan of Dr. Camarillo and we're very friendly, but there was one sort of non scientific framing of the discussion of youth football data, and That's the label of calling it youth football data. So this has been a sort of a technique by the youth football industry to say, if you only study kids who played in youth, you can't necessarily find the same relationship when you study football players over their whole career.

And if you did, That's an unscientific way of looking at the exposure. The exposure is playing football, years of play, and we see a very, very clear no one questions dose response between number of years of play, which is a proxy for number of hits and the strength of those hits. But if we reduce it down to, well, if you only play at age eight, we don't see the CTE risk or we only look at age nine, calling it youth football is a false label.

It's football and it's years of play. If we studied people only played one year, we probably wouldn't see a CTE risk. If we studied people that played two years, we probably wouldn't see that dose response curve. But when you look at total careers, you see the dose response curve. It's black and white and no one's questioning that.

So when we say youth football safe, it's under this absurd premise that they're not going to play in high school and they're not going to play in college and they're not going to go on to play in the NFL. And that is not what this game is designed to do. These coaches are there to make them good at football, make them love football, train them and retain them.

And so to put a kid on that path starting at five or six years old and go, well, if you stop by 10, you're safe, but if you're good and you like it and you're a high school star, you're screwed. That is not, I don't think, a good system and a fair system for children. So calling it youth football doesn't cause CTE. High school football doesn't cause CTE. They all play this game where they're like, it was the football they didn't play for us. And I would say That's a failure of leadership in the football industry, that it's all these little fiefdoms who don't care about what the other ones are doing, and the losers here are the kids.

OK, last question is on the question that Assembly Member Quirk-Silva asked. The first is a flag and its availability. And I think it's evolving. I just looked while she was asking, like in the hot areas of Sacramento, where I know they have robust youth tackle football programs, and I just found flag in every one of those communities. And the coaches did tell, you know, it's changing now. There's buzz about high school girls playing CIF flag football.

Heck, the NFL even had their players doing flag in the Pro Bowl. So it's a growing sport and it's a safe alternative. And I think even the tackle football people admit that it's safer for CTE and brain than playing youth tackle football. Grant they probably say the youth tackle football is safe enough. Parents are voting with their feet. I know leagues here that the numbers are just increasing exponentially and there's more youth playing flag now than tackle. My understanding. So obviously you promote it as a safe alternative. Is that an issue where there's not enough these leagues available that if parents wanted their kids to play football, whether it's tackle or flag, that there would be this option for them?

Well, I think the issue to add to what my colleagues said is that as a society, what do we want our future leaders to be? I mean, this is affecting us as a society. There are many young men in trouble today, and I'm saying 3 million of our kids play tackle football, play tackle football more than professionals do. Their brains are being affected by this sport, and they're having issues in adolescence, in puberty, as young adults in society. What do we want our society to look at? That's what I ask you.

I guess the legit question Assembly Member Quirk-Silva and I, we're both education advocates. We're on the Education Committee, been working on budget. You know, our kids need outlets. And so it's not always in the classroom. There's obesity epidemic and just coming after COVID. Kids need help of stuff to do. And so it is a legitimate question that what she poses is some of these communities under resourced communities, lowering they don't have a lot of assets.

These families can't take them up skiing every other weekend or send them to sports camps. These youth programs are lifesavers. They're lifesavers to my family. When my mom was a single mom here at four kids and youth programs kept my brother and I out of trouble, including we played popcorn or football as little kids for a couple of years before I went to flag. So it's not some foreign topic to me.

But the issue that she poses is, I think, a legitimate one is that are we concerned that if we pulled the plug on youth tackle football that these communities would be like, I don't have something to do with my little one? I personally think that they're there a little bit now. If they're not there, those same leagues would start signing up for these other programs. Granted, they don't do it now because what you're saying is, like, there's a fear that someone else would come in and take that.

There's demand. The parents want to do tackle, and it's available.

I'm sorry. The pro footballers play flag football in the Pro Bowl every year.

Well, I want to thank all of you. We definitely heard a lot of information, and we definitely have heard from our Assembly Member who's working on this policy. We thank you. And just for the public. One of the things that a lot of people don't get about the process that we have at the state is when we're in the legislative session and we are actually hearing about a very specific Bill and having hearings, sometimes with three or four or five bills at the same time, that can be completely opposite issues within the same Committee. We certainly don't get to delve in, have this questioning.

And then we often say, well, if we're going to make a Bill, a one year Bill to a two year Bill, we're going to use the recess to kind of dig deeper, get information in here. I'm a little bit regretful that the scheduling didn't allow other Members, but it's exactly for this purpose so that we can be open minded.

We can hear information from all voices and try to take that information so that when that piece of legislation comes back, whether it's the Bill That's proposed or others, we have more information because all too often we get forced into very quick decisions on very big policy, and this is a very big policy. So I appreciate your information. Incredibly bright people sitting in front of us. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, next we will welcome up for panel two. We have two Members on this panel, and I'd like to call up Ron White and Steve Famiano. Both are board Members of the California Youth Football Alliance, and they are here to speak on safety measures that have been implemented since AB 1went into effect. Thank you. Mr. White and Mr. Famiano. And I believe does one of you live in Fullerton?

No, I'm Apple Valley.

Apple Valley. I know we had somebody coming from Fullerton that was talking on behalf of Pop Warner, not here, but during the last year. So I wasn't sure. But welcome. Thank you for traveling. We appreciate it. And we'll go ahead and start with whoever would like to go first. Thank you.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Well, first of all, let me say, Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. I also thank the Clinicians behind me because this is a really important conversation. So you'll see to the right that we do not have a power deck slide for you today, but we're going to offer real world experience in the field spanning about 50 years.

So with that being said, I want to say to everybody on the panel today, the folks in front of me, the folks behind me, I come here today as a father first. That's the most important hat that I wear. I'm also a retired state peace officer, and I've been working with kids for about 50 years.

What I'd like to do instead of offering a slide deck, is start with some comments and sort of lay the groundwork of the conversation, but really do that in a semi expedited fashion. So we can get into a thoughtful conversation. And I welcome these conversations as you and I have had conversations in the past. But before I get into those opening statements, two things that showed up for me, and I really appreciate the folks behind me making these comments.

One, the quote that I heard from Dr. Nowinski is and I've heard this before and I respect this science cannot tell you the right age to play youth tackle football. And the other thing that showed up in this conversation from Dr. Camarillo is that unequivocally, there is not medical or scientific consensus that youth tackle football causes CT. So I wanted to start that before I made my open comments. I'll try to make this brief.

Over the past three decades, I have had a front row seat to the positive and continuous evolution of youth tackle football, not just in California, but nationally as well, in various roles of youth tackle football leadership. I have collaborated with organizational leadership around the country and of course in California, to drive and implement innovative policies, procedures and best practices to once again help drive what I believe to be the safer version of the sport being played today.

In fact, youth tackle football as a sport today, as I sit in front of you, is safer now comparatively than it has ever been. That is a fact. I can point to multiple examples of continuous growth and advancement in the sport, but none more important and applicable than AB 1. And I believe, Madam Chair, you touched on some of the finer components of that when you opened up.

Today, the California Youth Football Act is the most comprehensive set of safety standards in the country and the only codified piece of legislation of its kind nationally through the direct efforts of Assemblyman Jim Cooper as well as many thoughtful California legislators. I think that you mentioned, Assemblyman McCarty, that you supported this, the wisdom of Governor Newsom to sign the Bill into law and the California Youth Alliance.

We have now collectively created a roadmap for California youth tackle football community to follow as the rest of the country. And when I say that, meaning that we have the ability to be the first state in The Union to drive this safety measure and hold it up. As an example of what can be done, the California Youth Football Act, just to give you a chronological background, was signed into law by Governor Newsom in July of 2019 and became effective in January 2021.

As safety and well being of youth tackle football participants is one of California's highest priorities, certainly the highest priority of me as a father, and I do not want to separate myself from that in this conversation. At last count, over 3.5 million players, coaches, officials, cheerleaders and volunteers participate in a great sport of youth tackle football as thousands this is in the state as thousands of youth tackle football players across the State of. California take the field every season.

They now, for the first time, do so under universal state safety guidelines that I would like to share with the Committee and those in attendance today. Annual or biannual recertification of football equipment by an approved and certified manufacturer or recognized third party. Dr. Camarillo pointed to this in detail. Continuous advancement in helmet technology, both in product and youth helmet rating systems, as reflected in a newer product on the table today.

