In March, San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland announced his retirement after one year in the NFL, citing concerns about concussions and head trauma. President Barack Obama and NFL Hall of Fame inductee Brett Favre have even admitted that if they had sons, they probably wouldn't want them to play football.

So if a 247-pound linebacker, a legendary NFL quarterback and the president of the United States are worried about safety, how do you convince the parents of a 16-year-old that it's safe for their child to put on the pads?

Well, you're going to need a game plan, and you're going to need to make your players and parents part of the team. You also have to teach kids how to play the right way.

Yes, playing football can be dangerous. So can riding a bicycle, skateboarding, playing soccer and swimming. Safe Kids Worldwide found that 1.34 million young athletes were treated in emergency rooms in 2013, with concussions responsible for 12 percent of the ER visits. And riding bicycles led to more brain injuries than playing football, according to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2001-2009.

Just like parents wouldn't send their kid out on a bike or a skateboard without a helmet, coaches and parents need to take precautions before their team takes to the field.

Coaches need to know more than how to play the game and how to teach skills. They need to be certified in first aid, AED, CPR, how to prevent sports injuries and how to recognize when a player is hurt, by taking programs like those offered by Heads Up Football.

Parents, coaches and players need to huddle before the season to set down the rules for safety — getting in shape before the season, warm-up and stretches before the game, preventing overuse of muscles, no dirty play and reporting injuries. While most coaches say that they haven't put an injured player in a game, a majority of young athletes report that they have played hurt.

Players also need to be taught how to compete so that they prevent injuries.

Helmets have been used in football since 1893's Army vs. Navy football game, but some researchers fear that players might be depending too much on their helmets to protect their heads or even using their helmets — and their heads — to tackle.

The NCAA 2012 Football Rules define tackling as "grasping or encircling an opponent with hands or arms." Heads should have no part in the equation.

The University of New Hampshire football program has taken this idea to what some coaches and parents might consider an extreme — players practicing without their helmets in order to learn to tackle without using their heads. The Wildcats earned a $500,000 research grant to study how having players' heads bare could teach them to use their chests and legs to tackle instead, more like rugby than football.

UNH researcher Erik Swartz plans to expand his two-year study to high school players this fall, when he expects he might see even more benefits to his Helmetless Tackling Training (HUTT) technique.