Yes, we are actually helping with the nfl evolution. Set each day you see some of the tips, which i am the publisher of that site. I am also the author of home team advantage, the Critical Role of mothers in youth sport and i have a great new hat as a producer of a documentary about the. I keep hearing great pieces about parents. So yes, moms team is the website that i run. For the past 12 years weve been leading the way, i believe, in concussion education at these Sports High School level. Moms are very concerned. As a matter of fact a year ago, nine months ago i received a letter from my mom in oklahoma and she wanted moms seem to parachute in with our of experts to set up a concussion Risk Management program. That is a very common question we have received over 12 years is can you help us . We been halted by the long, but this time of what to document every step of the way. One of my triplet sons was taken out of football because of concussions years ago. Now knowing what i know, the game can be made safer. The game is being made safer. So very quickly what we did is we parachuted into oklahoma. Weve been following 18 for the entire season. We started in february at each monthly visit them for a week. Weve been filming them. Their concussion rate has plummeted to we put together our Risk Management program, 15 different steps. We have a celeron matters, hit sensors on their helmet at the High School Level, so we are tracking heads. We are tracking everything that these boys walk we been able to get them. No helmets, not just a correct fit but how to measure it. Most import message i have is that the kids want these ether and their helmet or as an earbud or mouthpiece. They want that responsibility taken away from themselves. So right now they are underreported and this this is really helping. Let me bring bill maher to this conversation. As we mentioned as an owner in the usl. You have a unique perspective on the downstream consequences of concussions and other injuries. Theres a place youre endorsed or a . Talk to me about that. And like a lot of people you end up worrying about something sort of from the back Going Forward. And in this case, its the cost of Workers Compensation in football and it is a real problem. Part of it is the state of california and how its structured to take claims. But the insurance companies, you know, the point is the cost of Workers Compensation for our Little League as they had to go through the state senate was about 1. 5 times the entire compensation of the players and we had a conversation recently with the National Football league and i think if you asked them, they would tell you its a similar program. Why is a problem . They think of inheriting a word player played last, the whole thing and nobody objects of course because there are players that have been hurt. If you go back and say you want change this, you and up were dr. Cantu is talking about. And then i say wow, we basically have an entire generation we have to deal with because who knows somebody in the southeast conference has perhaps already occurred tmh that isnt going to manifest itself in 15 or 20 years. I think you were telling me that the last team that employs the player is the one that picks up all the workers comp. And thats not right or wrong. It happens to be the law. Im interested in your conversations as i always found with the National Football league have the same situation. Im not speaking for the National Football league. The great thing under our cpa is the cost of workers conversation is actually borne by the players. So we live in a world under the cba with the insurance cost is basically estimated every year and that is a benefit that goes to the team. So the good news that these for our football teams and im always worried ill Say Something good about nfl owners, but this is one of them. When it comes to the cost of insurance is something reimbursed. The world we live in the mix is somewhat ironic as even though costs are reimbursed, the teams nonetheless finds that workers comp, which is interesting. I could probably choose another word other than interesting, but its a family show. Im always interested in this issue of Workers Compensation, but going back to these big ideas, recognizing when our players get hurt, our leadership refuses to call it an accident. If you are a running back scoring up in ray lewis is coming out you or if youre a cornerback and Stephen Jackson is heading towards you, what happens after you tackle one of those individuals in the sun accident . That is a necessary and foreseeable consequences of the recall playing football. The day that we actually turned the corner on making this game better for youth is the same day that we recognize that players, when they are engaged and get her to work, albert, not playing a game, i work, when we accept that responsibility can choose were going to compensate them take care of medical injuries for those players who get her to her, thats the data will be much better for youth football because they will have moved beyond the gladiator phase i thought all, where we all used to say, think i got a broken leg itches happened and that was tough for him to which i should move on. Let me finish a course thats why they call a Workers Compensation because it is work. My point is not necessarily Workers Compensation per se, but as a symbol for the cumulative impact of trauma from the youths. We talk about 180 Million People watching football and your players that you represent on the field working and they are the role models for youth sports. Part of what she do this point obviously influence. From both ends. Absolutely. My last point is something i said at the beginning of my comments. You know, i am a big fan of looking at trends as opposed to snapshot. And so you arent able to join us utterly, but its clear the discussion is different than it was three years ago about the whole issue of youth sports and the risk up until call it 14 years old when the brain and the shell is fully formed or maybe fully formed. Just made up of research, but from the standpoint of logic, it is very clear to me this has to be viewed as a threat or an opportunity and clearly most people would say with things seem to be changing over there more information, you would want to be in control of the situation address the situation is supposed to be an outside. So theres big differences of opinion amongst everybody doing this research for the seven to 14yearold. But it was sure hope you are working together because the outcome is going to be what it is an sooner or later there will be a point commonly called Malcolm Gladwell calls it the Tipping Point. It is usually reach not necessarily the individual those that because some person has an abnormal amount of influence on the opinion of others. That person is probably in this room. A day to bring to nfl players into this conversation. I want to go to a formal nfl kicker, wrote a book about kicking in the nfl. Give me her thought on what youve heard. I spent a summer with the Denver Broncos as a kicker on the team in the locker room. I was never hit because if anyone ever hit me i would not be sitting here today. Is a concussion free position you know, just about. I did have a tight end coach on a tackling dummy one day and i got her. They dont tell anyone that got her. Theres two points i wanted to make and one is the reality of the professional level and useful of us are different some scenarios we are laying out here. Players are not, for all the excellent impressive changes in the initiative in conjunction the nfl, players are still at the mercy of coaches and unwilling to tell doctors when they are hurt. They are still unwilling to demand medical records when they have rights to them if they are still unaware of longterm consequences of injuries they are asked to play through. But the one term proposition and a mother suffers me to do that. Players arent willing to just make changes overnight because their livelihoods depend on getting back of the field. At the youth level, kids dont help those in parents are terrible. They are the worst judges of what their children need or are capable of. Coaches in the sports are uneducated and for all the Educational Opportunities and efforts you make, theres still the majority of coaches will not try to implement these things. We talk about a sport, putting accelerometers and equipment were want Equipment Specialist to outfit our children, where we talk about having independent observers of coaches on the sidelines for practices and games to monitor whats going on. Im going to throw a general question, which is at what point are we kidding ourselves about youth football, that is not a sensible proposition for you superstructure of equipment for medical testing and Trained Medical observers for every youth Football Game in the country. Maybe the lawyers decided commended the school board, maybe journalists decided, but how do we know we are at the point . Of a tear hear from eddie mason. You want to respond . Thank you for the work youve done for the players. If it wasnt for 10 years ago id still be playing. Ltd. Practices, delete, as i stated earlier the main thing about youth sports is safety. We all agree we need to make the game safe for for youth, high school, college and i think theres been many measures and a lot of research, a lot of discussion here. Appreciate the research you guys are doing, but the reality is we live in a Football Community and its everybodys responsibility in this room, that is why we are here, to come together to embrace the research, embrace the wisdom, have people that will fight for change and represent. Perfect example as i stated earlier, i am commissioner of an overaged Football League and i also work with three tackle the end of virginia area. The reality is this, that football were always taught to fight or a comet to go the extra mile, keep working and keep pushing. Another separate your point, the Tipping Point of where you come the realization of okay, we meet this responsibility . To do with this responsibility to . At some point we have to take responsibility away from the coaches and even leaks because many of the links i work with our code. They are not governed by u. S. A. Football for pop warner. These guys cant come down. Scott cant come until every coach in the United States of america this is the way you need to do it. So what we try to do at the league had to share this as an example that this is what youre fighting with the aggressors level is number one, coach Kerri Campbell and i went to a lake. We said this. You know i want to do . We played at the highest level, so there is a model standard. Authority out there. The nfl authority set a standard for Youth Coaches in america. The problem is they dont embrace the changes because its all about winning. Win at all costs mentality. Winning is good, but nobody remembers years from now. What matters is the effects of the game. So what we tried to do was, okay, if you guys want to improve safety and you want to improve coming you know, making sure coaches are responsiblefor me being accountable and credible, then implement the leagues are just like the nfl pa. They protect the west players. They work alongside with the nfl to come and say okay, these are things we want to give. These are the things most important and these are the issues. They may have to be legislative. I dont know. If we serious about making changes to the game and making safety paramount, we need to get serious about okay, if these issues exist and the sleep residents dont want to make changes, your indeed cant exist. Your league cannot exist. You are irresponsible and youre been irresponsible to families and to these kids if you are unwilling to adhere to the standard because at the end of the day thats what its all about. Its about standards and raising the standard and expectation and implementing. If we dont get that it will continue to be the same. 15 years from now, little jimmy, little johnny might be having some problems if we dont all come together as a Football Community. That is what this is all about. Mike wise, weve heard a lot here today and youre a good listener because you are a journalist. You are also a skeptic. How optimistic are you that the culture of football can change, that we can get coaches trained, that quality decisions can be made at the youth level, that high schools can come again no come use the bundled with that permits Public Health . Its a tough one because while i think this is a start and a huge star, and dr. Cantus work is seminal and a lot of things said today here are very important. Im a little disappointed that eddie is one of the only players here. I would love to see a more active players be a part of this and i think if there is i think he said yes. I dont think culture change is a bad watchword at all. I wonder from jeffs perspectives, is it possible for the league to get it into the thick heads of guys whose job is to hit people, people like ray lewis ima lake James Harrison who viewed this new culture of not killing the quarterback and calling the specification of the league and people who say snitches get stitches during mckay, is it possible to come down on these people . Is it possible to get it through their heads that it is not okay to hurt your fellow competitor. Its one thing to play a guy out. And like anyone else jump out of my couch when a guy makes a big hit. But when that player stays down, its as sick as anything i can remember. I was at the afc championship game a few years ago in pittsburgh Edward Willis he went down, nobody thought he was getting up. So i dont know if theres a tsa thing for grant hill came out and said, using slurs are bad. If something can happen like that in the nfl, where ray lewis and some of the most violent hitters can come out and say point link, kid, the same right. Its one thing to knock a guy down. Its another thing to want to willfully hurt him. The culture change needs to start the level. If hes allowed out on the field, what it all means. Are here you and thats a great point, but again, going back to responsibility and accountability and you and i had a chance to chat aside and you know my feelings about the importance and the obligation of smart journalists and Good Journalism in america and that is the debate come at a fully people are again. But my question is always, while you identified two individuals who set things that i would rather they not say, i will be dead honest with you. I have to hunt for a story about a guy like mike crapo who is as vicious a linebacker is possible, but coaches use football in the way everybody in this room would want them to. Going back to the fact that theres two dozen Football Players in the National Folk elite if we wanted to come up with the worst examples of things that happened that we would wish that have been, my guess is we would be numbering in the tens and 20s, not the thousands. So as i look at guys like Stephen Jackson and guys like ryan clark, those are guys who i think do do with the right way when it comes to teaching their youth football people. So while i agree 100 on the idea that psa is, id love to have a little bit of good news, but that some of the players you never hear about because they dont drive their car at a thousand miles an hour, dont get in fights at clubs. They dont throw people out of windows. Unfortunately, those are the stories are never hear them the good thing about jeff and i shove this was the tv is off, those are the guys we meet and to me the greatest psa we could possibly do and maybe im putting a little bit of this responsibility on us as well in her import they have overt indications to part and is for us to tell those stories because we have thousands of great ones. For the guys that she played with, for those guys on your teams, more often than not those are the same guys you would entrust you teach your kids how to place the analysis story we need to hear. If i can just jump in the quick. Ill be brief. She makes a good point. The stories to get the lead to further revolution in how we address these issues are essential to be told. They are essential because they lead to changes. We have athletic trainers and skyboxes and video boards on the sidelines. I dont know whether we would. But its interesting lasher in the championship games, the nfc and afc, two hardhitting games, the ravens and teachers, giants beat the niners and in the super bowl. Go back and watch those games. Was there an illegal hit . Was a penalty . World for his hard, solid making your brain jump off the couch . They were. Go back and watch. I present to you that it is changing. James harrison said publicly he was going to