Probably one of the most key elements of AB 1 is the coach's certification in blocking, tackling coaching techniques to minimize the risk of injury. Why I'm going to pause there is we have an opportunity to both educate and inform not just consumers, as I said here in the People's House today, but coaches and folks who are responsible for making sure that children are safer playing this sport.

Coaches and league administrators are required to complete annual concussion and head injury training pursuant to California Health and Safety Code. Parents and youth tackle football participants are also required to be provided the same information per California Health and Safety Code 124235, licensed medical professionals EMT level or above. And I am an EMT by profession at every youth tackle football game or contest, a trained independent party assigned by each individual organization to monitor and provide direct supervision and injury surveillance.

That's going to come up again, and we're going to talk about that at all youth tackle football practices or activities with the authority to both remove participants from activity while documenting and reporting injuries to the organization. Reduced physical contact. And I heard that mentioned here today not to exceed more than 30 minutes of contact, no more than two times a week.

I'd like to point out in the State of California, because I believe the SIM Mccarthy that you had referenced, AB 2007, it is two thirds less at this lower energy level of play than what is done by its counterpart at the high school level in this state. So we took a real hard look when we were working with Assemblyman Cooper of how do we reduce that, how do we mitigate injuries and make sure that we're being good stewards of the game? Two thirds reduction in comparison.

AB 1 also restricts and prohibits contact practices in the offseason, essentially removing the ability to play more than one season of youth tackle football in a calendar year. That is extremely key. When we get into the conversation, I want to say this clearly for the record, I am not a clinician, clearly. But when you have the ability to reduce play, you have the ability to mitigate injury of all type.

All California youth tackle football organizations must provide a declaration of compliance of AB 1 via its website or internal documentation. I'm going to say this again as I sit here in the People's House today. Ultimately, the decision to play youth tackle football rests with parents, but they rest with parents. And those rights now, knowing that there are universal California standards of play. For the first time in the history of this sport, in any state, at any time, AB 1 is in its infancy.

We mentioned that it was signed into law in 19. It became effective in 2021, but something called the pandemic came along. Right. As many groups are trying to move forward from that period of time, it is in its absolute infancy. The way that we look at AB 1, and I'll certainly open up for questions after Steve's remarks. We look at AB 1 not as a static, one time piece of legislation, but rather a living, breathing document that can be built upon as we have more information.

We're extremely proud to lead the way in this country by providing that piece of legislation that simply has not existed until maybe the last two or three years, with the help of a really thoughtful Legislator and the support of the body. At this point, I'm going to turn remarks over to Steve.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just have a quick statement. Good morning to the honorable chair, Mrs. Quirk Silva and the honorable Members of the Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee along with Assembly Member Mr. Mccarty. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss the wonderful sport of youth tackle football. My name is Steve Famiano, a born and raised Californian residing in Apple Valley, California, where I began my 20 plus year journey in the sport.

First as a parent, when I signed my two boys up at 7 and 9 years old, well over two decades ago. My youngest played five years. My oldest played three. It's a decision I would make again today without any hesitation. Ultimately, my boys never went on to play any other level of football, as most kids who play youth do not.

After my son stopped playing, I remained involved in the sport and went on to become a coach, administrator, Commissioner, board Member, co founder of the California Youth Football Alliance, and a two time lead Member of the grassroots Save Youth Football California Coalition, representing tens of thousands of California youth football families and their players. Over my two decades of volunteerism within the sport, I've had many accomplishments that I am extremely proud of.

But I must say, working with the former Assemblyman Jim Cooper on the nation's first and most comprehensive youth sports safety Bill, the California Youth Football Act, AB 1 tops the list. No other California youth sport, including baseball, soccer, or even flag football, have the same safety protections a youth tackle football player has under AB 1 guidelines.

AB 1 goes above and beyond all past and current safety recommendations from the CDC and many others in regards to youth tackle football safety, none of which call for an outright age restriction or banning of the sport. AB 1 sets the standard for what a youth sport safety law should look like and it's something all of us as Californians can be proud of, as once again, we are leading the nation in a progressive and forward looking way on youth sports safety. Thank you again for the invite, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. I do see that you brought one of the helmets. If you want to just kind of hold it up,

I can hand it to you until you guys.

Well, if you want to just hold it up and show I think you're on camera, and you can kind of show the inside of it because some people have never really seen that.

This is a light helmet. I don't know if you're going to ask me questions.

No, I'm going to go on the I'm not. Okay. So That's a light helmet, and That's typically what youth football would be wearing.

This is one of the newer models that has just come out and the latest technology, this helmet here, I know there's a lot of talk about helmets and the weight of helmets and the whiplash effect on young kids. This is a helmet that weighs about two pounds 8oz. You'll hear a lot of talk about helmets are six pounds, seven pounds. This is very light. Just all the material and how it's made is very light.

If you want to anytime you want to grab it and check it.

Thank you.

And it certainly speaks to the innovation and technology that one of the physicians spoke about behind me. This is a classic example that youth tackle football is a constantly evolving sport, and that is a byproduct of thoughtful acceleration and growth in terms of bringing real world solutions to what some people believe is a problem that can't be solved.

Thank you. All right. I know that our Assembly Member here has some questions he's eager to ask. Go ahead. Assembly Member Mccarty. It all right. Let me find my questions here.

So either of you can answer just if you can explain a little bit more about youth tackle football in the sense of I know we're talking like six to 12 or 13 or 14, but how are the individuals put onto teams by age, by weight or height or all of these things? How are they grouped? I guess we can both address it then generally from just say August, because I'm assuming That's when the season starts. Tell what does their beginning practices look like until they actually start playing games. Just kind of like a little synopsis of youth tackle football.

So relating to what the requirements of AB 1 are. Youth tackle football players are basically categorized by age and weight. Now you have two different classifications. You can have an age and weight based system or what they consider would be an unlimited but typically you're looking at 7 and 8 year olds playing together, 10 and 11 year olds playing together. So you're not having a six year old playing with a 12 year old. I've never seen that in all the years of my youth football.

And I don't think that would ever happen. As far as time frame of season, typically starts around maybe late July, heads into August, typically wraps up, I would say November time frame, it just depends on when your season starts. There's typically about a month, I'd say six to seven weeks of practice prior to game starting. Most leagues have typically this is an average about eight games a season, and then maybe a couple of playoff games and a championship game. And That's pretty much the basic structure of youth football.

How many times do they usually practice a week? I know it depends on area, but just generally practices and then their game.

And so maybe I can address the first thing and then I'll move into the practice session. So there are different mechanisms for that. What we're seeing progressively, not just in California but across the country is what is called a U system, which basically means this. And it speaks to that in the Bill in terms of comparable age groups. You have eight, nine year olds playing, 10, 11 year olds playing, et cetera.

When we talk about the timeline of a season, it's important to note before we get into practice, typically when programs start in July with a little bit of variable, there is a slow, progressive introduction to contact. I want to make sure that I'm painting a very vivid picture for the Committee. It's not a setting where, hey, you just put on some cleats and a helmet and you get into action. It is a progressive time period that can span up to 14 days. Helmets only, zero contact.

Then you move into safer progressive contact. You elevate from thud, and then you start progressively introducing young athletes into contact until you get into the bulk of the season. What we're seeing in California in terms of practice periods, is that up to four days a week or so and with some variance per program before you get into the season and then a trail back to three days a week, no more than 2 hours where kids are in school and academics should become the overriding requirement. So you see that scale down too similar to what you see in a high school setting.

And then just two other questions and then we'll move to Mr. McCarty on the coach training. Where do they go for the certification and do they have to be recertified each year?

I can address part of it.

You can start.

There are many options. USA Football has a certification course. Tip of the Spear has a certification course. American Youth Football has a certification course. So I will tell you, in this space there could be more players for sure. But it is annual training. You can use one of those three resources. The resources are clearly out there, but it is an annual basis through those three.

Primarily are those in person or online?

I've seen it done both ways. I know that USA Football, I was the California delegate for quite a long time, representing the State of California. We did it in both capacities. We offer it both virtually out of convenience because there's a reason that I'm saying this. When you look at the youth tackle football space, unlike high school or above, these are true volunteers. You have the fireman, the plumber who said, I worked 8 hours, I'd like to be able to get this done. So the virtual component came into play. But you have that offering in both spaces.

