Free Talk Live

A retired physician is leading a push to ban football at a high school in Dover, New Hampshire. Dr. Paul Butler is on the school board and says the sport puts players at risk of brain damage later in life. Dover High's athletic director points out that the school is part of a concussion prevention program. The school board chair and vice-chair say they will not support the proposed football ban.

A Massachusetts high school lost a state championship game because a player raised his arm in triumph as he ran for what would have been a go-ahead touchdown.
The penalty for the gesture by Cathedral High School quarterback Matthew Owens in Saturday's Division 4A Super Bowl left the losing team Tuesday waiting for word from the state association on whether the school could challenge the referee's decision.

Blue Hills Regional Technical School won the game 16-14. That school's athletic director, Ed Catabia, told The Boston Globe that the referee made "a great call, the right call."

Eric Dompierre loves sports, especially basketball. Eric never let his Down Syndrome stop him from playing but now he may have to cheer on his team from the bleachers. Its a battle between Eric's family and the Michigan High School Athletic Association with the latter claiming that because he's 19 years old, Eric isn't allowed to play in his senior year of high school.

Ah, government--established to protect your children, unless that means protecting your children from being raped by football players. In one small town in Texas (where high school football is king), a young lady finds herself ejected from the cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer, by name, the player who was convicted of raping her.

A mother and her daughter seek to reverse legislation from 1979 and ban boys from playing on female competitive sports teams. The daughter suffered a concussion after colliding with a boy during a field hockey game. Though I can see why the mother would be concerned, I am unable to support new legislation that would allow a girl to play on a high school football team but not allow a boy to play on high school field hockey team.

Beef jerky, Rice Krispie treats and four varieties of Mazzio's pizza are a few of the à la carte choices in the lunchroom at Jenks High School outside Tulsa, Okla., where football is king and the players have royal appetites. But those items, plus the one-pint cartons of whole chocolate milk beloved by many players — average weight on the offensive line is 250 lb. — could be gone now that the federal government has issued new restrictions on fat and sodium offered during the school day.

Republicans enthused by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's recent tough talk on wolves are getting closer to using an ancient "nullification" doctrine to disregard the federal law protecting endangered and threatened species — a plan the governor quickly dismissed as "off base."

Saturday night, a certified TSA official will be at the Santa Fe High School prom to oversee student searches.

Can you say "camels nose under the tent?"

Ah, Red Dawn. It's easy to make fun of a movie about a high school football team led by Patrick Swayze single-handedly defeating the Soviet army. And we have done just that in the past. But what looks ridiculous in 2010 looked like prophecy to millions of teenagers in 1984.