avoid hitting the quarterback in the head because he didnt want to draw a fine. Anecdotal, not statistic. And ill probably get in trouble back at the lake when i mention these things. But anecdotal as proof. Again, the stories also access and the great part of football can be done and they can continue to encourage the following bands in that part of us who enjoy his hard they dont have to be in anybodys head either. We need to wrap up here. I would love to get to everyone at the table. Two quick closing comment from scott and lets go to bob at the yen. I just want to comment on the idea that getting players engaged is very important and this is not advertising. But the three programs we have, one of the aspects really beneficial with nfl alumni players came out and they were genuinely presenting their feelings about the game. They were talking openly to parents. It made a real difference. So i think one of the points he made is how did it all come together and get the message out and talk about what they know and as we learn more from the science and medical industry and so forth that we have to embrace and act accordingly. I am pleased with the Players Association and the nfl encouraging players to come out and engage parents and talk about realities and whats going on. Parents ask hard questions. In the end they want to be informed. So i think there is a movement. Theres some proper steps taken to try to address this complex issue and obviously the conversation needs to continue. But the player level they are typically engaging. Bob, you got the conversation started with the whole idea of 14 and under and flag football, so it could be the final comment. Thanks very much. Let me just wrap quickly by saying what i started with. Thank you for hot enough. At the aspen is great. Its important all of us understand that no brain trauma is good. We are not paranoid, but when you can reduce or every chance you get to eliminate short of stopping something completely is a good thing. I am very encouraged with what ive heard today because i think the bus thats been driving has been at the wrong end. I am proud as heck about the National Football league has done, what commissioner caddell has done with working and the Players Association collectively in their collective bargaining agreement, reducing hitting two less than once a week. But thats not been picked up significantly lower level so far. And im speaking now forget me on my 14 and under bandwagon. We just came back from zurich, where he spent on the organizing committee representing the United States since no one. The big thing for years ago was for youth football, 18 and under, no going back into the contest the same day. I was a mandate out of the conference. Nothing happened. Nothing. 2009, nothing. 2010 the National Folk elite implemented that end with in months the lockstep of the National Federation of High School Football association. The National Football league has been driving the safety business and it seems to me we need to have yes its great theyre doing that, but the youth leagues need to step in a bigger way than they have in the past. Im delighted to see what theyve done recently and i plotted. A couple things before we go here. Like i said, a transcript of todays proceedings if you want to call it that will be available later in the day. Ill take a look and then and then send them out to folks if youre interested. Im sorry we werent able to figure out the video clip earlier, but we are going to show it now. You are welcome to stick around. If you want to head out thats fine as well. Its about 10 minutes from her aspen ideas festival. Jim rob and others are talking about some of these issues. The onehour show will be on world channel on november 20th at 8 00 p. M. So check it out. Theres also a dvd at your station, which you are free to take home, which is that the show. I would like to thank everyone who helped bring this meeting together. Most of all jeff harris. [applause] nine at enteric in the back. Jim spiegelman is always a supporter of everything we do. Bill maher, a great advocate of our program as well and all of you who have engaged in this conversation. As an investigative journalist, people like donovan hill or just implied reduced to suffer from sudden and texan to talk to me because they want some good to come of their story. They want people to learn from what happened to them so it doesnt happen to someone else. The kind of journalism that flushes out the stories is essential, but theres another poet you something that happens afterwards in conversations like these were important people come together and share is to find Common Ground, identified Breakthrough Ideas and were able to advance the conversation moving forward. He is an active player. I interviewed to drew brees on the subject and peacetime to release. He said he would not allow his children to play football and wouldnt even consider it until they are 13 years old. Earlier you spoke about morally indefensible informed consent accountability. Is it not his job being part of executive Committee Member focusing on health and safety, shouldnt he has a super bowl champion, tell their parents, i wouldnt even let my kid play until he was 13. When he is outdoing his concussion clinics shouldnt he be giving this information . Is isnt it incumbent upon your players to talk about this publicly . Thanks, sean. [laughter] i will tell you this. I will answer your question and one because its my anniversary and two because my own son will get a sports award and i will be brief. I am not sure you will ever find a man who cares more about the community and certainly more about his family then drew. So this is about our kids. When he talked to you about his decisions as a parent with respect to his own kids, i have never commented or will secondguess what decision he would make for his children, and if and when he wants to make a broader statement about his own personal beliefs, i know drew pretty well. He is not a shrinking violet. About anything or anyone and im sure he will. Isnt his responsibility though as a role model . When it comes to a person that has certainly played the game at its highest level, so certainly has done things for a community that i can only hope to do, one day berger does and certainly a man who lost a family member, i dont ever secondguess the courage or the integrity of certainly anybody on our executive Community Committee that much less drew brees so with respect to the thing he told you about his personal choices about his family, i am sure if i had conversations with him about what i want for my family if and when he wants to talk about what he thinks that means further people thats up to a man named drew brees. See what about players in general though . Shouldnt that be part of their directive to share information . If your question to me is, should it be the obligation of our players to share information is that what youre asking . About the ramifications of playing tackle football, but being honest about the way they feel afterwards . You know what im talking about. Sort of. I am struggling a little bit but i think any player that wants to talk about what they have believe is best for their family, if they want to do that i think its up to them. If they want to talk about the broader implications about the business they are and in its up to them. As the executive director of this organization i can tell you that i dont suffer a lot from not hearing about the former players, but what they feel about the game so i think the great answer to your question is that those players who feel strongly about it have spoken up and certainly i would think they would continue to do so. Thank you all. Appreciate it. You change this army so it becomes a volunteer army. Go find them in the villages and towns of america. And we did that over at period of five or six years. We created an absolutely splendid force of young men and women who are willing to serve their country as volunteers and they have the same tradition, the same culture, the same loyalty and dedication as any other generation of america and they prove themselves in the gulf war and the pam pam on innovation and they have proved themselves in the last 10 years in iraq and afghanistan. But the theme we have to keep in mind is something that president lincoln said in a second and not girl address, care for those who have worn the battle. That means never forget that they are entering the american spirit and carrying the american traditions with them. When they get injured and when they get hurt or when they just come back to be reintegrated into society we have to be waiting to care for them. Not just the federal government and not the federal of administration. Theres nextday discussion on u. S. Military deployments and the presence of u. S. Troops around the world. This is 40 minutes. Host we turn to a discussion of the us military employment and the changing a home and abroad with Phyllis Bennett of the institute for politics studies. Its been on most years since the department defends releases strategic guiding stoppage that will provide a framework for the u. S. Military footing in the foreseeable future. How is the military moving to enact this new policy and where are the threats that we will see in the coming years . Guest you know we havent seen nearly the kind of shifts that we have been hearing about. We have been hearing about how we are winding down in afghanistan or in sense and yes there are 60,000 u. S. Troops there in 100,000 u. S. Paid contractors paid by the pentagon still occupying afghanistan. The one change we have seen this year has been the withdrawal of the finishing of the withdrawal from iraq. That is important because that was for so long the centerpiece of where u. S. Troops were fighting around the world. Now we are looking at afghanistan as the biggest war zone that is acknowledge. The thing that is so interesting about the john that i think exit very difficult for people like you and i who want to on whatever day look at where are the u. S. Troops and where the bases, the list that we see are very hard to actually get good information. I was looking yesterday at a few different lists on the pentagons various web sites. One of them is a list of personnel, of where our u. S. Soldiers are and its about 195,000 u. S. Soldiers and sailors and marines, veterans based around the world. And we hear in general there are 150 countries but when you look at the list there are only about 40 countries that are listed. Why is that . Then the then you look in you see well we are only listing the countries where there is more than 100 troops terminally base there. Thats kind of weird because that means there is only about a quarter of the countries where we even less than that, by the fifth of the countries where we actually have truth troops are mentioned. We can say it doesnt matter if you have 50 or 60 troops somewhere but it does matter because what those troops are doing and almost every case is preparing the way just in case, just in case somebody in the pentagon decides we need to send more troops there. That becomes a little bit tricky. When we look at the list of bases for instance we see for example that the list of bases includes the Dimona Nuclear facility in israel which has a u. S. Base attached to it that has 120 soldiers. But when you look at the list of where the soldiers are it isnt listed so its like wait a minute, whats going on here . Its become very opaque. Is very hard to get good numbers. Host lets show some have stats from the Defense Department on u. S. Military personnel deployment. Obviously the United States and its territories have the most at 1. 2 million afghanistan with the ongoing actions there, 66,000 troops. Talk about the next two, germany and japan, why we need 53,000 troops in germany and 39,000 troops still in japan these days . Guest we dont. Thats a simple answer. They should be brought home. Host what is their mission there right now . Guest their mission is left over from the cold war. These were troops that were placed there to prevent a soviet attack on eastern europe. There is no more tzipi at union and there is no more cold war. We dont face that kind of threat. In japan we are being told that they are there to prevent north korea from attacking. But there is also a think about 30,000 troops in south korea so why do we need all those troops in japan . Right now i think we will be hearing a lot about troops in japan because we will hear from president obama about this notion of a pivot towards asia, which host that was a big part of the document of hierarchies for the 21st century defense. Guest exactly. What we are not hearing about is a pivot towards better relations with asia which includes diplomacy at the top of the list. Host was that part of the president s trip this week . Guest that was included but i think there are still problems on the u. S. Side. Its still based on pivoting our military towards asia and away from the middle east which we are certainly not doing in practice. We are talking about it but we are not talking enough about reworking relations with countries. You know its fine that we are not talking about the possibility of opening relations with burma who has been facing sanctions for many years because of a very repressive regime. But there are governments that are you know, terribly oppressed of all around the world and the u. S. Has never had a good way of engaging with people in those countries that are facing those kinds of governments. What we tend to do is send the marines so when we talk about pivoting towards asia, it usually puts much too much emphasis on pivoting archer deployments there. I think we will be hearing about withdrawing troops from europe. I think we will see a significant drawdown from germany in particular. The idea that we have 53,000 troops in germany, we have differences in the list of bases as we have 23 u. S. Bases in germany but when you look at the list of the pentagons installations around the world you see there are 65 installations of the pentagon in germany. That includes things like golf courses are good do we really need the pentagon to be running golf courses in germany . Host we are taking your calls on the segment with Phyllis Bennis from the institute for policy studies. A call on the democratic line 585 republican line 202 5853881. Independence can call it 202 5853882. We have also set up a special line for u. S. Military members if you have questions on this topic and you want to talk with Phyllis Bennis 202 5853883. Give us a ring now. On that pivot towards asia right now, you mentioned south korea having about 24,000 troops according to a department of defense. Where are the countries where well see the largest increases as we continue to do this pivot towards the threats to asian . Guest im not sure we will see significant new deployments in new countries for instance in asia. I think the assumption of what they are doing there is changing. I think the u. S. Is starting to talk and i find it very dangerous. They are starting to talk about the needs to pivot towards asia at least partly to challenge china. The way the challenge china in my view is this new era in the 21st century is not to try and surround china by military force in the countries surrounding it that by engaging. The u. S. And china have the two largest economies in the world. The u. S. And china share a lot of interests and most importantly people in both countries share an interest in for example dealing with climate change. Something that neither government is not the chinese are u. S. Government are prepared to move strongly enough to change. When we talk about pivoting in the context of sending the troops, that doesnt help when we are trying to do with what should we be doing about climate change. I think what we really need is a pivot away from the military being the centerpiece of our diplomatic shift and a shift towards engagement with people at an entirely different level. Host a recent study by the Brand Company in the project for the air force talked about u. S. Overseas military presence and the strategic choices that the government has to make. One of the comments in that report says, the u. S. Has to decide whether china and the United States should rely primarily on u. S. Space forces to respond to global crises and conflicts keeping only a small group of presence to reassure allies and partners. Such a choice would be based on the perspective of the turning and responding to china and north korea and iran in the future will depend not on overseas presence but rather the capabilities of the u. S. Military forces at home to surge into the region in the event