And then just going back to the age and weight, as we know, your age doesn't determine your weight.

So you could have a seven year old who is much larger than other seven year olds.

Does not.

Sure.

So do you cut that off by weight? Because it does seem like the weight would be almost more important than the age on the impact.

Yeah, That's a great question. And that opens up I'm going to answer your question, but That's going to open up the conversation to those types of players, right? There are a lot of kids that may be overweight at a certain age and need the sport of football to help them with their health. Comparing it to flag football. Tackle football allows kids of different sizes that opportunity to play the sport. Flag is limited in some regards as far as the type of build that a child has to play. Flag football and tackle football gives opportunity to kids with that type of weight. Do you want to answer?

Sure.

I'm going to answer. I think more if I can succinctly on the first part of this, you would ask about size differential in players. There are multiple different programs throughout the state and throughout the country. Some are youth systems driven by if you're 7 and 8 irregardless or irrespective to weight, you play together. There are some systems that say you have to weigh within a certain weight metric to play together.

One thing I know about kids, in 35 years of working in the youth tackle football space, kids come in all shapes and sizes, just as they do in the high school space. That is how I would answer. But I would say this, and I'm sure I'll get an opportunity to speak to this a little bit further to what Steve touched on is the reality of it is we're fighting an epidemic of obesity, youth and teen obesity.

Many of the kids who play youth tackle football, and this is well documented, play this sport because they're growing into their body. They're larger. These kids are not playing soccer. They don't oftentimes have the ability to play flag football. But we have a home for them in youth tackle football where they are welcomed as they're growing into their body. That's one thing I would like to really denote here. Kids come in all shapes and sizes.

Thank you. Assembly Member McCarty.

Yeah, that last piece, I would really say it kind of bothers me because I don't think that the 10 year old, who is the bigger kid, needs to be the noes tackle or the offensive guard. Why can't they play flag and be the quarterback, wide receiver? And so that we put kids in a box, I think That's kind of my opinion. So I think that kids should be able to try everything, especially when they're young.

We want kids to explore lots of opportunities and so characterizing the big kid could only play in the interior line. And tackle football, I think, is a problem. And I've seen big kids on local programs, programs that I've talked to coaches about, like, hey, we get that big kid, he likes to play quarterback every now and then, the 300 pound, 12 year old. So That's just my opinion.

Would you mind if I responded to that?

I'll ask you some questions. But I guess the first question that I have is we had a constituent call us a few months ago and says, hey, I'm a parent and we to tackle football, and they're not following SB 1. And how do we deal with that is that I concur, I voted for, I support it. It does have more safeguards for a sport that exists today. How do we ensure that there's oversight and that people are actually following these?

I think it's a wonderful question. Do you want to address it, or I can and we both will.

Yeah. Mr. Mccarty, I would actually like to ask you a question. Was that parent concerned about the Bill that you passed AB 2007 of the concussion protocol?

I'm asking the questions. No, I have no idea. All I know is a constituent called my office and was concerned that there's new rules for safety and time and how many hours they could have contact during the week. And she looked at the rules on SB 1, and they weren't following that. And then I talked to the Coach last week.

It says that a program here, they're running the Oklahoma drills where in practice, the kids come from different directions and practice collisions, which most programs don't do anymore. So I had two examples where people aren't following the thought out plan that you put forward SB 1. And I guess the question is, how do we ensure that it's being implemented appropriately across California?

So, looking at youth sports safety bills that have been passed in California, yours back in 2016, AB 2007, the concussion protocol, there's no compliance for that law. It's not written in the law. It's just a state law that was passed. And youth organizations, 27 youth sports are supposed to follow that law and provide documentation to parents for the concussion protocol. That is state law in California. AB 1 has no enforcement mechanism, just as that law does not.

So the only recourse that I would say to that parent, if she contacted me, I would tell her to possibly talk to the league first and foremost, see what she can do there at a board meeting. If that doesn't work, then ultimately, I believe it's my opinion, bills that do not have an enforcement mechanism attached to them. The only recourse that that parent would have would be to possibly hire an attorney and go that route. This is new to me as far as this political process.

But I'm learning that there are a lot of bills that are passed that do not have enforcement mechanisms. You would hope, and I do hope. And That's one of the jobs that I've been doing over the past few years is I've been working as hard as I can to contact every youth football leader in this state and explain to them what the law is, how to enforce the law in their leagues. But I cannot sit here today and tell anyone here that everyone is following that law, just as I cannot tell you everyone is not speeding.

I would love to add to that, and I appreciate the question. And that question has been posed since the early draft of that piece of legislation put in place. Here's how I look at that. It is well documented, whether we're talking about AB 2007 and thank you for authoring that, sir, or AB 1, that there is not a built in enforcement, traditional enforcement mechanism.

But let me tell you what does come into play, if anything, good that has come out of the multiple meetings that you and I have had, sir, in your office. The public exposure and the debate around youth tackle football is that it has created more visibility for this sport than has ever happened before. What happens from a consumer standpoint is AB 1 now is the standard more and more people know it's the standard.

And what happens is, and I believe you mentioned this earlier people and consumers, That's who we're talking about. Family Members vote with their feet. AB 1 drives healthy tension into the market. When we talk about declaring on your website that you're AB 1 compliant, what we're doing here today is we are driving visibility of this sport.

So parents that would have no idea five years ago about safety standards in youth tackle football, because of all of these elements, they now know I'm in deep dialogue with families up and down the state, as I've done this now for 36 years. They know about AB 1. They know about concussions. They know about the potential of CTE, even though we landed on that. There is no consensus.

The benefit of these dialogues today or in 2018, or in your office or in social media or in the court of public opinion. We are driving visibility, and families are more aware now that there are universal guidelines through AB 1, just like the guidelines that you introduced for 2007.

Okay, thank you. My next question is, I've seen national numbers taking even before the pandemic, and after the pandemic, that the number of tackle football participants has gone down, whether at the high school level or Pop Warner and other youth tackle leagues, and that the flag participation has gone up tremendously. And there's actually more flag players now than tackle players in your communities. Apple Valley in Bakersfield, what have you seen?

Parents are rightfully concerned because they want us to be one enforcement, or they're seeing their references to players and NFL stars or documentaries on Netflix, on Aaron Hernandez or what have you. And so they're just, hey, is this thing does it impact my young kids? Are you seeing more in your two areas? Pop Warner participation. I'm sorry. More flag football participation at the expense of Pop Warner and youth tackle football in Apple Valley and Kern.

I'll speak for my local area. In my local area, which is the high desert region of Southern California, flag football is minimal. I'll say that. It's minimal. Youth tackle football is definitely a larger sport than flag football as far as it's kind of relating to what Ron said, more people are actually coming back to youth tackle football. The numbers are going back up. And I think that was shown in one of the slides there, that participation is starting to go back up. High school, too. High school is getting more players, I think, because of a lot of the work That's been done. AB One different things like that.

People are way more informed today than they ever have been. When I signed my two boys up back as a parent in 2001, I believe it was flag wasn't even talked about, really. You couldn't find a flag league anywhere, to be honest with you. It was all tackle, tackle, tackle. And there were no safety regulations whatsoever. So flag, yes, you're correct, the numbers are going up. But keep in mind, I want you to understand something, and you're talking about excluding children from sports.

Youth tackle football is predominantly a male sport. Flag football is coed. That's why you're seeing flag numbers greater than tackle numbers. It's not because people are afraid to sign their kids up for tackle. It's that flag football has more girls playing.

Sure. And I think you were asking it just as a comparative in both regions. Bakersfield apple Valley completely different. But what I will tell you that in the Bakersfield or the central part of the state, tackle football is the dominant sport played in terms of volume. Mr. McCarty, I will concur with you that I want to say that it was either the Asinine Institute or the Sports and fitness industry tracked participation numbers.

I want to say in 2017 that for the first time in US history, to your point, flag exceeded the number of tackle participants. We're seeing those numbers now start to come to balance for a few different reasons. And I want to point this out before I say that it is not a zero sum game. When you see an influx and increase in flag football, it doesn't mean that they're only playing flag football.

