Ok I know that Hurt Girls was the cover story on Sunday's NY Times Magazine and I should have blogged on it days ago; but I'm also in the middle of a series of site visits with programs for young adults who have left/been pushed out of school with reading levels below 8th grade and no science at all, who are trying to get a GED (General Equivalence Diploma). So I may be a little bitter right now as I watch and document the struggles that these young people go through.

However, that said, I still think I have a right to be bitter about the New York Times Magazine story. The cover says "Hurt Girls what sports are doing to young women is not pretty". While the article's actual title is "The Uneven Playing Field", it appears on the title page in a small red font. Dominating the title page is the following quote, all capital letters in a huge bold black font:

"EVERYONE WANTS GIRLS TO HAVE AS MANY OPPORTUNITIES IN SPORTS AS BOYS BUT CAN WE LIVE WITH THE GREATER RATE OF INJURIES THEY SUFFER?".

And oh yes, the featured quote on the second page, also in capital letters, red this time, begins, "I'M AFRAID FOR HER AND FOR ALL THESE GIRLS". Being the New York Times, after they have scared readers to death (or at least toward discouraging their daughters from playing sports), they go on to say:

Comprehensive statistics on total sports injuries are in short supply. The N.C.A.A. compiles the best numbers, but even these are based on just a sampling of colleges and universities. For younger athletes, the numbers are less specific and less reliable. Some studies have measured sports injuries by emergency-room visits, which usually follow traumatic events like broken bones. A.C.L. and other soft-tissue injuries often do not lead to an E.R. visit; the initial examination typically occurs at the office of a pediatrician or an orthopedic surgeon. Studies of U.S. high-school athletics indicate that, when it comes to raw numbers, boys suffer more sports injuries. But the picture is complicated by football and the fact that boys still represent a greater percentage of high-school athletes.

Shultz and other researchers say that A.C.L. research and the training programs spawned by it may end up protecting women from a range of injuries — all of them stemming from poor form and underdeveloped muscle. “Just because a kid is good at a sport does not mean she has the foundational strength or movement patterns to stand up to constant play,” she says. “What I’d like to be able to say is: ‘Before you engage in a sport, I am going to teach you how to move. And I am going to give you strength.’ ”

That makes a lot of sense to me. So New York Times Magazine, why the fear mongering?