of a crisis or conflict. Guest yeah, that is one example of the problem im talking about. If we are worried about conflict and crisis, whether its iran and north korea or china and first of all those three widely diverse countries lumped into one group is george w. Bushs axis of evil where he talked about three countries, afghanistan, iraq and iran and said not afghanistan, iraq iran and north korea, they were all the same. Those three countries you mentioned in the iran report are not anywhere near similar. We should be talking about how to link age with those countries not how to isolate them and how to get troops to attack them. Its not going to take that kind of military assault. Host if the conflict comes up in the future do we need the troops stage there or do you think the troops should remain in the United States and we have the capacity to get them there quick enough . Guest the troops should remain in the United States. I dont think we should be looking at how do we besson trips around the world . The notion that we are the policemen of the world is an outmoded to put it politely notion that i think should be going the way of history. We are living in a multipolar world. We are no longer the sole superpower and the one empire of of the world that can stand the colossus of rhodes and say theres a great map that the pentagon put out that the United States of america is not quite accurate but the graphic of it is kind of an interesting notion because it has this idea of u. S. Troops covering the whole world. And as if that makes us safer. We are just finishing up this years version called americas not broke. It looks at where money can come from for things Like Health Care and jobs and education in this country. One of the areas that we look at is cutting the military budget. And we look at how we could close one third of the european and asian bases and get that 100 billion over the course of a decade by closing these unnecessary bases. You could bring 50,000 troops out of europe and gain back 7 billion a year over a 10 year period. So this idea that we have to be keeping troops all around the world, if we look at which countries are not gang attacked around the world, its the countries that dont send troops elsewhere. The threat to us, there is a threat of terrorist attacks against u. S. People. The way to solve that is not through troops deployment. Is through changing our policies that lead to those events. Host again we have a special line set up for those in the military. This morning on the segment of the washington journal 202585383 883 and on that line with the air force is william from detroit michigan and independent. Thanks for joining us. Caller thank you and good morning to both of you. Its a great impact testing conversation. I want to ask for your contact because you make a very, very good point there. I have a background in economics and im an economist but i have noticed an activity between the emphasis on asia with this most recent trip. I have been the big advocate for a new africa policy with america. If you look at the chinese and the saudis in africa right now, they are buying land. They are buying other Natural Resources and i think American Foreign policymakers are making a big huge mistake in overlooking africa, west africa, south africa and central, e. Staff are kept. We could really change that continent as well. We are trying to make inroads in the south as you said in that new world and i to agree its peopletopeople. I would like to see the chinese and the americans consider [inaudible] with this new viewpoint being proposed by nassau and that sort of thing. The International Space station, station, if you look at the dash cat you have human beings continuously living in space. Host ms. Bennis i will give you a chance to jump in. Guest you race number of questions. First of all the web site, the report is called americas not broke. Last years report and a new one will be up next week w. W. I t. F. B. C. , the institute for holiday policy studies. The questions that you raised and the question of the land grab going on in africa is a huge challenge for africans. One of the problems we see now is that in a number of countries around the world saudi arabia being one of the biggest there is an effort to deal with the coming increase of climate change, the coming food crisis that many are seeing around the world by buying up or stealing in many cases, huge swaths of land in particularly africa to use them not to better the lives of people in those countries, not to hire people and get more jobs for africans for example but to keep access to that land to grow food whether its rice, soybeans or sorghum or whatever that can be brought back to the buying countries whether south africa, sorry, saudi arabia or some other country. Its a disastrous policy that has a huge impact on peoples lives throughout africa. I agree with you that this is a huge challenge. The way to deal with it in my view is not to have the u. S. Take up the same terrible policies that the chinese are doing in africa. The problem right now is the u. S. Policy in africa is very much grounded in a militarized policy. The creation of africa on, the african command which was created just in the last few years is based in germany. There is not a country in africa that is willing to accept the headquarters of the u. S. Africa command because its seen as a kind of recolonization in the continent. We met not too long ago with the original head of african command in one of the things he said at the beginning was, this is all about changing how we deal with africa. We dont want to just deal with a military. We are going to deal with Girls Education. We are going to do with economic and trade issues and im thinking wait a minute. Why is the pentagon dealing with Girls Education . They are the least capable of all of our government capacities. The military does not belong there. The military is not who should be assisting with Girls Education in africa or anywhere else. We need to scale down the military so we get back back to putting diplomacy first. Host the caller asked about your web site. Explained a little bit about the institute for policy studies and where you get your funding from . Guest we are independent thinktank in washington, one of the oldest in the country started back in 1963. Our funding comes from individual donors and nonprofit foundations. We dont take any corporate or government honey so we are very independent. We work on linking issues of peace, justice and the environment and turning ideas, research, new ideas into action for helping people change the world, whether its how to pressure lawmakers or whether its protests in the street. We do a whole range of work with social movements. We think peoples movements are what changes the world. Host ipsdc8. Org is the web site. We go to michael on the democratic line. Michael, you are on with ms. Bennis. Caller good morning. I just have a comment. The United States needs to get out of these Foreign Countries and stop trying to dictate what these other leaders can and cannot do. We need to focus more on whats going on in the United States. We have our own problems here and you know i just think its wrong for the United States to go out around the world and tried to tell the leaders what they can and cannot do based on our ideology. Host michael from little rock, thanks to the call. I want to take you to the military line. Kevin is waiting from woodbridge virginia, an independent and a member of the u. S. Army. Kevin, thanks for calling. You are on with Phyllis Bennis. Caller good morning ms. Bennis. How are you . I guess i have a couple of questions. Im listening to what you are saying and im listening to your statistics and they seem to be be dealing with these things on a daytoday basis, there are parts and pieces of i guess information that you dont seem to be aware of and im not i am not even allowed to bring that forward. You have to understand certain things. Number one, the diplomatic industrial and economic pieces of strategy for the United States and for other countries are parts that are used to i guess put forth those pieces that are the best for those nations, for their interest. However, there are some governments that do not and will not adhere to those things that are within the interest of the United States. If that is the case, then we have to have places that we can bring troops into at a moments notice and in a short period of time in order to be able when necessary to put forth a military piece. Host so you are against drawing down some of these bases around the world . Caller i would say i agree, some of them are unnecessary and the military has taken that into account but im listening to the ones that she is talking about and im going, that is not exactly host which ones in particular are you concerned about . Caller i was listening to her talk about japan and the base in germany, i agreed. The military has looked at and taken account germany. You have a in north korea. North korea is not a place that people should take lightly. Guest thanks, kevin. There are a lot of issues that you raised, one of which is maybe the military has taken us into account. I dont think the military should be making the decisions about where we need troops. I think we have the hammer and a male problem. When you are a hammer everything looks like a nail and when youre the military every problem looks like it needs a military solution. That is why its about bases deploying troops. It needs to be made not by people in the military but people outside and that is why we have set up a system we have where for deployment of troops has to be done by the commanderinchief and not by the military itself and specially the idea which has not been followed since world war ii that only congress can declare war. We have had all these undeclared wars around the world and i would take issue with one thing that kevin said right at the beginning. That is when he said we have to be able to go into places around the world to do things that are not in our interest. Somehow other countries around the world managed to survive without doing that, without putting troops around the world knowing that sometimes our own countries if might get they manage without sending troops for example to attack us. I think that the idea that we stand above every other country, that unlike any other country we have the right and the obligation and responsibility whatever you want to call it to send troops around the world when another government is doing things we dont like. I dont buy it. I think we have to be part of the world, not standing above the world, core operating with the rest of the world, not standing separate and violating International Law as we laws we choose but demanding everybody also pulled international. Host you talk about who is mick and these decisions in the policies last night as d. C. Thinktank panetta outlined the latest campaign approach against the widening of tied it geographic threat and the increased use of special Operations Forces to combat the threat i want to play that for you and get your response. Thes campaign against al qaeda, largely takes place outside declared combat zones, using a small footprint approach that includes precision operations, partnered activities with Foreign Special forces operations and Capacity Building so that partner countries can be more effective combating terrorism on their own. Wherever possible, we will work through and with local partners, supporting them with the intelligence and resources they need in order to deter these common threats. For example in mali we are working with our partners, western africa, who are committed to countering the emerging threat to regional stability imposed by aqim. Fourth, in support of these kinds of efforts, we have to invest in the future. In the military and intelligence capabilities and security partnerships. Our new Defense Strategy makes clear, the military must retain and even build new counterterrorism capabilities for the future. As we reduce the size of the military, we are going to continue to ramp up special Operations Forces, which have doubled in size from 37,000 on 9 11 to 64,000 today. Special Operations Forces will grow to 72,000 by 2017. We are expanding our fleet of predator and reaper uavs over what we have today. These enhanced capabilities will enable us to be more flexible and agile against the threat that has grown more diffuse. Host ms. Bennis i want to get your response. Guest the secretary of defense has been talking about something we have talked about for a long time, the expansion of the drone war is a huge problem and lazing levels of terrorism around the world. There is such anger in such outrage that the u. S. Is carrying out wars in places like pakistan, somalia, yemen and places we dont even know about. There is no accountability and there is no knowledgeable we are doing except we know there has been a study done in london and another one in washington by various thinktanks that are analyzing the numbers of people who been killed in these drawn wars and the numbers are about four to one, the numbers of civilians who are killed relative to the people that are targeted. That is one aspect not surprisingly that ordinary people are killed when a drone comes out of nowhere from a country not officially at war with your country and goes after someone who somebody in washington has decided to put on a list. This notion of the kill or capture list is something that i think every american should be concerned about, our constitution, our bill of rights should be outraged by it. The idea that the president and is the president alone who signed up, president obama to his credit acknowledged that he makes the decisions personally about who is going to be on this list and somehow the claim is made that if someone is on that list its okay to go and kill them with no oversight, no due process. If they are u. S. A u. S. Citizen, too bad. As we see with at least two u. S. Citizens killed in drone strikes, but imagine and i will just finish with this, imagine if another country decided to do the same thing. Imagine if her example in cuba, because there is someone in the United States being protected here who was known to have been responsible for the shooting down of a cuban civilian airliner in 1976, killing 73 people on board and the u. S. Refused to set a trial abroad. Would have cubas send a drone to attack him saying he is someone who represents a threat to our country and what would the u. S. Do . We would engage cuba. Wise that we think we have the right to do that in yemen and somalia because they are what we have determined to be a failed state. Host nina farrell writes in obamas drone strategy is a security risk, random killing of women and children is not the american way. Unfortunately it is the american way into many of these wars that have become part to comment. Host i want to go to james from hyattsville maryland on the republican line. James, thanks for calling. You are on with Phyllis Bennis. James, are you there . I think we lost james. We will go to tony from Augusta Giorgianni independent line, and member of the u. S. Army. Thanks for calling. Caller thanks for taking my call. I kind of agree and disagree with her. We live in a very Technological Society this day and age and i believe we still have to have someone above. I agree with her though im an africanamerican and i each term i did not vote for him because i dont agree with a lot of what he is doing. I believe there has to be like you said accountability. Host are you still in the army and if so where did you serve . Caller i was in afghanistan. I believe we have to be responsible, especially when it comes to because we lived on a dangerous globe this day and age. The fact that we have all these different factions out there and we still have to do the right thing. As a nation we should be the uniform. We should be responsible with what god has blessed us with as a nation. Thinking we are above everyone else, we shouldnt be thinking like that. That drone strike him he shouldnt have that kind of power. He should be held accountable for that. Host on the same subject tillman 40 rights and on twitter, ms. Bennis if the drawn war is expanding the bush doctrine . Guest i think so. Unfortunately are those of us who saw a change being possible for years ago when president obama was elected was a call to not only in the war in iraq, which he did, but also as he put it, he claims he would and the mindset that leads to war. Unfortunately quite the opposite has happened. We have had an expansion of wars particularly through the drawn wars and one of the things that is so