What we're seeing is, and we speak to it in AB 1, if there's really only one traditional tackle season, what are young athletes doing in the offseason? They're playing flag football. So when you look at those numbers, the numbers are skewed because it is not a zero sum game. You have them playing both, which we applaud in terms of year round activity.

One of the folks behind me, and I cannot remember the physician's name, my apology she had mentioned about the lack of resources or availability to play flag football. I can tell you, living in the central part of the state, that there is opportunity to play flag football, not just in Bakersfield, but in Applevale. And I played flag football a million years ago. It is not a newer sport. It is sometimes more economical and less involvement. You can show up and play the day of right, but it is not necessarily an either or Proposition. We believe they're both being played.

Okay, thank you.

All right, well, we want to thank you for coming. I think you gave a very informative panel about youth football, and we appreciate your input. Thank you for bringing the helmet, and thank you so much.

Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

All right, we're going to go to our final panel with three Members on that. Please come up. We have three individuals on this panel, and this panel will be focusing on the experience of athletes and their family Members that have dealt with the impacts of concussion and CTE. We want to welcome Jan Franklin, Mike Haynes, and Pamela Thakur. And we will go ahead and begin with Jan Franklin.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jan Franklin, and I'm here because I believe there should be a minimum age at which children are allowed to play tackle football. This is my son, Jason. He's not only my son, he's my only child. He died by suicide on July 14, 2018, at the age of 26. Next slide. From birth, my son was always so happy. He was the life of the party. He could talk to anybody. He had personality and charm galore, and he loved life.

Next slide. We were so lucky to have such a wonderful, funny, well adjusted son. He was an actor. He had his own show. I'll talk about that later. Next slide. Jason started playing tackle football at the age of 11. That's him on the far left at 11, some boys start as young as five. Little boys crashing their heads into each other. Jason played through high school, and then at Arizona State. He played for 12 years, the equivalent of playing at six or seven through high school.

Jason graduated college and was just beginning his media career. He had his own show on NBC Phoenix called Franklin Knows Best. It was just a goofy, funny show. He did all sorts of crazy things. He tried out for the women's professional basketball practice squad. He was a crazy guy. Things were going great for him, and then suddenly things started to go awry. I didn't understand what was happening until it was too late. He was experiencing headaches, sirens in his head.

We took him to the hospital, had a CT scan done. They didn't see anything. He couldn't sleep. He suddenly became withdrawn. He was threatening, and he showed a rage I had never seen. I tried to help him, but things happened too fast. In less than six months, he was gone. Just after his death, the coroner in Arizona, who was aware of Jason's media and football career, suggested we send his brain to Boston University to be analyzed for CTE.

I thought, what I had no idea that football could possibly have caused this. Next slide. Months later, we were told I'm not going to read this slide. It has a bunch of medical terms. But the bottom line is we were told that Jason was diagnosed to have CTE stage two. The CTE damage included nine lesions, mostly in the frontal lobes of his brain. The part of the brain that controls impulse, judgment, violence, aggressive behavior, depression, and suicidality everything we experienced.

Dr. Mckee from Boston University, who did the brain autopsy, noted to us it was one of the worst cases she had seen in a person of his age. Next slide. In honor of my son, we created a foundation called I Got You because my son always told his friends, I got you. The intent was to help those in need. And as part of this program, we reached out to players of Jason's age to let them know that we were there if they needed somebody.

And we have had several contact us. One player, Xander, is struggling now with headaches and depression. He started playing as a youth. Two others, Owen and Mikhail, have also contacted us as they are concerned they have it. They are also struggling with depression. Both started playing at seven. We need to stop this. As a parent, it is vital to protect our children and give them a chance for a productive life. My parents did that for me, and I hope your parents did that for you.

I unfortunately failed to do that for my son. Jason and millions of parents every year are following my path because they do not understand the dangers of repetitive head trauma in football. Many pros won't let their kids play tackle football. Brett Favre, Drew Brees, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Kurt Warner, Bo Jackson and many, many others. Kids in youth football average almost 400 hits per season to the head. And we don't know how much we've damaged their brains until years later.

If I smacked my child in the butt 400 times in a given year, I would probably be arrested for child endangerment or child abuse. Yet I can sign him up to play football and a coach can have him hit somebody 400 times. It just makes no sense to me. Now, on the other hand, a kid in flag football hits his head eight times a year. Eight versus 400. The NFL is sponsoring flag football now. They have over 600,000 kids playing.

There's one and a half million kids playing flag football today. There's definitely while I understand that they believe that tackle football is growing, it may be because we are not talking enough about the damage That's being caused to these brains. I lived with and I saw the devastation and viciousness of a brain unwiring from CTE. If I knew then what I know now, I would never, never have let my son play tackle football.

We can't bring Jason back, but there are millions more Jason's out there playing football and not being properly warned how fragile the human brain is. People should be informed of the short and longer term risks of collision in contact sports, things like CTE, so they can at least make informed decisions involving their children. But merely informing parents of these risks, risks that their children cannot possibly understand, is not enough. Changes need to be made in youth tackle football.

Changes such as flag until 14 or no tackling until high school, as Dr Nowinski stated and I think others have stated, other contact sports have already done so. And because they have more at a federal level, the US Soccer Federation currently bans heading in soccer under 11. US Hockey bans checking under 13 years old. Why don't we do something about football? We need to err on the side of caution. If I asked two people in here to put helmets on.

Any two people put helmets on and run each other full blast, would they tell me how many people would do that? Would you do it right now? No. But we let our children do it. These changes to football will help to preserve the health of our children. We need to work together to make those changes. And thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we're going to go next to our second panelist I'm sorry. President Mike Haynes.

All right, so I'm here with a very different perspective. I'm a litigation attorney, and I'm here to tell you that the law, the tort law, does not provide any relief for anyone who has been repeatedly abused or the coaches have been negligent for creating a situation where athletes are being injured and suffering from CTE. The only recourse we have really is changing the law, and specifically harm reduction is critical for children under 12 years old.

The reason why it's so difficult for attorneys to actually take these cases is because CTE can only be diagnosed post mortem after death. And if you could go on to the next slide and actually follow up that slide. So the reason I'm here is I actually represented four former UCLA football players against the Regents of California and the coaching staff as well as the trainers. And this is a Division One school, and the cases were highly publicized because no one takes these cases.

And the reason is that the industry standard is that football is a violent sport. People have to sign waivers, parents have to sign waivers stating that they release anyone from any liability, typically when they engage in this sport. And unfortunately, two of the players who we represented suffered from symptoms consistent with CTE. As a result. Unfortunately, two of them tried to commit suicide during these cases.

And it was very important for us to hire a number of experts and depose a number of colleagues of theirs in addition to depositions over four years. And essentially the findings were all the same, that the head to head combat is what resulted in the CTE and into what has resulted in these children changing completely. The parents would beg us to take these cases because their children were simply not the same from before they started playing football to after they had completely changed.

And over the course of this litigation, so many families had reached out to us, so many players had reached out to us to tell us that concussion protocols were simply not followed. So especially for children, they don't even know what they're going through. The parents don't even know how to enforce the concussion protocols. The coaches don't necessarily know how to do this. We just heard earlier in panel two where there are laws that have concussion protocols, but how do you enforce them?

How do you find any redress for these individuals? Their lives have changed forever. One of the student athletes I represented became extremely violent after going through hundreds and thousands of hits to his head. The family is of modest means. The mother begged me and said, my son is not the same. He became violent, he became suicidal.

And just recently, last week, I found out that he assaulted someone at a drive through and actually could be in jail for 40 years unless we can show and prove that he has mental health issues due to the CTEs to the concussions that he suffered. They settled these cases settled. But the money that they received is nothing compared to the lifelong, devastating impact on the families, on these young individuals.

One of them could not finish graduating from UCLA, and others who I did not represent had attempted suicide as well, many times, and some of them were unfortunately successful. I asked the mom when I told her I was going to be speaking here today, and she responded to me. I sometimes want to shout out at some of these parents to not let their kids play football because their son had ADHD, which was exacerbated through the concussions and through the CTE symptoms.

This individual can no longer socialize. He can no longer hold a job, and the impact on the families is devastating. Calling attorneys to help them to try to put their children into mental health facilities. If you could go to the next slide. Settlement of the cases has not cured the physical and mental health problems they face, and some players cannot even control these violent urges. The family Members are devastated trying to deal with these lifelong symptoms. Final slide.

