Warren Sapp's advice to kids from NFL's CTE Summit? No tackle football until age 14

Hall of Fame defensive tackle Warren Sapp, who stood 6-2 and weighed more than 300 pounds in his playing days, remains hard to miss at age 53 – large, gregarious and with a distinctive mohawk strip of hair atop his head. 

People in Sapp's native Florida often beckon him to watch youth football, figuring his longtime attachment to the game extends to seeing pre-teens in pads. His blunt response: Never. 

"South Florida is bad – it's like a religion," Sapp said. "They smash into each other. … I won't watch until they're (age) 14. I won't watch 8-9-10 year olds hit each other like that."

Sapp told this story Monday at the inaugural Global CTE Summit in San Francisco, not coincidentally held at the start of Super Bowl week. The Concussion & CTE Foundation hosted the event, in collaboration with UCSF's Memory and Aging Center and the Boston University CTE Center. 

The summit convened leading scientists and public health officials for a day-long discussion about the risks and research of repetitive head trauma. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a progressive, degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head and found posthumously in many former NFL players. 

Several speakers, while touting progress in CTE research, acknowledged much remains unknown about the disease. CTE can only be diagnosed after death, despite increasing efforts to conclusively identify the disease in living people. 

"I think we're quite far off," said Dr. Nicholas Ashton, senior director of the Banner Research fluid biomarker program. "But I think we have the tools to go at this a little harder."

Monday's event included an initiative announced by Dr. Adam White, head of brain health for the Professional Footballers' Association of England (i.e. soccer to Americans). White's group is introducing CTE prevention protocol, to educate pro soccer players and reduce the amount of "heading" in practice. 

This was notable because event organizers called it "the first professional sports league in the world to formally adopt a comprehensive framework designed to reduce the risk of CTE."

White and his group also recommended no heading for soccer players under age 12.

Another speaker, California assembly member David Tangipa, pledged to introduce a resolution to encourage CTE education for youth football coaches in the state. Tangipa, a former tight end at Fresno State, said he "wants to make sure we're taking steps to protect youth, promote our sports and provide safety."

The science on CTE in young people remains mostly unclear. Dr. Ann McKee, a neurologist at Boston University and leading researcher on CTE, pointed to a 2023 study which she led and which examined 152 donated brains. 

The donors had a "history of repetitive head impacts from playing contact sports," according to the National Institutes of Health, and were all younger than 30 when they died. More than 40% of them had mild cases of CTE. 

"This is what I think we need to address," McKee said Monday. "This is what keeps me up at night. Why are we not changing this sport in a way that protects these young athletes?"

Sapp, who didn't play Pop Warner football in his youth, offered a vivid benchmark. He advised boys not be allowed to play tackle football until they have hair under their armpits and "down there," near their genitals.

Sapp, now a Colorado assistant coach under Deion Sanders, answered questions posed by television reporter Jill Arrington, a college friend of Sapp's at the University of Miami. Arrington's dad, Rick, was a college quarterback at Georgia and Tulsa and spent three seasons in the NFL with Philadelphia.

Rick Arrington died in 2021 at age 74. His family donated his brain to the BU brain bank, Jill said, and he was diagnosed with stage 4 CTE.

Sapp obviously doesn't know if he has CTE, but he also played football for 19 years between high school, college and the NFL. So he's taking no chances: He's under a doctor's care, he said, sparked in part by regular issues with his short-term memory. 

"We have a checklist for keys, wallet, phone," Sapp said. "I don't go as fast as I used to. I always tell myself, ‘Slow down, fat boy.'"

In January 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to veto state legislation proposing a ban on tackle football for children under 12, effectively squashing the bill. Newsom said he was "deeply concerned about the health and safety of our young athletes, but an outright ban is not the answer."

As for Sapp's motive in encouraging kids not to play until 14, he said Monday, "I want to make the game better for the next generation. I love football. It took me off a dirt road with no cable television and no air conditioning. I wouldn't trade it for anything. … 

"There's nothing wrong with the game. It's just the age we give it to our children, and then pay attention to these young men and understand what's going on. Let's not throw them out there on Saturdays and we go shopping. Pay attention."

Sapp also promised to lobby other Hall of Famers to donate their brains for research, to advance knowledge about CTE. 

This article originally published at Warren Sapp's advice to kids from NFL's CTE Summit? No tackle football until age 14.