ironic about that is that along with all of the deaths of civilians and frankly people who are on those lists for reasons that we dont always know when we dont know who put them on the list, where it is that intelligence come from and how reliable is that . Its usually problematic on a host of levels but particularly the level of civilians who are killed for no reason these drone strikes and how that antagonizes people across these countries. That is exactly the opposite of the idea of looking for new ways to solve the conflict, ways of looking at ways to avoid the mindset. This is exactly reflecting the mindset of war. So this in my view is the biggest violation if you will of the promises that president obama made from the time he was elected four years ago. Host lets go to marcy from frisco texas on the democratic line. You are on with Phyllis Bennis from the institute of policy studies. Caller good morning. A quick question. You mentioned we have about 150 countries and i wondered if we are spending our taxpayer dollars in those countries not only for their salaries but giving them an come for allowing to be there and partnering with them, and also president obama gets his way and stops all the wars and obviously brings the troops back which he wants to do. How do you think that is how do you think that would resonate with the countries that we have already and given our beliefs onto. Guest on the issue of the bases around the world there are are a number of countries to challenge the u. S. Forces and bases in their country. In ecuador a few years ago there was a move and it finally succeeded and its now in a ecuadoran constitution that there can be no foreign base in ecuador, because the u. S. Base in ecuador that has been there for so long was seen as having environmental problems, social problems were created. We see a huge move underway right now in okinawa for instance. We are talking about the base in japan in okinawa where there have been far too many to count accusations of rape by u. S. Soldiers against young women in okinawa. There is a huge Environmental Crisis outside of okinawa having to do with the bases that are being built. Literally one of the bases, one of the great Historic Centers of art, renaissance art in italy has already a nato base in it and now the u. S. Is trying to build a separate, and adjoining bays that would be within 100 yards of some of the great masterpieces of renaissance architecture. There is a huge move against that so when we talk about how do countries feel about our bases there we have to distinguish i think between the governments of sometimes allow them and the people that are outraged by them. That is even before we get to the question of what happens in the country where we have invaded . If we look for example at afghanistan we hear sometimes that we are there we are there to protect the women. Lets look at what has really happened to women in afghanistan. When the taliban ruled afghanistan the country was at the lowest level according to unicef has a place where a woman could give birth and survive. It was also the lowest according to unicef for a child to be born and survive to her first birthday. Where is it now after 10 years, 11 years of u. S. Are patient . Exactly the same position. Is the bottom of both lists. For a while it was one of because sierra leone had a crisis but now it is back at the bottom. So how can we say we are we are doing this for the benefit of the women of afghanistan . Women in afghanistan died too young because they dont admit lives. What if we were training 300,000 midwives instead of 300,000 troops in afghanistan . Host Houston Texas on the republican line, debbie. Good morning debbie. Caller good morning. You know these are all great ideas of yours that we should pull out. We have to understand that the world is a very big place right now and its not just to occupy. We are also there as we go there and we help the people. You know, i keep thinking back to the fact that after years and years the world look to america as they are not their occupiers. That is the new liberal term that you are always using. We went to a lot of countries and at nation building. In germany, they are not allowed to have an army. That is why we are there. They pay for our presence there. We also need bases there to understand the cultures of the different countries. We need to know whats going on in these countries. We are not occupiers, maam. We dont occupy countries. Guest thanks for your call, deadly. I think theyre obviously very different approaches between what the u. S. Did post world war ii in europe and japan. It isnt germany that has a right to an army. They actually do. They have troops in afghanistan and iraq and they have troops in many places around the world. Japan after world war ii did put in their own constitution a prohibition against having any nuclear arms because of what they suffered at the u. S. Hands through the use of the atomic bomb in hiroshima and nagasaki but they also have an enormous army. The problems and that these countries dont have armies. I think when you look at what the u. S. Has done in iraq after almost a decade of occupation what its doing now in afghanistan, it does look like occupation. We impose sanctions in iraq for 12 years and led to the death of over 500,000 children. And level of debt that then secretary of state Madeleine Albright said we think is a crisis is worth it and i think people in those countries feel the u. S. Is an occupier. People in germany today probably do not. You are probably right. That doesnt mean they want our troops to remain. 55,000 troops in somebody elses country is not something i think we would tolerate lately and i dont think people in germany or japan do either. Host lets go to gail from orleans indiana on the independent line. Thanks for calling. Caller thank you. The lady that said they are not occupy countries. In vietnam, which i was there, the french were there to protect plantations so michelin tires could have everywhere that we have occupy, if you watch, there will be big corporations that benefit from it. Its like halliburton. We dont have but a few troops in there but look at how many contractors we have there that are being paid by u. S. Taxpayer money and halliburton, kbr, all those. If you look at vietnam, standard oil. Standard oil is in their. Guest thank you for raising the issue of contractors. Is a its a huge challenge for take really right now. If we look at where the u. S. Has forces and we dont use the word troops for example in afghanistan today we have 15,000 troops. We have 100,000 u. S. Paid military contractors were some people call mercenaries. In iraq the basis of the agreement that president obama reached with the president of iraq required the withdrawal of all u. S. Troops and all pentagon paid contractors but through a loophole, they didnt explicitly exclude state Department Paid contractors. There are now between 12 and 15,000 u. S. Contractors doing military things in iraq paid by the state department, not paid by the military, by the department of defense. All over the world. One of the other places where we have seen an increase of western influence, there are now 400 European Union troops. The u. S. Hasnt said how many troops they will send in for but sending in large numbers of contractors. We are seeing that all over the world now. The advance forces of the u. S. Carrying out things like interrogation, the incarceration policies. Some of the things that have led to the most antagonism towards the United States, issues of torture, the photographs of abu ghraib. They include not only troops or contractors as well so even if they are not in the military we are held accountable by people in those countries. For what they do and they are in the hundreds of thousands around the world. Host in a minute we have left, we began by talking about the strategic plans that the Defense Department have put out. How do those plans have to change to reflect the looming budget cuts and we have been talking about the fiscal cliff this morning. Guest one of the things we need to do is massively cut the military budget acrosstheboard. The hard part is when it comes to bases in the United States because those bases always provide some kind of jobs in the local community and it makes it harder for members of congress. Not the case for bases abroad. We could close almost all of them and not make us any less safe. The bases abroad dont make us any less safe. Sending contractors to take a place of soldiers dont keep us safe are going to cut all of that and use the money to help those countries build their own economies and bring the money home for Health Health health cr jobs to rebuild the environment here at home. Host Phyllis Bennis from the institute for policy studies, appreciate you coming by. Guest thank coming up next to discussion among baby boomers and Encore Careers. Marc freedman with a new book the big shift navigating the new stage beyond midlife talks about the need for savings plans for peoples in their 50s, 60s and 70s for meaningful and sustainable work later in life. From the Commonwealth Club of california in San Francisco, this is 45 minutes. Good evening and welcome too todays meeting of the Commonwealth Club of california. I am john chair of the clubs groves borne them grownups form. Audice we welcome our listening audience invite everyone to listen to us on line at Commonwealth Club. Org. And now its my pleasure to introduce our distinguished speaker. Marc freedman is ceo and founder of encore. Org, Nonprofit Organization working to promote encoreor careers. Se secondco acts for the greatere good. He spearheaded the creation of theg experience core now one ofe americas largest Nonprofit National service t service progs engaging People Programs snal people five, 100,000dollar prices to social innovators in the second half of life. Freedman was described by the New York Times as the voice of aging baby boomers who will are beginning retirement for meaningful and sustainable work later in life. While the work wall street journal stated, in the past decade, mr. Freedman has emerged as a leading voice in discussions nationwide about the changing face of retirement. He is the author of the the big shift navigating the new stage beyond midlife, published in april of 2011 which the New York Times called an imaginative work with the potential to affect their individual lives and our collect good issues. Recognized by Fast Company Magazine three years in a row as one of the nations leading social entrepreneurs. Freedman is widely published and quoted in the National Media and has been honored with numerous over awards and fellowships. Freedman has an mba from yale university, was a visiting Research Fellow at Kings College university of london. He lives with his wife and children in the San Francisco bay area and now join me in greeting creating Marc Freedman. [applause] thank you john and thanks so much to all of you for coming out at the end of the work day to talk about the future of work. I read a quote from jordan campbell four years ago. He said that midlife is when you get to the top of the ladder and you discover its leaning against the wrong wall. That quote shook me up and it made me think about the wall that my letter was winning against. I spent 20 years at that point focusing on trying to create more opportunities for people in the second half of life to improve their circumstances of kids through the experiences the john milford mentioned and many other efforts. I felt it was the right purpose in life but i was flagging at that time. I wrote a second quote around the same period and it was one from Mary Catherine basin the daughter of Margaret Meacham and it says we have stretched midlife so long it has become like a runon sentence in desperate need of punctuation. I needed to get a little bit about punctuation. A. , max was probably too little and. That is what i needed. I went to my board of directors and i asked him if i could take a sabbatical. And i happily agreed. I think maybe they were feeling that i was sliding a little bit as well and i began making very grand plans. In fact i decided to go to the opposite end of the year to australia to take a big trip for three months with my wife and our two young children. And i began the process of accumulating guide books to sydney, melbourne and the outback in that pile started growing higher as the days leading up to the trip began growing shorter and finally i reach the point where i had absolutely no desire to go to australia and spent three months in a hotel room with two screaming children then two and four years old. In fact the sabbatical was what i had to do to recover from the trip with the kids in the hotel room. So i called up United Airlines and took all my frequent flyer miles to take this extravaganza and 41,000 they let me have my miles back and let me stay at home. Instead of going with my dreams in life that have been my one opportunity to get away, i felt a huge sense of relief come over me. There would be no Airport Security lines, no 14 hour flights, no coming back three months later to long piles of emails and correspondence and all those kinds of things. I was telling this to a friend because i was amazed that i had that reaction. She said oh yet there actually was now a body of research in psychology that shows one of the great pleasures in life is to plan a fantastic trip in that not go on it. You have to do something. After all ike cross this big midlife divide and so i decided to take a car trip with the family up to portland. Began planning again and collecting more guidebooks, looking at google maps and i realized i couldnt make it all the way up to portland in one drives. So i had to stop in medford. I got on the internet and started shopping for rates and found homewood suites in medford. I called them up and having lost a thousand dollars not going to australia i thought i should try to get a discount on this room and i ran through the aa rates. Finally i found a big discount. Aarp. I had gotten my card and it was the first chance that i actually used it. I got off the phone and told my wife that i had saved as 14. She still remember the thousand dollars we were out from not going to australia and she asked me, had i remembered to get the two crips . I called the 18yearold at the checkin desk back and i said this is mr. Freedman. I just asked you about the Senior Citizen discount. Thats me. Can i have two crips . In that moment i realized i had entered confusing territory, what might be called the oxymoronic to remember that time in grade school when he learned about oxymorons in these contradictions in terms . If you think about the way we treat people who are living in the stage of life, like 60 is the new 40 and at the same time if you go to my pharmacy in berkeley on solano avenue, they give you Senior Citizens discounts. Its the old 80s and the same time the new 40 and we hear about the young and the old and the working retired. Newsweek had a cover story about aging baby boomers entering the workforce and they described describe in as the walking dead. Every contradiction, every difference, every kind of oxymoron to describe this period at a personal level and that same kind of contradiction and confusion is true more broadly societally. The longevity revolution, this vast expansion in Life Expectancy over the last century. We have increased to 100 years. Average Life Expectancy at an amount that was equivalent to all the increases up to 1900 so this is a remarkable triumph and at the same time if you pick up the editorial pages all you hear about is the gray tsunami and these who seem to take america to the its almost as if the Weather Channel has sponsored the entire demographic revolution. So how is it that the best thing that ever happened to us as individuals, the longer healthier lives that we are leading leaving and projected to lead and more extended ways in the future turns out that these are worse things that happen to us. You are crucial for his vegetables and Walking Around the block and you stretch and live wells he can live long and yet it seems if you pick up any of the New York Times issues over the last couple of months you see people with the coming trade off. All these tremendously difficult scenarios that are supposedly going to be the hallmark of our future. Back to mach 3 is supposedly destiny, inevitably so. The condition of the individual level that some this sounds longevity. The ox more broadly, its no surprise in that context that you start seeing some desperate prescriptions. The book booms day projects euthanasia for boomers at 70. The most recent version of little bit less dark, the best exotic i suspect many of you have seen a film which is built around the proposition of outsourcing the elderly. If we cant figure out how to have a society with so many more people over the age of 60, lets just send them someplace else and after all, its less expensive to live in places like india where the stars in the movie end up gone. I am here today to talk about an alternative to either euthanasia or outsourcing, what soon will be a quarter of the population, and argue that the solution to much ails us as individuals in a society lays in rethinking the map of life, the map of life that was in many ways set up in three score. Ople will be living in the 21st century. Half the kids born since 2000 the developed world are projected to see their 100th birthday so we cant just fold, spindle, made late stretch and extend this life course that really was set up for a very different arc of life to one that is really, has an extra decibel point, an extra zero to it. So i think what is happening, to really cut to the essence of what im saying today is that the nature of life is under every bed a radical transformation as the numbers are. All those numbers that we are so familiar with and that period that has been characterized in these oxymoronic terms is actually an entirely new stage of life. 60 is not the new 40. Its not the old 80. 