CTE irrevocably and tragically alters the life trajectory of those affected. No matter what damages are obtained through any litigation, California Tort Law is incapable of providing redress for the irreparable damage caused by CTE. Prevention through legislation is therefore the most proper way to address this serious problem. Thank you.

Thank you for that. And again, we'll do questions at the end. We now want to welcome Mike Haynes, President of Mike Haynes and Associates, Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 1997. A player. Former player.

Thank you, thank you. And thank you for allowing me to speak here today. I believe there should be a minimum age at which children are allowed to play tackle football. I started playing football when I was 14. My mother had three kids. She was also had two brothers herself, and they played high school football in Texas, where I was born. I don't know what happened to my uncles, and I don't know why she didn't want me to play tackle football until I was older.

So I started playing tackle football when I was 14. I played at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. We weren't very good. We didn't have very good coaching. I didn't learn to tackle in high school. I learned to tackle in college at Arizona State. Tackle football was something that my mom had a bad experience, and so did my uncles. Evidently, she didn't want us to play that bad. But in college, we practiced tackling all the freaking time.

So much so that I realized that if I had started practicing like that when I was 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years old, I would have had a million hits by the time I got to college. So all the years that I practiced football and played football as a kid, I never had one concussion. When I was in college in a Fiesta Bowl game. I played free safety. I don't know if you guys know the difference between corners and safeties and offense and defense, but I got a concussion.

That was the first concussion I had ever had. I was a freshman in college. I was really lucky because with that concussion, I came out of the game and I lost my memory, my total cognition. I couldn't tell you even what my name was, but before halftime, my cognition came back, and I ran to the coach and said, Coach, I'm back. I can play, I can play. My memory is back. And he would have put me back in the game.

But one of my teammates, I was a freshman, the guy I had beaten out was a senior. And he came and said, Mike, this is my last game. This is it for me. Let me finish the game. I said, well, it's up to the coach. And the coach said, yeah, let him finish. Well, we won the game.

But what I found out, or what I realized years later from stories like these and different things that have happened that I've seen in my career is that had I gone back into that game, I could have been knocked out, I could have been worsened. So in college football, we had a I take it back. It was an NFL teammate of mine that was knocked out cold during a game.

Our medical staff came on the field until he was revived, and they took him off the field. He was back in in two plays. So the way that people have responded to concussions and to head injuries needs to be addressed. And I believe now these were back in the since then, there have been a lot of innovation, there's been a lot of changes. If you get injured year out, you probably won't be back for three weeks.

There's all kind of changes, all for the better, but it's also individual. Now, you have some guys, when they get concussed or they have a head injury, they don't want to go out. The coaches don't want to go out. They'll say, hey, how do you feel? I'm good. The coach shouldn't be able to make that decision. The players shouldn't be able to make that decision.

So I really am glad that we're here today, because if we put the hands of these decisions, put it in your hands, I'm hoping there'll be a big difference. I really am. Because some coaches want to win so bad, they'll put their players in, and some players want to be drafted into the NFL so badly, they don't want to go out of the game. So it's in your hand. So I'm glad about that.

I love football, I really do, and I'm an inner city kid that had a lot of challenges in his life. But using football as my standard, the things I learned in football like how to practice, and how to prepare, and how to recover, and how to eat, and how to train, and how to rest, how to stay eligible for football. All these different things that I learned in my life were all super positive, they all really were.

But when it comes to my brain, I think that I've done, personally done, okay, but now I'm a little older. Now my memory is not so good. Now I have six kids. I didn't let my first three kids, which is two boys and a girl, I didn't let them play football because my mom didn't let me play. And they played other sports. They played basketball, they played baseball, they played soccer, they didn't play football.

And then one of them said, dad, I want to play just my senior year. So I said, go ahead. So he played one year, UCLA saw him, they invited him to come there. So he played college football. Fortunately for me and for him, he never had a concussion. But what we know now about impact, you don't necessarily have to had a concussion to have a problem. So he played. Now I got married again, I have three more kids, two more boys.

So this time I said, you know, I had such a great experience playing football, I want my boys to play football. And so I coached. And at this point in my life, I was living in Connecticut and working at the NFL, and so I had the ability to go talk to the NFL leaders and talk to them about concussions, about practice, about drills and things like that. So they gave me good advice, which helped my team. I said, I don't want my kids to get concussed.

None of the kids. I'm talking about my kids, I'm not talking about my two boys, I'm talking about my team. In Connecticut, we didn't practice like the other teams practice. They were doing tackling drills, as you guys were talking about earlier here, where guys would lay down on the ground, the coach would blow a whistle, and they would jump up and run into each other, and one would have the ball, and one would be the tackler.

I didn't like those drills, and I did not want any of those kids to sustain a concussion or have any type of head injury. You might think that we would not have a great team. We got to the finals, we didn't win the whole championship, but we had a good season. So my son, though, when, you know, my current sons, one played in Boston College, he was a quarterback in high school.

The other one is going to right now, to University of Arizona, he's a wide receiver. I let them play because I coached, and I made sure that my kids were safe, and I made sure the coaches that were coaching them were using great tactics. And if a kid was injured, I made sure the coach did the right thing, but That's just me. I actually saw in one game where a kid was hit in the side of the head and knocked down to the ground.

He's probably 10 years old, 12 years old, right around there, and he's laying on the ground crying. And the other coach on the other team ran onto the field, and you would think that he would say to his kid, who hit our kid that don't hit him in the head. But he didn't say that. He just said, Are you okay? Are you all right? To his kid. I said, what about our kid?

And so then the official I said, sir, you should throw this kid out of the game. You need to make an example out of that kid. Otherwise all kids are going to be doing this. They're all going to be running down the field and trying to hit a kid in the head so he can't come back in the game and play. He didn't do that. He just told the kid he had to go out for a play.

My kid, he didn't play for the next three games. That kid went out for a few plays. So the way that organizations look at head injuries, trauma, concussions, I think it really matters. And That's why I'm glad we're here today talking about it and putting it in your hands and giving you folks the real skinny, I guess. California is a great state and loves its people and absolutely loves its sports.

And I'm hoping that you guys will ask questions and come up with fair ways to deal with these kinds of issues in the National Football League. It's been an issue there too, and they have taken different tracks to try and resolve these issues as well. And I realize there are sometimes is it about the health of the player? Is it about the health of the game? There is a lot of challenges, but to me, I feel like it's the player's health.

I just turned 70 and I want to make it to 120. And I'm starting to see different challenges in my own cognition now that I'm 70. A lot of people say, hey, you're 70. I see a lot of football players that I played with, they did not make it to 50, some did not make it to 40.

And a lot of people would say a lot of it is because they played youth football, that their cognition was not the greatest and they made bad decisions in their life. So I'm glad I'm here, and I'm looking forward to a change in a lot of the policies so that more people can have great lives and great experiences, and we don't give coaches the authority to damage our children.

Thank you with that. We appreciate all of you coming. I know that. Do you have any questions? Sure.

Quick ones. I know we're running short on time, but two questions. But first I want to thank Ms. Franklin for coming here and sharing your story. I appreciate your courage, stepping up and sharing your son's history and I know it's tough for you. So thank you. Thank you. And then for Mrs. Thakur. I know this is an informational hearing. There's not any bills voting on today, but we do do that throughout the rest of the year.

There may or may not be a policy decision one day on this, but do you think that absent legislation, that this issue potentially will be settled either way in legal actions with youth tackle football or the insurance industry? Are there other factors at play in this whole issue with safety and youth tackle football?

Unfortunately no. Because the industry standard is that it's a violent sport. And so to show that there is negligence, you have to show gross negligence and you have to show that it's beyond the standards in the industry. So the only way for there to be a change is through the state legislation. So I'm honored to be here because I saw firsthand litigating these cases, the uphill battle that my clients faced. Fortunately I was able to get industry experts we settled.

But the amount of money it takes to pursue these cases with expert witnesses and so forth and to show that something is below the standard of care because the industry standard is everyone signed a waiver, you've released your claims and how can it be negligence? It's a violent sport. You knew this coming in that there would be head to head contact. So because of that, litigation is not going to do anything.

Unfortunately, it'll get some money into the hands of the injured players who were abused or the plays, the drills were like Oklahoma drills or things were done beyond what's allowable under the NCAA regulations or so forth. So this is why I think it's so important what you all are doing. And I think the only way to really protect these children is to take a bold step in a move such as Assembly Bill 734. And I think there are additional changes that need to be made.

