Associate head coach of University of Washington’s women’s soccer team, Amy Griffin, visits cancer patients in hospitals for support of the victims. While visiting a patient, a nurse mentioned that the patient was the fourth goalkeeper she “hooked up (on chemo) this week”. This struck as an odd occurrence for Griffin. Coach Griffin is quoted as saying, “I’ve coached for 26, 27 years, my first 15 years, I never heard anything about this. All of a sudden it seems to be a stream of kids.” Coach Griffin has since made a list of 38 soccer players with cancer, 34 of whom are goalies.
This is becoming a bigger concern for people nationwide but there is no scientific link found so far. It has been found that turf is made up of more harmful material than most thought. Turf is believed to contain synthetic fibers and scrap tire. This could ultimately affect the athletes who dive and fall into this treacherous material. This observation is similar to concerns that arose when people started to notice and weird coincidence of smokers getting lung cancer.
As of right now, this is a rising scare with no actual evidence other than anecdotes of a few people. There would have to be many well conducted experiments to prove this fatal occurrence. Although there is no proof, I do believe there could be some concern in the future.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/how-safe-artificial-turf-your-child-plays-n220166
There are lots of hypotheses if this anecdote ends up being part of a bigger problem. Maybe diving around on possibly toxic ground causes cancer, or maybe it’s goalies’ tendencies to have different body types, or maybe it’s a complete coincidence. Either way, if being a goalie does prove to be harmful for health, I could only imagine the controversy and harm that would bring to the soccer community.
I found this really awesome article. It speaks about how more than 50 soccer players have been diagnosed with cancer. Many of the girls are goal keepers making sense because they spend far more time in contact with the ground diving for balls and defending the goal causing them to get most exposure to the artificial turf. The coach has found black dots in turf and suspects that they may have a role in this ordeal. Here is the article: http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/daily-take/201410/synthetic-turf-giving-athletes-cancer-soccer-crumb-rubber-goalie-fields
That is a scary thought that turf could be correlated with cancer! Being a soccer player, I have played on turf fields many many times, and have been on the ground just as much as up running around. Do you think that the synthetic fibers and scrap tire have toxins that can cause cancer? And if so, how are these harmful to us? By contact with blood or even topical? Here is an article talking more about the synthetic fiber and scrap tire in turf and if they pose as health risks. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/soccer-goalie-wonders-if-synthetic-turf-poses-health-risks-n222151
As you stated, because there is no scientific evidence of the correlation between turf and cancer, another idea to consider is why it is just goalies that this is happening to. Although soccer goalies do dive through the turf, I think in the average game the field players are likely to take as many tumbles depending on the team. If the correlation to cancer has been linked to goalies specifically, maybe there is a different reason for this all together such as goalie gloves or certain training practices.