60 is the new 60 in these tens of millions of people who are flooding into this territory or something entirely nail on the landscape. And get something that is poorly recognized seen mostly as a problem to be solved that i think may well amount to be an opportunity to be seen if we play our cards right. This whole proposition at one level probably sounds counterintuitive. Like the oxygen in the air, fixtures when in fact they are much closer to being fiction quickly learned that in trying to trace and understand the history of retirement in america, this idea in the golden years that has seen so much a core part of the American Dream for the last halfcentury. In fact, if you go back even to the 19 30s when Social Security was invented, 65 was the picked as the eligibility age for Social Security based on the prussian military that bismarck had convince the state would never pay out a single he was a think in his late 70s at this time and in the 30s we picked this age, gave out the first Social Security check in january of 1942 a woman named Ida May Fuller in vermont, who took 20. 75 into the system and proceeded to live just shy of her 101st birthday reaping 22,888. 92 in the process. She saw the beatles come to america and the moon landing. Not that everybody at that point was going to live this 20 century lifespan but the handwriting was already on the wall. Edvac of the late 1940s Walter Luther describe retirees as tool to work, too young to die, which turned out to be a problem for those individuals who are trying to figure out what to do during the extended spans beyond their working years but also for the Financial Services industry, which was having a hard time convincing people to invest in it period that was a dreaded time, period that people hardly wanted to think about, talk about and definitely did not look forward to or think about investing in. So they began selling retirement as a kind of an aristocratic period where people could go to the ballgame in the afternoon and that vision wasnt cemented until the early 1960s particularly by the Retirement Community developers. My hero from that period, guy by the name of delbert g. Web. The inventor of sun city, the first largescale Retirement Community in the country. If you took a flyer on this idea that later life could be affecting childhood and he built a community and invested 2 million in the late 1950s, early 1960s into the opening of sun city and it was a wonderful moment the night before the community actually opened when one of his lieutenants was sitting around the table at a Mexican Restaurant in peoria arizona. He said how my for going to sell a 30year mortgage to summon a 65 years old . Maybe we shouldve thought about that beforehand. They all had sleepless lights and 100,000 people showed up. If you build it, they will come. This was an incog longing for Something Different than society offered at this stage of life. They essentially managed to make what was seen as a necessity, a virtue and retirement, this idea of the golden years for an extended period is what became the hallmark of the American Dream. Its not Just Retirement that was invented in the last century. It even adolescents, the idea of youth was concocted in the early part of the century. That word was coined in 19 four by a 6yearold. A psychologist named g. Stanley hal. We were in a situation in the country where there was a proliferation of the of that day. Neither young nor old as the characteristic of so many of us in our 50s, 60s and 70s. There were all these young people who were no longer children but they want quite adults. It was a time when there was a lot of disruption in the country, urbanization and industrialization, immigration. There was concern about all the zen people who had physical maturity but not emotional maturity. We essentially created a moratorium period. We had high schools and child labor laws and it took four years, until 1944 when we invented the word teenager and the birth of 17 magazine. There is some irony that youth was invented by somebody in their 60s. The main lesson really is that the stages of life were essentially responsive to problems. They were solutions and its ironic that g. Stanley hal himself, the inventor of youth, who proposed 20 years later a new stage of life between midlife and old age. Arguing that he had actually made a mistake. He should have invented the stage this stage iv people like himself. He promptly passed away a year later but in writing about this period he had a a set of beautiful images and insight which i think actually makes a lot of sense almost 100 years later. He described as period is an Indian Summer and he said human beings didnt reach the height of their capacity and tell a shadow started slanting eastward, which i love. Essentially has idea was that more and more people were reaching a point where they have the benefits of experience in the capacity to do something with it. Wrote a book a couple of years ago composing in later life in which he described this period of active wisdom and it all comes back to a sense of time. Its a familiar way of thinking about this period of life in the assets the people have as they move into their Encore Careers and continue trying to contribute to society, this experience. This essentially time lived is essentially as important as the other side. Is the question of time left to live. I know when i hit my 50s and by find this theme over and over again when i talk to other people, there is a recognition that there are a lot fewer years ahead than they are behind. That is just the reality even in this era of much longer life spans. That has a profound impact on peoples priorities, on their perspective and yet at the same time theres this awareness of mortality and the sense that time is being compressed. Theres there is a sense of the expansion of time. You read these articles about the centenarians and the continually growing Life Expectancy here and around the world. And at the same time you also realize how fast the last 20 or 25 years went by. Of its accommodation of perspective and motivation that i think of in terms of that great french revolution, fraternity, equality and liberty of this is quality, longevity and theres a realization that the road is gone forever. You pick up your College Yearbook and not everybodys there. Parents pass away. You read the obituaries and steven jobs dies. There is a sense that time matters in a way that you are not aware of when you are in your teens or 20s or even your 30s and yet the likelihood that there is a stretch of time up ahead. Its almost as if in the past wisdom was wasted on the old. This is the time you have figured out what life is all about and you were too worn out into rejected to do anything about it. Now you have got 10,000 people a day turning 60 who are reaching this point where they not only have all that benefit of experience and all that time lived but heres a perspective on life about what matters most and its time to do something with it. I think thats really what hal was talking about when he talked about Indian Summer in the shadows slanting eastward. Does not help us at all get past the oxymoronic problem. When i was writing this book i was trying to figure out, what do you call this stage of life . Paul use afraid phrase which explains 90 years after he wrote his book we still dont have a name for this period. Adolescence, the third chapter. I was struggling up against the publishing deadline and i had no name for this period. I found myself poised over laundry hamper with my motherinlaw who is one of those people he races through the times crossword puzzle on sunday and gets every word and its all said and done for in less than an hour. I said what am i going to do . She set up im so glad you asked me. I figured it out long ago. I said, tell me. As we were moving towards the computer she said im on my nexttolast dog. She has publicly got about six years left in her current k9 and then she could get a midsize. She is in her early 60s, probably about a 14 year pooch and at that point its not that she will be measured for a casket but you have to clean up after the get. I thought wow we are used to measuring life in dog years and this is just a new application. In may the end i was guided more by the National Discussion that has been happening over the 20 which i think is a parallel conversation to the one that is occurring in the 60s. There was a Macarthur Foundation commission a few years ago that published a report arguing that 20s are stage of life which they call emerging adulthood. I thought well maybe this third phase of adulthood, the period from the 50s through the 70s could be called on core adulthood. Shakespeare said there were seven stages of life and i think as we stretch to something approximate approximating five score we can just stretch those stages and i think theyre getting toward something that includes childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood, midlife, on core adulthood, retirement and old age. But i think its going to take more than a vision to realize their life course that makes sense for this century. I am struck a lot by a comment i heard and read about, a critique of ge family hall. He thought that adolescence was going to take place in both halle when of infected occurred in high school. I think the same caution applies in thinking about how we shape this period but i would like to focus as a society on the segment of the population that is planning to contribute in that stage of life and the stage of productivity, the engagement, of continued growth and thats also a time to use what we have learned from life not only to do something that has personal meaning but something beyond yourself. Marc piercy, the poet says and a person for work that israel. I think that is true. Studs terkel said americans get up and go to work every day is much for daily meaning as for daily bread. He could have easily added daily identity. So its no surprise that many people are looking for a new amalgam around work in the stage of life. They need income to be sure but they are also looking for daily identity for work that mean something beyond themselves. We have been calling that an Encore Career, work in the second half of life that is an intersection of passion, and a paycheck. Already 9 million americans are engaged in careers in the second half of life. 31 million more give top priority to make in that transition that are struggling to whats next. Its essentially become a doityourself process for so many people who are trying to get to this aspiration which is not only going to benefit them but i think has Great Potential payoff for the nation. I think its a as a society we need to come together and develop better pathways to help people navigate their way into this stage of life. I think one place to start is with what we do for young people. We have internships for young people. Thats one of the best ways for people to find the next phase of work and in fact a professor wrote an insightful book a few years ago, working identity in which she described how people at all stages of life are far more successful if they experiment, if they are able to try on new career roles than if they just discover their passion. It is a process that is much more likely to be successful that there is an opportunity for trial. That is what we do with internship programs for young people. As i was writing this book i met people in their 50s and 60s and 70s one after another who were in those internship programs for young people. I met a guy at yellowstone who worked for the public tv station in boston, retired from that job and had always wanted to be a park ranger. Key couldnt beat out how to get there so we joined a Student Conservation Association and ginger program. There wasnt anyone in his class over the age of 19. I met a woman in denver whose daughter had gone through teach for america and as she watched her daughter teach in a los angeles classroom she was so moved that she applied for teach for america herself. She was in her early 50s at the time and ended up a year later in a dorm room in july in houston at 115 degrees, sweltering temperature sharing a bathroom down the hall with three, 22yearolds. It seem like whether they were burrowing up from the street or repelling down from the ceiling or sneaking in the side door there were more and more people who were trying to find these kind of pathways to purpose. We created at encore. Org a fellowship, an Encore Fellowship Program which was designed to be a front door for many people who wanted to make this passage. It started in Silicon Valley with 10 people who had had careers in the corporate sector and wanted to work in the environment or kids in poverty but had no idea how to actually get there. Halftime for nine months and receive 25,000 in the fellowship, half from their previous employer and half from the nonprofit where they were working. This past fall fall intel announced every single retirement eligible employee in the United States could do an encore fellowship and they would pay the full 25,000 cobra coverage to help pay for the demonstration of the program and they moved this from a Philanthropic Initiative to nh are publicity at a time when all we hear are about Companies Cutting back their h. R. Benefits. Here is a new benefit aimed at the reality that so many people who have worked for 25, 30, 35 years are simply not at the point of retirement. At the same time they have been so busy doing what they have been doing in midlife that its hard to know whats next. They need to try things on and to have lowered barriers to entry to do that. Another idea is school for the second half of life. One of the triumphs of the last quarter century was the invention of Lifelong Learning through osha Lifelong Learning institute which is a huge time. Now we have a welldeveloped system of education for young people, for older people the people who are mostly focused on personal development and intellectual stimulation. What we are missing our school for the second half of life and again in communities around the country, people are going through the do it yourself process. There has been at doubling for example of people over 50 going to Divinity School since 1990, a phenomenon that Time Magazine referred to as holy rollers. And but this is then happening in many as well. We need to do a better job at making those programs efficient expedited and Affordable Care of the same Time Magazine article i referred to describe a woman who had been a pediatric nurse in florida and became an episcopal priest, close to 100,000. She had to sell her house and she sold her car and took a vow of poverty to make it through that period. Why not come up with better ways for people to say for this transition that so many more going through . There was another article in the wall street journal that describes the growing number of boomers who were tapping into the childrens 529 accounts to go back to school, whether they were going from being an episcopal priest to a pediatric nurse and vice versa or some other combination. We have individual retirement accounts. Id like to see individual purpose accounts where people save for their own transition and they dont have to go through their childrens 529 account. At the policy level, why not take Social Security more flexible . Why not enable people to take a year or two of Social Security in their 50s for example to go back to school or to do an encore fellowship or to do National Service for a year and have people go to work and actuarially adjusted period on the other and . These are things that we should ask the experimenting with, trying to develop and i think his policy level we should come up with something thats much more dramatic than even the small experiments that im talking about here. You know we had millions of soldiers returning from abroad to home after world war ii and we created the g. I. Bill. We did it for them to honor their service to the country but we also did it for the country because we knew having these individuals struggling with the bad for the economy and would be a source of social conflict. So we created a vast policy innovation called the g. I. Bill. I think we need something that is an encore bill to help tens of millions who are crossing different terrain. Its not geographic. Its not from military Service Disability and life but its really a stage in life that has no name, that has few pathways and institutions, but in the same way that we are deeply invested in those soldiers finding their footing. The same is true of all these millions and millions of people today who are in this period that is between life resembling retirement and old age. I would like to see us do it in a way that promotes social mobility. This wonderful example, the troops and Teachers Program which helps, to go back to the g. I. Bill analogy, would help mostly sergeants coming back from the gulf war, moving the ball for school teaching. It was created by an 86yearold retired history professor at Washington University who watched a youth account of soldiers coming back from the first iraq war who were having trouble getting their footing in the economy. He wrote at that time we had a shortage of people teaching in urban schools particularly people of color and put two and two together and its turned out to be a spectacular program to help people get a foothold in a new kind of career and better income than they have when they entered their first career. So many of these individuals are people who went to the military because few other opportunities existed for them. I wrote about a woman who was an assistant principal who had gone into the air force because she couldnt afford college. She was the daughter of sharecroppers. She ended up getting a doctorate in education. I think in many ways we cannot only help people move into the second act of purpose to help them move up the ladder as well at this point. I would like to see us do these things in part because we have so many people who are at this juncture because time is awkward, because it will be unsustainable as a country to have so many people spending so many years of their lives without gainful employment and opportunities for productivity. The number of people is too small to support all the people who are in the second half of life. But i hope we can marshal the energy and create i think theres an extraordinary opportunity. I think we can turn that longevity paired docs into a fast payoff and i think the analogy is the movement of so many women into new roles in the 60s and 70s. At that point we were thinking as a society, this is going to be a zerosum proposition. How we accommodate all this talent. We will simply displace men and end up at the same place that we started only with a lot of conflict along the way. Now we know we would be never be competitive without that enormous source of talent. Down the road we will feel the same way about the segment of population. I think therell be lots of surprises as well. We cant write off the talent and experience of this group but even more we tend to underestimate the creativity and and david gallas and he studied creativity said creativity across the life course. He said the value of every significant painting that was sold over the last 100 years and as they looks at the patterns of this artwork more strongly than anything else was that the most valuable work was mostly done by people who are very younger people who were old. It turns out according to him, the reason for that distribution is not the people who are older people who are young are by their very nature more creative. It has to do with styles of creativity, conceptual genius tends to bloom later earlier. It just takes a long time if you are an experimental genius to reach the apex of your productivity. The most valuable work is done in the late 60s. Probably the greatest american focus Teaching Middle School and great neck new york. She didnt do her best work until she was 80. When you think about how much of the society we have tended to think about creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship has exclusive province of young people. The facebook generation, and write people off as they reach this point where they not only have years of potential contribution in many ways some of their best work in some of their most creative work. So i think we are at a point where we can take advantage not only of this vast Human Capital windfall but what potentially could be a great wave of innovation. Wiki about something called the purpose prize. Civic ventures is something that encore. Org was previously called. Each year five people get 100,000dollar prices. We have 1200 to 1500 nominations a year for these awards. We have given out in addition to those prices 50 fellowships a year just to recognize the top 5 of people who are using their midlife experience really to do their best work. There are rarely examples of reinvention. They tend to be people who are taking what they have learned from one phase of life and applying it to new challenges in doing so in innovative ways. I think the two greatest payoffs though from making the most of the longevity revolution, and i will conclude with these thoughts, might be at the cultural level. You know, you talked earlier about mortality, longevity and urgency, this kind of perfect storm of purpose that so many people in the second half of life and up realizing. But there is a direction to all of that purpose and its encapsulated in the idea of generativity. Erik erickson was probably the great scholar of the second half of life said that the hallmark of Successful Development could be encapsulated in the phrase, i am what survives of me. As if our own mortality, we realize that the goal of life is not to try to live forever, not to try to be young forever, to have a second childhood but to be there to invest in those people who actually are young. I think as a society, that its been a big part of the american ideal, that we invest in future generations that future generations will have a better than we did. I think there is growing concern in the country that we have lost that. I think a big part of the reason we have lost that, and lost that generative ethos in the country is because we can find our congenitally second childhood. If we did the opposite and really fancy generativity we would not only see much better prospects for young people but we would give to this next generation into the generation after that a vision of the second half of life. All the young people who will see their 100th birthday. Second half of life to invest in. They can recognize early on that there is more than one bite at the apple and in many ways too i think all the people who are at this juncture today are like the women in the 60s and 70s who were breaking through to new roles for themselves what they but they were also paving possibilities and pathways for all the younger women coming quickly on their heels. So i think there is within this zerosum prospect in this long great wave of greedy that we hear about so frequently, the opportunity not only for a massive wave of talent for the country but for huge opportunities that will resonate for years to come. I will close with a quote from a mentor of g. Stanley hall, william james, probably the greatest american philosopher who said the great use of life is suspended or something that will outlast us. I can think of no better benediction for everything that we are here to talk about today. Thank you. [applause] we would like to remind our listening audience that this is a program of the Commonwealth Club of california and you are listening to Marc Freedman. This program has been underwritten by Wells Fargo Bank and ernst young. Are thanks to both of those corporations. Archive now we have questions and i would like to invite anyone who has a question to come to the mic so they can be hurt. Who will be first . C. Fascinating having these ideas presented. I love it. One of the questions that came out of your book was a discussion question that prompted me to think about what has happened recently and i would like to get your impression and take on possible solutions. Venture Capital Investors looking at making investments with entrepreneurs. They have said on more than one occasion, we need a 20something face on this investment. We are not interested in you. Do you have any ideas about why that is happening or what kind of solutions we might be able to put forth to break down that . You know i think we are at a turning point now. I think its described in the case for many years just despite everything we care about, the demographics and the size of the population but ive seen a couple of heartening developments in the past year. One is a Venture Capital investment and what was called the Encore Career which is changes name to power ed and its a collaboration of ucla continuing Education Program, Creative Artists Agency foundation, entrepreneur Steve Portman he ran for gubernatorial nomination a couple of years ago. And its focused on providing a new kind of education on the ipad for boomers and particularly focused on careers that have social impact. They believe are going to launch in september. I can tell you whether they will succeed or not but i was struck by the fact that this was a significant investment that was made and it was a collaboration between public and private institutions, a development that im much closer to and that i mentioned earlier is the film [inaudible] we were in partnership with one of the producers of that sound and in fact we have been doing a contest called the marigold ideas in which people over 50 in communities around the country each month get 5000dollar prices for an idea for social change in their community. One person each month gets to go with the rose color rhodes scholar. Theyre still a couple of months left in the contest so i encourage anybody to enter. It was a film that was made for 10 million it was made upwards of 125 million so far. I think its going to be a gamechanger for hollywood. There is a realization of people in the demographic are adjusted and stories in a cost less to make money and on the other hand there are a lot of people in this demographic. That is a pretty dramatic payoff for the sound. I was thinking about the film in the context of your comments because i think time is on our side. At the end of the movie, actually midway through the movie there is a wonderful scene in which the proprietor of Marigold Hotels this played by the slum dog millionaire character is accosted by one of the british retirees who moved there and wants to know why the hotel doesnt look anything like the photoshop brochure that she saw. He tells her, and india we have an expression that everything works out in the end so but hasnt worked out its not yet the end. [laughter] thanks to Marc Freedman our speaker tonight, author of the big shift for his comments and we also thank our audience here as well as those listening to the recording. And now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club of california commemorating its 109th year of enlightened discussion is adjourned. Thank you, marc. The name of this place still resonates with a shuddering and hearts of the american people. What did any other name connected to civil works of lincoln, gettysburg reverberates. Americas retain knowledge that what happened here was the crux of our terrible National Trial and even americans who went through precisely what transpired on the stilts and all the glory and tragedy we associate with the civil war beside most palpably, most indelibly seared. According to a panel of Sports Medicine professionals, young kids to play football face serious safety risk turtlenecks from the Aspen Institute, dr. Cantu, neurosurgeon and author concussion and our kids leads a discussion on issues involved in youth football. This is 90 minutes. Fewer than one and four asce adolescents get enough exercise in this country. We have an epidemic of physical inactivity across the nation about 90 billion a year rightdc now and jura cost projected to n be 190 billion by 2030. We know physical activity levele have dropped 32 and less than generations and 15, our physical activity level has dropped 75 . A lot of kids fallout of sports during the middle school years. And we know that there are Many Health Benefits from playing sports, stronger bones, better heart health, lower levels of depression and we know that one study in 2004 out of Penn State University said that adolescents who played sports are eight times more likely to be active in sports at age 24 as adolescents who do not play sports. So in a nation we have a real interesting getting and keeping as many kids active in sports in their teenage years as possible. At the same time, we have another set of statistics we have to contend with particularly as it relates to the sport of football. You know i worked for espn and we recently conducted a survey of parents and 58 of those with suns younger than age 15 say they were cole very concerned about youth with all injuries. Nearly one in five discouraged their sons from playing the game. Foot wall has the highest concussion rate in sports along with hockey, and you have a lot of parents, a lot of people are wondering chico is this a game that is safe for my kid . Should i introduce them to at . What are the shortterm consequences . What are the longterm Health Consequences . So the central question we are going to be looking at today is how can football, the institution of football best serve the interests of children and communities and Public Health . How can football serve children, communities and Public Health . Everybody at the table here has their own narrow interest. We work for this organization or that organization and we are trying to grow our membership or whatever else it may be but this is a collective conversation about what are some great ideas that people have developed out there and could be scaled up, and is there a Common Ground that people can find to move this conversation forward and address the needs of the nation and the concerns of parents. People are worried. Should we hold off on football until high school somewhat arguing not play at all . Or can it be made safer through reforms at the lower levels . And what is the role of the nfl, the Players Association and profootball and the industry in general and creating an environment that is productive . Aspen begin to address these questions at the aspen ideas festival in june where we convened a panel called head games, can foot all save itself from itself and jim brown, the nfl legendary, the legendary nfl running back was on the panel and dan garza, professor at stanford who has worked on mouthguard technology that can measure the force of impacts on the head and kevin turner who was the subject of documentary which you will see a clip of it called american man produced by a colleague of mine who works at hbo. So, this panel will be featured in a show on the world channel on november 20 at 8 00 p. M. And on line as well. Pbs is working with, Public Television is working with the Aspen Institute to turn this into a onehour session. There will be a whole onehour session which will include conversations about football safety but we are going to play about a tenminute clip of that. [no audio] [inaudible conversations] lets come back to it. Sorry about that. So what i would like to do now is start off this conversation about the under 14 question, the prehigh school equation and i would like to do that with our special guest, dr. Robert cantu who many of you will of course are familiar with. He is the chief of neurosurgery and chairman of the department of surgery and drifter of services of Sports Medicine in concord massachusetts as well as the clinical professor of neurosurgery and the codirector of Boston University center for the study of traumatic and and encephalopathy. Is the he is a Senior Adviser to the nfl head neck and Spine Committee and is cofounder of the sports legacy institute, an organization dedicated to addressing the concussion crisis through research, treatment, education and prevention and he is the author of the new book, called concussions and their kids, americas leading expert on how to protect Young Athletes and keep sports safe, written with marc hyman who is with us here today as well. So dr. Cantu, what is the central thesis of your book here . First of all time i would like to thank you in the Aspen Institute for convening this Conference Today and for inviting me to participate in it. I think before i answer your question, i would like to start i just simply saying i am prosports. I want every sport to be continued and i wanted to be played in greater numbers, and i believe all of the opinions that i hold are trying to have that happen although right now maybe not everybody fully believes it. Footballs value is the exceptional exercise obtained in playing it. The last time i checked, it was the minutes if not hours of physical activity playing the sport that counts, not the milliseconds of bashing heads. As for the medical director of the National Center for catastrophic sports injury research, we track catastrophic sports injuries in this country. 