Bruce Bertram, 7, who performs tackle football for the Union Mine Junior Rattlers appears to be like up at his mom, Ashley Bertram, as she speaks towards a proposed California invoice that may ban kids under 12 from taking part in tackle football, throughout a legislative committee listening to in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers who need to ban tackle football for kids under 12 to scale back mind accidents gained floor Wednesday within the Legislature however nonetheless face a really lengthy area and a clock that’s ticking.

Though it was a college day, dozens of youngsters sporting football jerseys and their mother and father crowded into the listening to room and watched because the Assembly committee that regulates sports activities voted 5-2 to ship the invoice to the complete chamber.

The full Assembly has solely till the top of January to approve it. If they do, it goes to the Senate after which Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Heightened concern over concussions and the rising reputation of flag football are driving the trouble to impose the ban, which opponents say would take away the flexibility for mother and father to determine their kids’s actions, put California youth gamers behind these in different states and lower off some kids from a supply of train and an necessary after-school exercise.

But advocates say the invoice will shield kids from the chance of mind injury, which research have proven will increase the longer an individual performs tackle football. And they word kids can nonetheless benefit from the sport by way of flag football, which is rising in popularity and even has help from the NFL.

No state has banned tackle football for kids regardless of some makes an attempt. State Assemblymember Kevin McCarty launched an identical invoice in 2018 that failed to move. Other proposals in New York and Illinois additionally failed to move.

The debate comes as participation in highschool tackle football has been declining in California. Participation dropped greater than 18% from 2015 to 2022, falling from a excessive of 103,725 gamers to 84,626 gamers, in accordance to the California Interscholastic Federation’s participation survey. Participation then elevated by 5% in 2023, up to 89,178 gamers.

“Football and organizational sports in general are clearly proven ways to keep kids out of trouble,” stated Assemblymember Mike Gipson, chair of the state meeting’s committee accountable for regulating sports activities in California. “This bill is not taking away that ability, it is simply saying that we’re going to move from tackle football to flag football and we can still have the same learning experiences.”

McCarty instructed the committee that, if authorised, the measure would set guidelines to shield the brains of the youngest kids and be part of measures that already regulate different contact sports activities within the state.

“Just like we have (rules) for soccer that you can’t head before a certain age in California, and in hockey that you can’t check before a certain age, (the bill) says to our youngest kids, ‘you can play flag football under 12 and over 12 you start having contact.’”

If handed, the ban could be progressively phased in, prohibiting kids under 6 beginning in 2025, under 10 in 2027 and people under 12 in 2029. That provision wasn’t a part of final yr’s invoice and was added Wednesday, maybe making the invoice extra palatable to some lawmakers.

Flag football has been gaining reputation nationwide, particularly for women. The sport has supplied scholarship alternatives for feminine gamers, with round two dozen NAIA faculties fielding ladies’s groups in 2023 and extra faculties planning to take part upcoming seasons.

The NFL has promoted flag football, serving to it to turn into an Olympic sport that will likely be included within the LA Games in 2028. The league has arrange camps, clinics, a circuit and even exhibitions by way of its NFL FLAG program, which serves kids between the ages of 4 and 17.

According to analysis by USA Football, greater than 1 million kids between the ages of 6 and 12 performed the game in 2022.

Research has proven tackle football causes mind injury, and the chance will increase the longer individuals play football, stated Chris Nowinski, CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and former Harvard football participant and WWE skilled wrestler. It may cause persistent traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which kills nerve cells within the mind.

“I don’t have a problem with NFL players, who are adults and understand the risk and are compensated, risking CTE,” Nowinski stated. “I can’t imagine a world in which we have children, who don’t understand the risk, doing this for fun (and) taking the same risk with their brain.”

California legislation already bans full-contact practices for highschool and youth football groups in the course of the offseason and limits them to two practices per week in the course of the preseason and common season. A legislation that took impact in 2021 additionally requires youth football officers to full concussion and head harm training as well as to different safeguards.

Ron White, president of the California Youth Football Alliance, stated the measure is misguided and discriminatory as a result of if handed, it should enormously impression underserved communities. White additionally stated the science on CTE is consistently evolving.

“There is not medical consensus in this area, far from it,” White stated. “So, when you’re informing public policy, we believe that the (legislative) body should really take that into consideration and know there’s competing science and work with the people, not against them.”

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Rodriguez reported from San Francisco. Associated Press sports activities author Pat Graham in Denver and Associated Press reporter Terry Chea in Sacramento contributed to this report.