“No Holds Barred” podcast: Ken Reed of League of Fans on Concussions and Sports
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No Holds Barred: Ken Reed of League of Fans on Concussions and Sports
From the Intro:
On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman spoke with Ken Reed, the sports policy director for the League of Fans.
League of Fans is a sports reform project started by activist Ralph Nader.
Ken Reed is also the author of the book “How We Can Save Sports.”
We spoke with him by phone Thursday.
League of Fans, he explained, is “an effort to look at contemporary sports issues.” It is “kind of a sports policy think tank. We look at sports issues from youth sports to concussions to financing of professional stadiums, etc.” They seek to “look at ways that we can enhance the positive and mitigate the negative. It’s certainly not anti-sports.”
Sports are hampered by “ego and greed and ‘profit at all cost’, ‘win at all cost’, and those types of issues. So those are the kind of things we try to focus on and limit those factors as much as possible.”
We focused a lot on the issues of concussions, head trauma, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). These are major problems which have not only endangered the future of sports like NFL football, but, he said, must be considered when deciding whether or not to participate in sports like youth football, both by parents and their children.
We also discussed how we expect the popularity of American football to decline over the next several decades because of these problems, how some sports without intentional head blows need to be modified to minimize the danger of head trauma, what we can do to fight for safe youth sports, and much more.
In addition, we open with a brief summary of some of the major issues about sports corruption which have been covered on No Holds Barred since this show started almost ten years ago, in March 2006.
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
Follow on Facebook: @SportsForumPodcast
More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books