Concussions in football and youth sports: Tacoma doctor urges caution first
Dr. Josh Purses has treated youth sports concussions for years. His top piece of advice? Play it safe.
“The No. 1 thing is to not return to play,” Purses said in a phone call with The News Tribune on Tuesday. “If somebody thinks you have a concussion, you shouldn’t be going out there. If you’re not 100 percent sure, don’t take risks. … If something is in doubt, it’s not worth it to go too soon.”
It’s football season, and concussions are common due to the collision-based nature of the sport.
Purses grew up playing sports in the Midwest and moved to the Pacific Northwest over a decade ago. He now works as an orthopedic sports medicine specialist out of MultiCare Allenmore Hospital in Tacoma.
While concussions occur across all sports, they’re especially common in tackle football.
“It has to be associated with a blow to the head,” Purses said.
For student-athletes, coaches and parents who are watching for concussions, they usually present similar symptoms.
“A headache is the No. 1 symptom,” he said. “Right after a blow to the head, a lot of people have confusion, sometimes a real emotional response. They sometimes will cry, will feel dizzy. Sometimes they’re hard to converse with. You’ll see a lot of that.”
Purses reiterated that if coaches or medical trainers suspect a player might have sustained a concussion but aren’t certain, it’s best to shut them down for the day instead of returning them to practice or game action.
Most school districts employ dedicated sports trainers, who are trained to look for concussion symptoms. In most cases, trainers can manage a player’s care and clear them for return to play. However, if concussion symptoms linger past a certain point, Purses recommends the athlete seek medical care.
“If it gets over 10 days, that’s when you need physician involvement,” Purses said.
There are a couple common misconceptions about concussions, according to Purses.
“One is that you have to have lost consciousness for it to be a concussion, which is not true,” he said. “Some people will say, ‘They just got their bell rung, that’s not a concussion.’ If you’re having symptoms after a blow to the head, we don’t look at the situation that way anymore. You would assume it’s a concussion.”
Aside from concussions, Purses said the most common youth sports injuries he sees stem from repetitive use and overuse of certain muscles due to the ongoing trend of sports specialization — when a child or teenager chooses to play only one sport year-round.
“They don’t change things up at all, and you run into more injuries that are problematic,” he said. “There’s never an offseason. They never change it up or do something different with their bodies. Like basketball, it’s all running and jumping. There’s a lot of examples of that in youth sports.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
