President Obama: I wouldn't let my son play pro football

[JonLP24]

(Don't know if this is old. Did a Google DU search and got results from 2013)

President Obama doesn't have a son, but if he did, he wouldn't let him play pro football. The president disclosed that fact in the latest issue of the New Yorker, where he also compared playing football to smoking.

"I would not let my son play pro football," Obama said. It's important to point out that Obama said pro football, meaning there's a chance he'd let his son play Pop Warner football. Before the Super Bowl last year, Obama said that he'd think about letting his son play football.

"I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you, if I had a son, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football," the president said in the days leading up to last year's Super Bowl.

The topic of Obama's son playing football came up in the New Yorker interview when he was asked if he had any mixed feelings about being a fan of the NFL given all of the research that's linked playing football with concussions, early onset dementia and degenerative brain disease.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24414125/president-obama-i-wouldnt-let-my-son-play-pro-football

[polichick]

1. I wouldn't either - didn't actually. lol

[Adrahil]

2. I sure wouldn't.... it's a brutal sport, and very tough on the human body. nt

[aristocles]

3. I didn't

Both of my sons played one season of peewee football at ten years of age. Both hated it. I didn't like the parents, both the organizers and the spectators...they were thuggish buffoons.

My sons moved to baseball, and played through travel teams and high school. Better coaches, better parents.

[JonLP24]

5. Seems to be the same way with me

I didn't make the baseball team, I switched from JV football to the fall baseball thingy which was just a semester long tryout. It was scheduled for last period which baseball was one of the options. I quit JV because of the coaches sucking the fun out of it. I tried for outfield and our outfield coach was someone that came from Arizona State and gave a lot of helpful tips. One thing he'd often say is "you're an athlete" until you catch the ball, same goes for a wide receiver. I could play outfield as well as anyone but I couldn't hit at all. But I enjoyed the experience.

The Varsity football coach was also the driver's ed teacher, I liked him a lot but too bad I couldn't stick w/ football long enough to play for him.

[frazzled]

4. You missed the second half of the thought, though

He said that, although he would not let a son of his play it, people who did it professionally knew what they were getting into (like smokers do).

I kind of like that he let's the addict (football and nicotine) talk.

[Lugnut]

6. I heard Brett Favre say the same thing.

My son went to one practice and quit in junior high. He said it was for self-preservation reasons.

[cthulu2016]

7. How would he "not let" his adult son play football?

(Everyone in the pros is an adult)

[JonLP24]

8. I thought the same thing

but figured I got what he was trying to say.

[Wait Wut]

9. He probably meant to say 'football'...

...and not specify 'pro'. Chances are, if your kid isn't playing football in high school or college, he is not getting into the NFL.

[bluestateguy]

10. When he's 18 you can't really stop him

I'm all for parental discipline, but geesh.

Although, you likely won't be playing in the pros if your old man didn't let you play in high school, which you need for a college recrutiment, which you need to get to the NFL.

[Brickbat]

11. Would he let his daughters play?

(My daughter plays football.)

[adirondacker]

12. One benefit of growing up in a poor school district is they could not afford football equipment.

Soccer was the sport of the season. Cheaper, and better for ya.

[JonLP24]

13. Certainly feels like you get more of a workout

Football was so much fun to me that I never got tired but soccer was very exhausting. Full court basketball is exhausting unless you have regular breaks but soccer wore me out. I think it was because we played disorganized though, we didn't have defenders hanging back - defenders became attackers.