I think enforcement mechanisms are critical because even if there is a litigation we can't enforce that coaches going forward will actually follow concussion protocols. That is lacking and it's not happening even in Division One schools. Just like our colleague here said, the coaches, they want to win, so they will put the players back in without following the full concussion protocols.

And a lot of times the players want to play and they get marginalized by others on the team if they don't quickly get back in the game. So we saw that happening repeatedly.

Thank you. And then lastly, Mr. Haynes, thank you for participating. Know, growing up here, just down the road, my little brother and I watched a lot of football and he actually played high school and college football as well. My younger brother, when we were five, my mom went to the store and bought two pair of pajamas, and one was 49er pajamas and one was a Raider pajama, my little brother, liked the patch, so he became a Raider fan, and I became a Niner fan.

Literally, to this day, those are our teams. So he was a niner. I mean, a Raider fan. And so we remember watching you and you and Lester Hayes and the cornerbacks for the Raiders when we were a kid. So thank you for showing up today and for sharing your perspective. And a lot of former athletes just fade off in the sunset, so you're stepping in and trying to share perspective. I know a lot of your kind of fraternity of former football players have stepped up and said, one, I didn't play till I was 14.

Tom Brady's, That's a lot of guys. Mike Singletary, Walter Payton. The list goes on and on. But a lot of others have said that we should have this minimum age. I'm sure some other players have other opinions, too, but we hear you loud and clear. I want to ask you, in your opinion, the NFL, they have a checkered history on this and lawsuits and settlements, and they are doing more on the professional level.

That's me.

They are doing more, as we heard, these youth leagues they're doing right here in Sacramento, these youth flag football leagues. Why do you think they have not embraced what you're saying in that there should be a minimum age for tackle? Why isn't the NFL as an Association coming out with opinion on that?

I think they just have left it up to the know they're in business to grow the game. And I think that the way that they have chosen to grow the game is even with flag football, even encouraging women to play flag football, That's still growing the game. Maybe we're not getting young boys playing football, tackle football, but we're getting women into the sport. So that's my guess.

I don't really know that every single guy that played in the National Football League feels like me when I see a young boy, 10 years old, running over another boy who's nine or 10 years old and knocking snot out of him. I'm not the guy That's going to pick him up and say, Great hit. That's not me. Because at that age, I just want him to learn the game, learn the sport, learn the rules, learn the technique.

I don't want you to learn how to injure other guys. Now, I remember when I started playing, I had no idea that several years later I would feel different about different things. We had coaches that would say, somehow, some way, we got to get Kevin McCarty out of the game. You know what? You know, I don't even know if my mom heard that. She probably would never have let me play football.

And I realized later, like, jeez, I can't believe that I tried to hurt that guy. I don't need to hurt him to win the game. Why aren't we trying to hurt him? Why can't we change the way we play the game or think about the game? Why are people getting so excited that that guy got knocked out? I don't get that part. That's not super important in terms of learning the game or playing the game. And this game has gotten a lot better since I was a kid, and I think it's got some ways to go even today.

Thank you.

Again. Thank you. Is that a special ring that you have on your...

Yes, it's a hall of Fame ring.

Show it off.

All right, I'll show it off. Anybody wants to see it?

ohh, wow. Beautiful. Well, we can safely say that there are fans here, and sports brings out fans. And there's a lot of benefit to sports. I mean, it's not just the physical activity. It's all the things that happen on a team from being not only the physical part, but the mental part, building friendships, building discipline. All we have to do is look at John Wooden for his pyramid of success of everything that sports bring out from skill set to mindset.

And I think that everything that you have said, from the tragic story about your son to the positive of what can happen when kids get onto a field or an ayes rink or a pool, I, too have am really only here because of sports. I was a very poor swimmer, but I swam on a competitive team from the time I was really in junior high through high school and even a few years into college.

And all of those skill sets really are the only reason that I was able to go off to college. Unlike my siblings, first in my family to graduate. And so I have a strong mindset of how important sports are and even more in vulnerable communities. Because without that, we know that there's some really devastating aspects when we see youth that are not involved, that youth, so forth.

But with that, we know that as we age as a society, we learn more and more and we have to continue to take that new information in. So I thank you for coming, all of you, and we're going to go ahead and now open it up to the public. Thank you so much for being here. You really added again, we are so sorry for your loss. All right, so with that, we will be asking you to come to the microphone.

We'll take public testimony from those that are here and then we will go to our phone lines and please join us at the microphone and state your name and welcome.

Hi there. Can you hear me?

My name is Ali Kramer, and I'm standing here today to remember my late father, Bruce Kramer, and to ask the State of California to protect children from CTE by setting a minimum age for tackle football. My father was a football player who suffered from CTE due to the repetitive head impacts he experienced while playing the sport.

Yes.

He played for 15 years starting at the age of seven, and quickly excelled so much that when his family had to move towns prior to high school, the coach asked if he could stay behind and actually offer to find a family to house him. He didn't take that coach up on his offer, but he did go on to be an All American tight end and wide receiver. In high school, he received offers from nearly a dozen universities and made it to the Rose Bowl twice.

These are the stories we like to remember. But by high school, if he took a hit, he'd have a hard time recalling his plays during the game. This became such a common occurrence that his coach would let his dad into the locker room to help him after the games. By the time he got to college, he suffered headaches so severe during football that he would remain disoriented for days. In his 30s, he began having panic attacks.

Many people didn't realize what was happening to him until his 50s. We went from thinking he was depressed to assuming he had a very aggressive form of early Alzheimer's and later Parkinson's. He somehow made it to the age of 80. But that is the cruel reality. Many would have chosen death over what became of him when CTE took over his body.

I watched him shrivel up into a shell of himself for decades, losing his memory, his ability to speak, to do any of the things he loved, and becoming trapped in his body. When the Boston U researchers examined his brain, they found stage four CTE. In fact, the membrane that divides the two halves of your brain was entirely disintegrated. The researchers recalled that the trauma was so severe this is what they typically see in boxers. But my dad didn't even play in the NFL.

He played as a kid and as a young man. I came here today as the daughter of a football star. Every youth coach and parent in the room dreams that they'll have a player to grow up to have the career my dad did. And I'm here to tell you it's a fool's prize. It destroyed my father and my family bears the scars of him struggling and losing his fight to CTE.

I believe the state needs to protect our future generations and step in from them destroying their future through tackle football. That means setting a reasonable minimum age to play tackle football at least 14. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

My name is Dr. Lisa D'Angelo and I'm a Professor at Sacramento State and I'm also a speech language pathologist and have been for 35 years. I'm here actually today to represent the California Speech and Hearing, Speech, Language and Hearing Association, our task force on school age, concussion and brain injuries. I have been a researcher and I've assessed and treated children and adults and done research on TBI concussions for my entire career. I have also worked in hospitals. I currently also work for UCD Rehabilitation Hospital.

I work for Davis Joint Unified School District and I teach full time in my spare time. I have been able to see this from the very beginning with young children all the way through adulthood.

I just wanted to make sure that it was very clear, although I think it was very clear with a lot of our presenters today, that concussions are a brain injury, and brain injuries interrupt brain development, and brain injury interrupting development actually can have long term consequences in social skills, communication, learning and memory, and adult success. We know these things and we are aware of this. And we also have policies that are maybe there but not totally followed people parents.

I was a parent of my three boys as well, signed the protocols, went to the education. But people don't really understand what they're looking for. They may not understand the short term and the long term consequences. And unfortunately, a lot of primary care physicians, pediatricians, ER doctors, are not even aware of the actual long term potential consequences. So children are sent back to play, or young people are sent back to play, maybe before their brains have healed.

We know about Second Impact Syndrome, which is if you haven't healed from the first concussion and you have another concussion before you're healed, that can actually result in death, brain bleeding or long term cognitive dysfunction. We do know that concussions, even though they used to be called getting your bell rung, are a bigger thing than getting your bell rung. It can have long term impact and there's a lot of studies out there.