97 of which comes from the sport of foot wall or 96. 9 to be precise. And that is even before you start to get into the concussion issue. Please believe that all sports that are currently being played should continue to be played that they should be made safer with regard to the head issue and in the sports of football especially involving our very young youth, we believe the tackle football should not be played, rather flag foot should be substituted and in the substitution of flag football its perfectly okay if pats are worn and if even helmets are worn. But the act of tackling, which is the activity were almost all of the serious injuries happen and the majority of the concussions as well is eliminated and instead flags are pulled. I personally view this as a tremendous opportunity for usa football because, if they were to offer flag football is an option and promote it, all they wrote the benefits that are needed would be there. The head injury risk and other injuries would the largely decreased and i think football would be gaining individuals coming from other sports at highrisk of head injury, especially like soccer. Soccer has been a drain on football for two decades and i think he would go the other way of foot ill were to offer the flag is an option to tackle. Youngsters are not miniature adults. Brain injuries and youngsters are a bigger problem than they are and adults. Youngsters brains are not fully my eliminated. That is the coding of the telephone wires as an analogy. It helps in and transitioned to get or structure and support to the brain fibers connecting nerve cells. Youngsters brains are more susceptible to the excited toxic shock of concussions and. Youngsters have big heads on weakness like the bobble head although head daul effect that puts them at greater risk than and it. I commend the nfl did try to alleviate this problem but tend to have the oldest equipment, the least experienced coaches, almost never have medical personnel on the sideline. Youngsters do not have informed consent i would offer. Rarely do they really understand the risk, especially at the youth level. So for these reasons as well as others which im happy to get into, i think that we should seriously approach football from a different standpoint for our youngest individuals and take tackle out of the football football at the youth level. In one scene and i had somebody in my office earlier this week ironically said there were three confessions of a particular game in which his son was injured. He happens to be a coach and all of them came from one individual there s inflict to the drama on others. Theres not solid science to study the extent to what the of thi scope of this problem is because the statistics searches not beee accumulated. What we do know from a wide variety of sources is that the brain of our youth are more sete to go to injury injury and the impact that the springs are being asked to absorb some times reached the same level commit bdg or higher that we see and adults and there is a lot of emerging evidence both on structural dti, on metabolic studies, functional mri as well as neuropsychological testing suggests that she dont even have to have concussions recognize for your brain structure and or function to deteriorate over a season of hope. Preseason testing versus postseasons declines under all three of those disciplines. So theres plenty of of evidence i believe we need to look at this differently. I was thinking of someone who was telling me hes a freshman in high school and its his first year playing and there were an awful lot of injuries this year, possibly because these kids havent played football before and theyre been introduced to tackle for the. Youve heard the thought. Kevin draskovic said North Carolina believes you need to teach kids how to tackle earlier to protect themselves at 14, 15 of 16. I mightve heard that once or twice. Kevin as Department Chair where we are adjunct professors, so ive heard that hes a respected colleague inquiry firm. I think in this one area we seriously disagree. Maybe theres one or two others, but i cite the following. If you look at some of the great individuals played in the National Football league, tom vries not a bad example. The guy that ran for 251 yards last week against oakland and other didnt play it down until they got to high school. Lets forget about them. Lets look at Tony Gonzalez, the alltime leading type and still adding to his numbers he played basketball at my alma mater end up in new england are right guard for years with Stephen Mayle who didnt play for in high school and college, came out of college with an outstanding of the wrestling career. Not much future in olympic style wrestling. Theres another activity that doesnt cope with the same name, but this guy to have that could fill you in where you can make a buck. So she went to football and theres many tracks as it did play football in college like some not to go into the nfl and call each. If you got the elite genes in the work got sick, you can make it in whatever sport you dont have to pick it up at a very early age. Youre going to be better at age five or 10 or 12 if you do. When your age 20 and will be what god gave you and which are willing to do for yourself that determines where you will find out. I dont play for second inning to teach the skill set at an early age to necessarily perform at a high level in your 20s for the reduce or even in high school. I dont think you necessarily need to stop them from learning skills if you go to flag football because flight football you will pull a flag to bring them down in tackling, but you can still teach all these skills. You can still teach tackling skills without having tackle be a part of the play. Instead of bashing heads you are hitting dummies, tackling dummies. The winningest football coach in this country, Tom Gagliardi known as 80s doesnt doesnt have any tackling once the season starts in his teams have won and his teams have embraced it. The only tackling that goes on as an gameplay. But they practice all week long. They just dont bring them to the ground. We talked about the importance of getting kids active. As a football one the sport but is actually accessible to kids over beasts are overweight . Theres no room on the soccer team or in any of these speeds, but in foot tall as a place. You eliminate the opportunity to give those kids physically to be opportunities. Lactam is checked, and site did have tackles and guards in different positions and i dont see flag eliminating those individuals from playing. Yes, they dont have as much as an advantage, but i think they can play flag football and get the aerobic benefits plan as a youngster i really did feel theres a lot of aerobic stuff that goes on. I dont want to see less of it. One governing body that is new to misdirection is is hockey. They have been body checking. Theyve also gotten rid of championships. There was a lot of angst when they were having this discussion about whether to push body checking off. What do you think of their reforms, how they work out. What if we learned . Two years ago when we started writing, it was 11 years of age full body checking started as you just indicated and over the course of the last two years, theyve upped it to 13. So the 13, 14yearolds are the minimum age that they start with full body checking. I came out and was facilitated by several reports out of canada that showed the incidence of concussion was dramatically higher when there is full body checking. So it was really good stuff that made it easier and i commend him greatly. I am not hung up whether its 14 or 15. Waitress relatively immature, move it up to 15 before you Start Coalition activities if you want. The reason that arbitrarily pick 14 is simply you want to learn at some point all of the skills and play sports similar as played in college. We will have that debate later and i look forward to it. How do you feel about some of the reforms that other organizations have adopted such as limits on practice time during the course of the week. Getting rid of certain bull in the ring type of drills . Well, i certainly commend all of those reforms. Acting role in the ring is insane at any age and doesnt help you play the sport any better. But lets think about it a little bit. Reducing the hitting by one third, and i support that. But that is up to 40 minutes a day, theoretically every day they practice, the ivy league a couple years ago went to hit two days a week in the National Football league and the Players Association now dont even have once a week. 14 times in 18 weeks. So these kids who have no medical personnel on the sideline, players sport than the late 1900 was designed for adults that came out of college and almost died in college if it werent for teddy roosevelt. The sport of his made for adults is being played at the youth level without medical personnel in attendance and are practicing every arguably 500 greater than the nfl uses. Affixed to open up the conversation a little bit. If you want to make a comment, ask a question. Go ahead and push your name tag up. The executive director of the u. S. A. Folk all. Talk to us a little bit about what you say football is doing in this area. Before that come address the general question. Is football serving the best interests of children in communities and how can it be improved . It is certainly striving for parents and kids. We all recognize this challenge is. We are at a point where we are learning. First i should think dr. Cantu for raising this important issues. I believe we are all in this together. Were all looking ways to create a better for players. I hope we are and that is to provide accurate and whenever possible evidencebased data for appearance. We have to be careful certainly not to scare parents. My interaction with parents across the country as they are looking for frankly someone to say we care about your kids. We were taking action. We recognize challenges and were doing something about it. So virtually theres two sides as best as i can tell. Theres a sports site in the football side and of course the science side. I will let the medical experts talk about the science side. Certainly zurich and others have been working closely for some time. U. S. A. Football have 3 million kids to play tackle football. Roughly twopoint play flag. It is a great outfit, a great option. In fact we suggest the experience should be flag no matter what age. In addition, we work with pop warner to make them better and safer. If that includes things that really nationally accredited. Ng practice plans. Most coaches doug is practice plans come as you make sure you have an organized structure prior to his to make sure we have volunteers to come the commissioners, coaches out there putting their time. We need to educate them. Certainly every medical expert, every expert on this issue comes back to education being the most critical. U. S. A. Footballs focus is largely about education. We provide the best resources we can to make sure those folks are prepared. Literally down to drills that have 3d animations. You can literally be in the palm of your best techniques, nutrition information. Things like this are resources that ultimately folks to ultimately deliver a safer experience. With that said, we fully agree we need to how practices. Its actually started up a conversation a couple years ago akin to our our office and talk about the concept. It came up with something called levels of contact. The basic premise is there is a progression in track this. Start with error. The new transition 75 speed and may be the last 20 minutes your blood contact. So its things like that that is an agebased teaching concept. We set it about this cognitively, emotionally, physically. But in an eight under, 12 and under, how do we develop these folks . Parents of a 17yearold daughter and 16yearold son is football. To see development of an 8yearold or a 10yearold is dramatic. Emotionally, physically, cognitively, all of these things weigh in on how we ultimately produce resources that make the game safer. So those kinds of things seemed to me a logical step, maybe an interim step, a logical step in lieu of evidencebased right now that suggest we should effectively had 3 million kids stop playing football. Why not just adopt dr. Cantu suggestion of flag only before 14 . What is the argument about that . We support flag. If im not mistaken the arthur organizations work as well. The flag only is what you suggest . Yeah, from our standpoint, interacting with tears, talking to coaches are folks that love this game. Just help us understand how to play it more safely. So i guess in shortages to see that leap just yet, but that needs to be we need to take such a dramatic leap. Again, there is room to Work Together with the science experts and medical experts to create programs and resources and probably stronger standards that ultimately it didnt make this a better safer again. Dr. Cantu. Yeah, i would like to thank scott very much, too. It mostly its because of a very insightful meeting that he reference when chris and i spoke with him and other members of u. S. A. Football. Believe me, this is it me against u. S. A. Football. I what u. S. A. Folk all to prosper. I wanted to triple the number of people playing it. Yes i want to explain a little. When my eyes were open was when i talked to scott two years ago, he said basically im not opposed to flag football, but the parents will sign kids up for it. They want to see their kids emulating their sunday heroes and they want to see them do it as young as five years old. I may not be the quickest person in the world, but a lightbulb to go opposite wait a minute, ive been working this field for 35 years. Im not getting a lot of traction in terms of changes at the medical meetings. Yes i talk here and there, but it really dawned on me if anythings going to happen is going to be educating parents to demand changes in options and that was the genesis of the book. Ltd. The book, despite 31st book. Most of the others are medical to keep people awake at night reenlisted mark to help me with it and im really thrilled with the result. A Quick Response to that. I didnt realize they get to take credit for why he writes this book. But that is somewhat news to me. In fairness, had to in the reform that is probably a good one where weve done the research. We looked at the concept of an Education Program to past 15 quizzes. He passed 80 competency in a program like that. Theyve been trained for the last five years, but this is important. How do we know the transfer is in the new knowledge in the field . To try to be quick here, the concept does have a player safety coach that is part of the lake, some of the coaches respect, has been a coach and we were to train a person that began and they are on site to assess vendor to. So they work with coaches at the beginning of the season, throughout the season, tackling the proper way. They have the season with a work with the parents. We need to do a whole lot more with parents literally look and see thank you come youre making us feel more comfortable. So the long way to get to again i dont recall the conversation, but i hope they get royalties from the book. I think the parents are looking for ways to u. S. A. For all and other folks can Work Together to give them confidence that this can be a better, safer game. They are not looking to immediately jump to other sports that they want to play the sports in a better, safer