September 2, 2014
Mr. George Jepsen
Child Advocate
999 Asylum Avenue, 1st Floor
Hartford, CT 06105
Dear Ms Eagan:
Connecticut football coaches teach hard and clean football. They don’t want anyone injured and they do all that they can to protect players. But football is a collision sport, and collisions are inherently dangerous. Blocking and tackling cause injuries, and teaching kids to act in ways that cause injuries is illegal.
Injuries are common occurrences, but in non-collision sports, such as baseball, track, and tennis, injuries are always caused by accident or foul. In collision sports, such as football, boxing, and hockey, injuries are often caused by properly playing the game. Despite the benevolent motives of collision coaches, teaching kids to collide qualifies as abuse and risk of injury to minors.
According to DCF, “abuse is a non-accidental injury to a child which, regardless of motive, is inflicted or allowed to be inflicted by the person responsible for the child’s care.” According to CGS 53-21, “any person who (1) willfully . . . causes or permits any child under the age of sixteen years to be placed in such a situation that the life or limb of such child is endangered . . . shall be guilty of a class C felony.”
Please enforce these laws to protect children from collision sports, or explain why you refuse to do so.
Sincerely,
Doug Dix, Ph.D.,
Professor, and
Secretary/Treasurer, MOMS: The Fund for Mothers with Young Children
Dix@hartford.edu
860 768-4261
Copies to Joette Katz Commissioner, Department of Children and Families, 505 Hudson St., Hartford, CT 06106
and Sarah Eagan, JD, Child Advocate, 999 Asylum Ave, 1st Floor, Hartford, CT 06105
Reply to Dix@hartford.edu