I'm going to be submitting a letter that will include some of the information that we've gathered. We would love to share our perspective on this further and we'd love to be part of the ongoing discussion and how to address this. And we support AB 734 for creating a minimum age for tackle football because there's no reason to continue to allow this ongoing damage that potentially affects developing brains. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm really short, sorry. Hi, my name is Nicole Young and I'm not an expert on anything. I don't have any fancy credentials behind my name, but I am a mom, and I'm a mom of five sons, and I have been in this building maybe 200 times since 2020. And what I've watched Cal Leg do is we've allowed the Legislature to build an altar out of safety. And we did it when the schools were closed and we greatly harmed our youth.

And I heard somebody speak about childhood obesity, and the rates are climbing. And what I've also seen as being in this building is bills are incremental. And I quickly learned what that meant is you build on these bills. So we set a minimum age for tackle football, and then what other sport are we going to set a minimum age on, and then what other sport are we going to move on to eliminate?

And living in the State of California and watching the way Cal Leg operates, my fear is that we will end up sacrificing our children on this altar of safety. And I believe what this Bill is intending to do is give parents informed consent. And I am in full favor of informed consent. I am not in full favor of Cal Leg legislating away parental choice in any matters. And we keep hearing children cannot consent.

I find that really curious when I've watched a lot of bills pass through this Legislature giving children exactly that consent. So I believe while this Bill has a lot of really good points, I would like to maintain focus on mostly informed consent. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Hello, ma'am. Thank you for allowing me to stand here in this place and have my say. Excuse me. I am Sam Robinson. I'm currently the President of the Southern Marin Broncos, which is a youth tackle football Association in Marin County. My predecessor, Joe Rafter, was on the Save California Youth Football Commission. And I'll tell you, my Association has really spearheaded or we've done what AB 1 was intended to do even before AB 1 was a thing, right.

In terms of making sure that we had someone who wasn't a coach or someone who was not involved with our staff to make sure that they were the second eyes on the field behind our coaching staff to take care of our kids. As an Association ourselves, we baseline testimony for we have our kids get out there to make sure that there's this place to go back to if there is a concussion. Right? And from my experience, I've had three boys.

I have three boys who always played youth tackle football. One's 20. I have a 15 year old That's playing in high school now, and my nine year old just started. And I'll tell you, I have one son who had a concussion, but it wasn't on the football field. It was while he was playing basketball, right on that nonviolent sport on the football field. Especially young guys, young kids, they have this equipment, they have this helmet, they have these pads.

They have these things that are designed to protect them. And every weekend when I'm out there, it works. It works. And AB 1 and the practices in place to make sure that kids are safe, it works. And so setting a limit beyond.

What we have today definitely opposed to that. I think it's important to make sure you have kids that are out there who have an opportunity to meet new people and to just grow these relationships beyond their current circles and communities. Please, I beg you, I implore you. You consider the kids. There are many things to consider. I understand. But AB 1 has done a lot to make sure that youth kept tackle football is safe. And so thank you for that. Thank you for the time.

Thank you. All right. See nobody else coming up from the audience. We're going to go ahead and move to the public comment on call list. We are going to keep it to 1 minute and under as far as people coming in or calling in. Let's see Madam Secretary on the phone lines. Let's go ahead and open up the phone lines you for public comment, you may press one, then zero. We will go to line 17. Your line is open.

Hi. Good afternoon. Let me get this straight. Legislators want to regulate tackle football to try to even it out or make it illegal. Why just tackle football? Why aren't you targeting basketball? Basketball has 170,000 children ages five to 14 that have been treated in hospitals for basketball related injuries. What about basketball and softball? What about soccer? Soccer's got 80,000 children that get injured every year. Bicycling. 200,000 children get injured with bicycling. Ayes Hockey. Let's bring up Ayes Hockey.

20,000 children ages five and 14 retreated in hospital emergencies for these injuries. Karate. MMA. Gosh. There's like 6.5 million children that participate in karate. zero, did you also know inline roller skating 47,000 there parents, just like coaches, know the risk of sports as well as students. They sign waivers. They know the risk. And there are many safety regulations put in place to already protect kids in this sport. You will not interrupt me. I appreciate the testimony of former hall of Famer player. However, you were given the opportunity to learn and play tackle football and you participated.

5 seconds, please.

Sure. I would just like to end this with this, that youth are not allowed to make dangerous medical decisions or irreversible surgeries and are harmful medications. If they're allowed to do that, then why can't they make their own decisions if they want to play tackle football? Thank you.

Thank you. Next. Thank you. We'll go to line 31.

Hello. Am I on?

Yes, go ahead.

Yes, ma'am. My name is Bruce. I am a researcher and author on subconcustive trauma as a result of my son's death by suicide at 17. He was a football player, wrestler, and a snowboarder. This is not a CTE issue. This is about child's brain health and overall damage to their brains. The only one they have. And it's overall good public policy. We cannot make football safe. The reason is we cannot take subconcussive trauma out of the game. Helmets do not stop subconcussive trauma.

You watch a car crash video. What happens when the car stops? The bodies keep going forward. Same thing with a child's brain. We're talking about a vulnerable and critical organ with hundreds of thousands of miles of Myelin, billions of neuronal connections in a fragile state that cannot be messed with while it's developing. That's why 14 is a great age to start.

Why from 11 to 13, it goes through a critical development path called synaptogenesis, where neurons blast all over the place in preparation for puberty number two. The prefrontal cortex doesn't even start developing till 14 is responsible for everybody. What we're doing on this call, our impulsivity, our interactions, our sociological compulsions, everything, you cannot function without it. If it doesn't start developing till 14 and we completely pound it or repetitively hit it, our child is going to be cognitively and psychologically damaged.

Finally, we funded a study at Boston University. We looked at every brain under 3100 percent of those brains, whether they had CTE or no CTE like my son, 100% of them had structural deformities of the gray and white matter associated with repeated head injuries.

Thank you, sir.

Those brains were associated

Thank you. We need to wind up thank you so much. Next.

No problem.

Next, we'll go to line 16, please. Go ahead.

Yeah. My name is Meryl Hodge. I played 22 years of football total nearly a decade in the National Football League for the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers. My career ended because of improper care of head trauma. I've coached every level of football, but 818 is my passion. I spent 20 years there. I gave the heads up football principles to USA Football football that became the national model.

I've also helped the California group to build the AB One program that actually is the best in the country. When I heard the Build A Band tackle football at age 14, I knew where there are three things they knew nothing about. One is youth football. Two is human development. And three is brain development. Our brain is not fully developed till age 25. And the most critical part of our development actually starts from age 14 to 19.

And that is the Amygdala Area responsible for things like emotions. Something else magically happens around 14 to happen to us all. You hit puberty. Something that doesn't happen between 711, you go from 105 to 160. That is when impacts actually are severe, more severe. So why would it be okay to play football at age 14 if the science were true? What's not?

Yeah, we need to wrap up.

When I get done with this. There is no science to support banning football. The new research looked at all the research done and the risk of brain health at football, and there is not one paper that supports any need for public policies to make interventions thank you, sir. On any court level.

Thank you, sir, you next. Speakers, remember, we have 1 minute. We're trying to keep it to that, please. Thank you. Next.

Next we'll go on to line 28. Please go ahead.

Thank you. As somebody who watches the Assembly as much as a football fan watches the NFL, when one of the witnesses made the comment that if Kevin McCarty got knocked out, nobody would be cheering, I have to disagree with that. But all seriousness aside, I do appreciate this hearing today and I think all the testimony speaks on its own.

But I do also want to thank the Chairman for bringing up the fact that her swimming is what got her far along to the point where she's in the Assembly now, if I got that correctly. And I think it's important to realize that although it's the movement of the Assembly to allow transgender people into sports, opposite sex sports, what their natal sex is, there is damage that happens to women when biological men are allowed to okay, we're going to speak to the comments.

10 seconds, please.

That's it.

Thank you.

Just take that to what I said in consideration. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 32, please. Go ahead.

Hi, I'm Tiffany Jill Arrington from Los Angeles, California. I'm a former national TV sportscaster covering college NFL football and the daughter of a victim of CTE. My father, Rick Arrington, died two years ago with stage four CTE after having played tackle football for 20 years from age six to 26. Going on to play five years in the NFL as a quarterback, he had zero diagnosed concussions.

Yet the invisible brain injuries from football ended his life at age 74 after CTE severely affected the quality of his entire adulthood. This progressive disease affects not just the victim struggling with unbearable sleeplessness and both control mood and memory. It affects careers and relationships, robbing my hero from having the full positive impact he could have had in life. With CTE risk increasing 30% each year you play, get rid of nine years of contact risk through flag football, keeping the benefits of football without the brain damage.

