NFL Foundation among inaugural Youth Sports Safety Ambassador Award winners

Preaching safety in youth/high school sports is one thing. Making it happen requires funding, data on injuries and monitoring by health care professionals.

Those areas were recognized Monday at the sixth Youth Sports Safety Summit in Dallas when the National Athletic Trainers’ Association presented its first Youth Sports Safety Ambassador Awards.

NFL were among 3 recipients of the award, alongside Dawn Comstock and The Dallas Independant School District. 

Last year the NFL made a five-year, $45 million grant to its youth football development partner, USA Football, which operates the Heads Up Football program to promote safer tackling. It also donated $1 million to provide athletic trainers to high schools that had gone without them.

“We want to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to make the game not only safe for the players who play our game, but for young athletes,” said Charlotte Jones Anderson, chairwoman of the foundation and Dallas Cowboys executive vice president and chief brand officer.

“It’s all about education and awareness,” said the daughter of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

“I think we all have the tendency to jump on the latest, hottest issue, and when you step back and really analyze what’s going on, you see ways that can make improvement … make our game more safe.”

With its grant to USA Football, the NFL showed its commitment to the Heads Up program designed to teach youth and high school players to keep their helmets out of tackling.

“We recently doubled down, if you will, on our relationship with them because they were doing such a good job,” said Anderson.

With the grant to provide athletic trainers to high schools in underserved areas, the NFL let teams choose recipients in their areas. Sixteen of 32 NFL teams participated.

“We felt the best approach was to let these teams try it, develop best practices and then this coming year all of our clubs will be able to do the same thing in their individual markets,” said Anderson.