Helmet Safety Quotes

He [Gerald R. Ford] played too much football with his helmet off.

Unfortunately, many parents reject helmets for their kids out of a mistaken perception that helmets are unsafe for children.

They're on the right road, but there's a long way to go on concussions, not only in the NFL, but college football, high school football and all football.

It's not an exercise on how to avoid getting hit. I think there are certain safety measures that take care of the mental part of it, with players not looking to hit somebody in the head. They've done that. But let's not take the entertainment value out of football.

The helmet has a special meaning for many drivers. How important is it to you? - It protects my head.

I mean, football is a violent sport.

I completely fell in love with riding horses. I really didn't want to wear a helmet when I would go off with the trainer on weekends, galloping through forests and stuff. But thank God he made me, because one time, I was going under a tree and my helmet hit a branch. It literally would have taken my head off.

Concussions happen. If not on every play, then they happen like every other, every third play, you know.

[Referring to Jack Kemp:] … a football player who has played too much without his helmet.

Concussions are still kind of a mysterious thing.

I'd go to clinics and hear coaches say, 'You block with your helmet. You tackle with your helmet.' I'd say, 'No way! You block with your shoulder. It's a lot stronger blow, and you don't risk nearly as much. Why be stupid?'

Head and neck injuries are what parents thinking about letting their children play tackle football should be thinking about, talking about, and demanding answers about, from any coach presenting himself as a worthy custodian for their child's introduction to tackle football.

Each year, you've got to talk about it more and more, you've got to have programs. You're doing these camps, you've got to talk about concussion awareness.

You have to think about ways of improving the helmet all the time, balancing protection with being able to move and see the ball.

When I let my hair down, I just let it down. It's more comfortable in my helmet.

I've had knee trouble, and I worry about my shoulder, but I think my weakest link is my head. A helmet can only do so much, and I have seen the effects of brain injuries. That is a big fear. I think everyone's weakest link is their brain because it's their most fragile link.

Scarily, football helmets, which do a fine job of protecting against scalp laceration and skull fracture, do little to prevent concussions and may even exacerbate them, since even as the brain is rattling around inside the skull, the head is rattling around inside the helmet.

I would advise kids not to play any sports, such as tackle football, where they are exposed to repeated blows to the head.

I wouldn't let my children play football.

If you get into a fight, don't take your helmet off. We're looking for smart football players, not dumb ones.

The NFL today has bigger, stronger, bodies than ever, moving faster than ever, hitting a stationary object harder than ever before - so the physics of the hit have changed.

While the U.S. government is unlikely to ever limit the number of football games, plenty of parents are refusing to let their children play the sport due to the risk of head injuries.

But now there are more concussions due to not being used to the hard hitting.

Boxing is a great example of it, but in football, sometimes you're taking greater hits than boxers. When you have one man going full speed against another man, and those heads are colliding, it's just the fact of science you're going to have results.

Football has always been violent. In the early days of the game, they didn't wear hard helmets. They wore soft helmets, which were just designed to protect the ears. In the '40s and '50s they began to introduce hard helmets, which provided much more protection against things like skull fractures.