way. Let me move it to rain now. But it should give us your title and affiliation in the work youve done at Virginia Tech. Podesta may not donate, i am breaking up, Current Research assistant. His apologies for not being able to attend the meeting. Really great work and i really agree with him that education is really what we need to teach these players, kids, players, coaches and parents and really at Virginia Tech we aim at giving the right information to players, parents and coaches family of about 120 players instrumented with acceleration devices that measure linear from six to 18 years old. What if he found in terms of the forces . Currently study shows some of these kids have forces that exceed collegelevel. So although the kids are young in age, they are asked various courses that may be injured injurious. We look more into that and currently a study we have ongoing this year spread out between Virginia Tech and university with dirty 2000 data points for head impacts that we are studying. We are making it available to some of the people here. Also, we are setting a neurocognitive and data to go along with impact exposure to to give the proper education to some of the physicians as far as the functioning of the brain and differences what we see. I would like to go to dr. Julia. Tell me about your work in terms of pediatric cases and concussions and figuring out when kids should return to play. Thank you, tom for wilderness foreign and obviously to bob who is that the science and discussion forward dramatically because one of the things we all know is we cant not do nothing or anything. See how many negatives are put in there to make a positive. We have to do something. As a clinician that these kids and families and our clinics in seeing the major education deficit on the fields today in all sports frankly, but also seeing the outcomes. Some of the things that raise talking about in terms of understanding forces is really important and we just completed some work in developing measures they are using so we can understand their cognitive symptom kinds of effects of these to kids. I think thats very, very important outcome to what we need to link up with the games. From the perspective actually was at the Aspen Institute this summer, where u. S. Nabobs question about, should we be eliminating football tackling a football before the age of 14. At that point i couldnt speak, although we did speak that night. One of the things i said as weve got to change things. In its current form of credit problem. Although the age limit is something that has to be further studied here it is going to finish my comments with research, but maybe starts with research in trying to understand what evidence do we have. One of the things that is hopeful that ive seen in sports like football, but also across, ice hockey, soccer other sports as we look at technique differently. This is a pretty young field and taking the issue of injury, concussion and linking it back with the sport is exactly what we need to be doing. Weve not really done that up until the last few years. But the other thing is we have so little data on kids right now in terms of concussions we have to start collecting more data. Again, what Virginia Tech is doing is important and what we do is important as well. We have to look at what type exar porton, the heads of tackling program. Weve got to look at rules and enforcement in procreation from my perspective and football that if you make no effort that the flag is thrown because otherwise youre just using your body is a target or as a torpedo. Looking at the whole issue of recognition and response, you can come educating coaches and parents we do a really good job with the 40 states that have passed laws. What we do is increase awareness, but weve got to know the train go to the Knowledge Transfer action and stage. I your coaches and a new something was wrong but didnt know what to do about it. Weve got to get to the point of making the next step in responding appropriately. Finally weve got to wrap that around research. At what age is it safe, is it not safe . When i was at the headcount meeting two weeks on boston, chris asked me did make some comments on what age he think we want to limit contact. I said i dont know. I wouldnt know how to make that estimate right now. But we know that less is better. We do know that. So the other pieces reducing unnecessary or inappropriate contact. Is there a safe contact . Ready to understand understand that. Ive been accelerometers side its outcome is important to know. So pop warner has been trying this, ideally, nfl. What can we do at our youth level . Those are five things we can start to do, but weve got to wrap it around evidence to now begin to many more precisely say coming to know what euros should we doing this. Nine euros should be doing this combat should do this. 12 euros should or shouldnt do this. From my perspective thats the direction they move in. The Virginia Tech study shows sun has a pretty big. The study showing theres sub concussive that are hard to measure and little kids suffer is not enough. We need more research, more data we really need to understand also with one of the things i would imagine if there will be a good case study of generic coaching technique and not taking other effects into that sort of thing. When we build some of these other measures and put a new technique and hopefully build out of recognition and response into that. I think it will be a Good Foundation on which to build. I went to go to julian bills. Do you disagree with dr. Cantu. And ive read about that . In what respect . 14 and under. Keeping it to flag geared i agreed the brain circuits vulnerable and i agree we need to do everything we can to make us safe. If it is shown thats what the public wants through this education he talks about, maybe this will evolve to more flag play. But i dont know, as they think he 32, we dont have exact science about is there truly more injury in youth level . And also, this whole concept gives us it gives us a conflict in a way because we think that theres maybe 100 head impacts in a youth player per season and at the High School Level 3600 to 1000, some unlike that, studies have shown. Is it okay that we believe the longterm risk is cumulative and riskbased . Is it okay then to a thousand head a year, but its not okay to have 100 . The nature of football and other sports bring in some natural difficult questions. At pop warner, we instituted this year for the first time the first level at the time, we announced in june that we would have no had contact in the devcon pectorals of any type, over a third of the practice time. So to be critical and say that we have 500 more than the nfl is a little bit not addressing the positive steps we try to take in acknowledging them and comparing that to other levels of play. So i think we really looked forward to the results of this year where monitoring more than weve ever done and will have a very good survey of 18,000 coaches and concussion and we hope to have a better idea after this season not only a concussion incidents, but the acceptance of these rules changes and what effect they had, how parents and players and coaches are reacting to them. So we look forward to that and think that that may be work to come out of this. Dr. Cantu. Yeah, i hope people heard it the way i meant it to be that if i apply changes that julian and pop warner has put forward. Up the incidents of concussion. Dont now about the unrecognized. Thats why they upped the age from 11 to 13. So yes, we need more data, and yes, we should get it. As a person sits across the families who have hundreds that i can remember of the thousand of patients that we have seen have had their lives by cognitive and emotional problems of post concussion syndrome. Not all of which recovered from it. When we have chronic traumatic [inaudible] by the group we work it be you showing cte in a 17yearold and 21yearold College Player and others who played at the College Level and never beyond. I think its issue serious enough i think we need to talk about it now while we accumulate the data that jerry suggests. Im 100 in flavor of that. I would like we have fifteen minutes left on the particular topic under 14. I would like turn this part of the conversation to the participation question. You alluded to the fact theres concern if you live to flag, then therefore kids parents will not sign their kids up for the sport. Let me bring in tom cove on this. Why dont you tell us your name, your afghanistan, what you have learned about participation rates in football and some of the factors that might be drive the trends. Sure, thanks, tom. Im president and ceo of the sports and finance industry association, the trade group of people that make Sports Products around the world. And we go with a consortium of other trade associations and National Surveys of the Sports Participation. All kinds including all kinds outdoor and et. Cetera. 120 different activity. We have a strong basis to understand whats going on with Sports Participation at the casual level and we break it down gender and location and all these things. So what happened is football for years and years was steady as any team sport going. It is started to see some slight decrees and at the younger level probably a higher, faster rate of decrees. Its fairly small but real over the last five to seven to ten years. One of the concerns weapon look at football with all other sports. Is the concussion issue driving the reduction. First, at the High School Level, that decrees in the rate of participation is not happening. So its more the younger level. But frankly, its not clear why. Its a reasonable kind of question, certainly, to say with the the a awareness about con cushion and health and head injury. It might be a driving force. They make that at a all ages. We found that both from the Quantitative Research which is quite detailed but the qualitative focus groups, ease, there are other issues that are affecting football at the young age. The specialization of sports and youth in america. Clearly one of the most dangerous factors to Sports Participation because used to play three or four sports a year. Today people play one. Football suffers for that. Nobody plays football four seasons a year. Many people play will cross, soccer, swimming, et. Cetera. Thats a fundamental issue. Add the specialization, which probably happened and probably happened a the the higher 15, 16, 17 is moving down. The second thing is football clearly would be effected more than any other sports by the recession. Its a costly sport. The numbers reflect all sports that cost a lot for certain segment of the lower income population suffer. And the third issue is the idea that middle School Sports, because of school sport budget being cut middle School Sports are being cut. The gateway to football has been increase at high school when most its starts to degrade peoples interest specially in can getting the kids involved. Finish with its obvious that the con cushion issue is real and apparent on the front of mind for most parent flps are many other issues that affect it and team sports in general struggling to keep the prarption rates Going Forward. Football is one of them. Thats where we stand. John butler. I didnt see you there. Im sorry it [inaudible] yeah. I apologize. You have been holding the card up. What would you like to say . [inaudible] scott mentioned, we have knock against flag football. We have offered flag football i dont know when flak football started probably the early 1980s,ed at least if not earlier, but to scotts point no matter how we promote it. We never get over 950 team versus 7500 tackle football teams. Its not a matter of promoting one or the other. Thats what people sign up for. I can tell you the Fastest Growing divisions are the young two youngest divisions. We believe very strongly in education. We certainly, as we put put in arbitrary rules this year, we needed a starting point. We need to know Going Forward whether we need to adjust the rules further or create new rules as new Research Indicates appropriate. I have been asked a number of times over the last couple of years why dont they do away with tackle football and only offer flag football. My response, ive surveyed a number of people and if we did, 95 of our members would drop out and those kids would be playing for local independent youth football program. Whether it be kids or participants, they want to play tackle football. That goes to a whole question of education. Its, you know, its one of those things that were trying to do certainly the best question. We rely on our army of volunteers. We require training and background checks. We require at least minnal medical minimal medical training to be present at all practices and games. We will keep adjusting those rules. One quick correction for Tony Gonzalez did play growing up. Bob warner . Eddie maison is with us. Standing next to the pillar there. Want to pass the microphone over to him. Eddie is a former nfl player. Washington redskins, someone i interviewed for an outside lines peace of mind. Before kurt warner were stepping toward saying im not going let my kid football. Eddie was one of the voices that got the conversation started back then. Eddie, why adopt you tell us about your perspective an the decision you made with your son. Tom, thanks. Congratulations to the board. Thank you for your great work, scott, u. S. A. Football. I played the game 27 of years of my life has been devoted to the game. Eight years professionally. Theres consequences to the game. It comes along with it. At the end of the day, you know, working as a commission of sports league, being involved with two actually three fullcontact leagues in virginia, the thing i have seen since i have been retired and ive been training. Im on a Training Facility that works with Young Athletes from ages to six to pro. The issue is education, and the reality between the education and the reality is this. Is that the coaches, the that coach the game, whether its flag or tackle, for whatever reason, dont embrace change very well. Thats the issue. And the issue is that bob warner, u. S. A. Football can implement all the things they want to, you can implement rules and changes, until the Football Community embraces the reality of the sports, the reality of concussion, the reality of the damage that comes along with it, if you started early age, thats the problem. I have seen this. I work in it. I live it every day. And the problem is, you know, when i was coming up, we didnt use our heads. We werent taught to tackle with our heads. If you look at this at the elite level now, everybody leads. Where does it start in youth football. Is that because these guys arent implementing the right stuff . No, the coaches arent embracing change. Theres certifications that need to be implemented, there are rules that need to be changed, theres levels where we have to make decisions, real decisions, as to take it out of as we always tell people. Sometimes you have to take the decision outside of the hands of the parent and so you to make the change. We dont offer tackle at the age. We offer flag, and these are the reasons why. And then you develop an institute a set of rules and litigate that to a point where people emigres that. Not because we dont like tackle football. Tackle football changed my life. Of course, my familys live. Where what we are saying is safety number one. Number two is education, teaching. Number three, is the transition of learning how to play the game the right way. I think thats what it comes down at the end of the day. Tom and i both agree. My son is 8 years old. Hes not playing tackle. I didnt play tackle until i got to high school. And i fared okay. Do you feel like you need learn how to tackle before high school . Yes, it is important. I think flag teaches kids the points of contact. It teaches them how to drop their hips. How to keep their head up. Heads up u. S. A. Football, thank you. It teaches them how to enter in to the point of contact, without making contact. So when you talk about attacking the hip, which we teach in football, it is that exact point. Bent needs, heads up, eyes a the the point of contact on the hips. Obviously on the shoulder when do you play tackle. Thats what we teach. Thats why i think flag is important because it develops the mechanics of how to tackle. Theres other things that need to be implemented. Thing are courses that need to be taught. I think the coaches need understand at the youth level. How do you teach kids how to play tackle. How do you teach them eighth and ninth grade . How do i teach a kid how to tackle. That goes back to basic old