Why are we risking generations of destruction to young athletes, more devastation to families waiting on more deaths to get more CTE research? Thank you. We have over a thousand brains thank you, ma'am. Showing repetitive hits of the head. Let's alter the safety.

So go to line six, please. Go ahead.

Hi. Thank you. My name is Tom Dever, and I am in support of an age restriction for tackle football. My son Taylor played football until he passed away in December of 2020. He played for Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley. He continued his career with a full athletic scholarship to the University of Notre Dame, was a team captain his senior year while earning his bachelor's degree in marketing. In his mid 20s, he began to struggle with various mental health issues.

The same symptoms very common with a traumatic brain injury. This continued and intensified until a day in early December 2020 he passed away from an accidental drug interaction. His diagnosis provided explanation for his rapid decline and changes in his behavior. It also has created a passion for me to help increase the awareness, make changes and help find a cure for this disease.

I share this story because I do not want anyone, a parent, a sibling, a spouse or a friend to go through what my family and I have went through. I know it's a cliche statement, but it's true. There's another cliche question I get frequently. If you were to do it all over again, would you do anything different every day? I wish I had that opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you so much, sir. Next.

We go to line eight, please go ahead.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes, we could hear you. Might need to call back. Next.

Are you there?

Yes.

Okay. I'm sorry. So yes, my name is Darren Stahl and I've been a youth coach for over 20 years, both at the high school tackle football level at least with 10 years experience and about eight years of actual youth fight football coaching experience as well. I am attesting as far as my experience with youth football as a tackle football coach at both the youth and the high school level. Head injuries definitely is a concern in my experience as a coach.

In my 10 years I would average maybe one player a year that would go out with a concussion. In my time of flag football coach, I would average at least two players a year going out with concussions on a 12 player roster versus a high school team roster of 35 to 40 players. It is a concern, but to arbitrarily legislate an item that is a parental consent is definitely something that I feel should be left in the hands of the parents. And I thank you for having this hearing and I would hope that this legislation would not move forward as it has the capability to disable parental rights in this particular state. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Next.

We go to line 33. Please go ahead.

Yes. My name is Quentin Huff. I'm the Director of operations for AAU Youth Football program here in Southern California. We service over 2000 children football and over 2000 children in cheerleading. I'm opposed to the Bill of setting an age limit on youth tackle sports being that the benefits outweigh the current risks that have been scientifically proven. A lot of what is being said is opinionated. I know the benefits of youth football sports and to put an age limit on it, I don't agree with.

We have established the AB 1 which our conference follows and has been implementing the information since it's been passed. There's very little regulation with that Bill itself which is intended for the safety of our youth players. So we have already established that there is a need for the safety of our athletes with AB 1. We have that in place, like you said, one of the strictest in the country, and yet continue to try to fight.

Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Next, we go to line 19. Please go ahead.

I'm John Sadler, President of Sadler Sports Insurance, and my insurance agency is one of the largest writers of youth tackle football teams in the US. And in California. We insure over 11,000 youth teams annually. I wholeheartedly support AB 1, and I believe that it's more than sufficient to mitigate the concussion risk in youth tackle football. Despite what you might hear in the media, insurance coverage for youth tackle football is readily available.

The insurance carriers no longer perceive the concussion risk as an existential threat, as they have successfully defended all the class action lawsuits. And concussions are now on the back burner, and sex abuse has moved to the front burner at Sadler, we tracked all claims for our youth football clients since 2004, including concussions. My clients have not had any significant injuries or lawsuits arising from concussions.

We do have more accident claims filed for concussions starting around 2010, but That's only because the educational initiatives have been so successful and parents are now seeking medical treatment when they did not do so in the past. And we've developed our own concussion risk management plan for our insurance, and it is actually a good bit less stringent than AB 1, but it has worked well. Once again, I support you, sir. AB 1is being more than reasonable. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we go to line nine. Please go ahead.

Hello. My name is Hector Christie. I'm a youth football head coach in the Monterey County, which is Central Coast, California. Just in my experience so far, and 15 years in law enforcement. I mean, just in law enforcement alone. Things are changing over time, you guys see in the media. So we're gradually, every year, something new is coming out in training, and we also, in football, follow USA Football protocols and abide by AB 1. I think it'd be beneficial if we just add more training annually.

Not just the same repetitive stuff, but more stuff and come to a common ground on both sides. On top of AB 1, maybe a compliance officer that can check in and make sure tackling approved drills, tackling General information approved That's updated annually, not just once every five years. And again, I hope we can come to common ground to continue youth football. It is a big impact in my area. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

We go to line 14. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Samantha Pyle. Bueno, and both my uncle and father played in the NFL. They both spent the end of their lives living in memory care facilities, and ultimately both received stage four CTE diagnoses postmortem they played when little was known about CTE and what the consequences would be for the thousands of head impacts they endured playing tackle football year after year. Unfortunately though, I know exactly what those brain injuries cost our family. It cost us them.

I know that their CTE was caused by all of those years of head impacts and not concussions. And I know as a mother, I would never let my two sons play tackle football before the age of 14. I believe it is time to protect the children whose parents don't know before they are in the shoes of the families that you have heard from today. Everyone needs to know the danger of every single impact to the brain and take action to save the brains of our children.

Subtracting a few years worth of violent hits to the heads may not have saved my uncle and father from developing CTE. However, for the vast majority of young men whose careers end after high school or college, waiting to play tackle football just may save their lives. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Moderator can we get a list of how many more speakers we have? And then next.

We only have one other in the queue, so our last question will be number 38. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dana Marquez. I'm the Associate Athletic Director of Auburn University, also the former Director of Equipment Operations at Cal Berkeley and the founder of Helmafitting.com, which is an educational based website for parents, coaches at the youth and high school level to make sure that they're following manufacturer guidelines on how to properly fit equipment. I've heard a lot of issues about concussion CTE thank you.

Being proactive in the response of learning what these manufacturers have done for the history of football and just the manufacturing enhancements of the helmet, but not understanding the education of what it takes to actually fit maintain that helmet will go a long way in the discussion of what you guys are speaking about today. So HelmetFitting.com is also the only company out there that handles all manufacturers, unlike USA Football, which is really solely just with Rydell. So I would take the time, learn how to properly fit the equipment, understand what it does and best have that type of educational need with ad one. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. That is our last comment for this hearing and it looks like we have gone for almost 3 hours. Obviously a very robust topic with many things to consider. As the chair of this Committee, we are committing to make sure that the Committee Members not only receive the full book of information, but a CD of this hearing as we will continue this discussion when we head back to session in January. Would you like to make any closing comments?

Yeah, I just wanted to thank the participants who were here today and you all care about California, our kids, our youth, even if we have sometimes opinions, different perspectives. Thank you for your participation, but I really wanted to thank you. Most importantly, Madam Chair, you're spot on that too many times we have hearings. You have two witnesses, two minutes. You don't really get to dig into a topic.

And this is one that I'm not sure if you're able to really focus on in a hearing when you have 10 or 15 bills and you were just going back and forth. So you promised us the opportunity, not me per se, but the Legislature, to really dig into this. And with the video that we'll send to our Members and a few of them told me they're going to watch it, they couldn't make it today.

And with the background materials, I think you give us a lot of food for thought and weighing into this issue and it's a public policy issue that has an impact for kids in the health and safety of California. So today was a good opportunity to dig into this. And I wanted to thank you. Assembly Member.

Thank you. And again, I'll just finish by saying I certainly learned some information from both sides that I didn't have at my fingertips. And I think that is one of the points of these hearings is to learn something and to make better informed decisions. There's certainly, as we move forward, need to balance parents choice and rights with information. And I think that this hearing definitely gives me more of that information.

As we head into January, as some of you know, as we head into January new session, there will be a new leadership in different committees. I really can't state exactly how that will look and who will continue to be on this Committee. But whoever does follow, we will make sure they have this information, the contact, so that as we move forward. But again, for those of you who have stayed with us the entire close to 3 hours, we appreciate that.

We also know some of you traveled and we appreciate that. And those of you who are listening or called in, we take your testimony seriously. Again, thank you. And thank you to all. We will conclude.