When I was young, my youngest brother was ostracized and prohibited from playing football because he wore glasses. I watched how it hurt him terribly, as our two other brothers excelled at sports. David was a cracker-jack quarterback who could throw a ball like nobody’s business, but he was cast aside and made to feel inadequate due to his eyesight. From that moment on, he was verbally abused and ridiculed by our father because he wasn’t ‘man enough’.

Let them play? Not unless they fit society’s idea of a man. The effects of this abuse stayed with David until adulthood.

My brother committed suicide. That’s what society does to those who don’t live up to their standards of ‘man’. I can’t tell you how much I’d rather see our youth read instead of getting their brains pulverized by ‘playing’.