THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508200189
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Soccer, as any mom and dad of a young player will tell you, is supposed to be the safe sport, a sane alternative to football for boys, a low-risk, healthful activity for girls.
This deeply ingrained perception explains, in part, the brouhaha over recent research suggesting that frequent heading of the ball lowers IQ.
As a result of the study conducted by the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, some parents may begin losing their heads over the prospect of the soccer ball coming into hard contact with their son's or daughter's cabeza.
Sports isn't brain surgery, huh? Well, maybe you'd better think about that again.
In a study of 60 soccer players, 18 to 29 years old, those who headed the ball 10 times or more a game had slightly lower IQ scores (an average of 103), than those who headed less often (112).
Says one soccer parent in my household: ``Before this research, you could say I sounded like an overprotective mother. But now ... ''
Now, even Old Dominion men's soccer coach Ralph Perez finds the study intriguing.
``I'm not a scientist,'' he says, ``but it does have a little bit of logic to it.
``If I'm someone who has a child playing,'' he added, ``I think, `Oh my gosh, maybe I shouldn't let him play.' ''
Shawn McDonald, general manager of the Hampton Roads Mariners, a team in the professional United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues, looks at the data differently.
``Probably those players who headed the ball less often,'' he said with a wink, ``were more intelligent to begin with.''
Maybe so. At the advanced levels of the game, players use their noodles to redirect kicks that travel 60 and 70 yards in the air, descending from great heights.
``If you don't head it correctly,'' says Rick Miller, operations manager for the Mariners, ``it might ring your bell.''
The safest way to head the ball is with the forehead. Letting the ball hit other parts of the noggin could leave a young player with a headache, if not reduced SAT scores.
But in an effort to head off wholesale panic among parents, not to mention an outcry for the abolition of heading, let's be clear about one thing: Young players rarely, if ever, have an opportunity or a desire to head the ball. At the grass-roots level the ball remains, well, at the grass-roots level.
McDonald, who has coached youth teams, says, ``I spend very little time on heading at the younger ages. The ball is played on the ground almost all the time.''
Even among teenagers and college undergrads, it's rare for most players to head the ball more than three or four times a game.
From a purely artistic point of view, these head games can be very impressive. Perhaps the most striking element of soccer is that players get to use their heads for something other than hat racks.
Even so, McDonald acknowledges that headers are ``often not crucial to the game.''
Says Perez: ``There's so much more in soccer to master. Heading is just a small facet. You can still be a good player without being a good header of the ball.''
In a funny way, though, the research from Richmond may enhance the image of soccer. Not for parents. But among the average sports fan who underestimates the ruggedness needed to play the game at its higher levels.
In football, our most macho team sport, players show off X-rays as proof of the bone and cartilage they've donate to their game.
But now thanks to the work of the neuropsychologists, we have learned that experienced soccer players might be sacrificing IQ points for the good of the team.
Broken bones vs. lost brain cells.
So, which is the tougher sport? by CNB