The United States Soccer Federation has recently come out with numerous changes to enhance safety throughout the game of soccer. These changes, in response to a lawsuit filed against the Federation seeking rule changes, include eliminating heading from the game for players under age ten. Praised by many, the changes show a proactive effort to reduce the number of concussions suffered in youth soccer. However, many question these changes due to the fact that they eliminate an essential skill, heading, from the youth game. Why is it an essential skill? Establish the importance of heading both for children and for more serious, developing soccer players. In his article "U.S. Soccer's New Player Safety Campaign Leaves Many Questions Unanswered," Doug Fuglsang makes a primarily logical appeal to show why US Soccer made its decision to eliminate heading. Even though this was an effective strategy, used to illustrate the flaws within the new player safety initiative, Fuglsang only produced a few points, not an actual argument.  

 Looking at Aristotle's three appeals, Fuglsang needs to mainly use logos appropriately to make an effective argument in this case. The sole use of ethos and pathos would restrict Fuglsang's argument from being effective. Using solely pathos would only reach a small market of true soccer traditionalists because they are the ones who wouldn't want their game to change at any level.  Most people would agree that youth games should be safer because many do not want kids to be injured.  Therefore, pathos would not make the most effective argument since the emotional appeal of the audience would be more directed at safety over keeping the traditions of the game.  Ethos couldn't be solely used either because the medical providers and researchers are pushing for changes in soccer. There would simply not be enough credible sources to build credibility on after all the research that is starting to come out about concussions.   These are good points, but before you talk about what wouldn't work/what he doesn't do, tell me what Fuglsang actually does and how he deploys the appeals. Reorganize and put this graph closer to the end of your paper. 

Even though Fuglsang does not solely use ethos and pathos within his argument, he does use both of those appeals alongside logos to strengthen his argument, which is significant because ... /or, which works to effectively ... .  Ethos is used along with logos when he quotes a doctor about medical studies.  He speaks about a Dr. Robert Cantu, chief of neurosurgery at Emerson Hospital and co-director of Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy" (Fuglsang).  By doing this, Fugllsang gains credibility for his argument because it is backed by a highly recognized neurologist.  The statistic that he quotes later in the article from Dr. Cantu becomes the logic behind his argument.  Pathos with a hint of logic comes into play when he speaks about the substitution policy.  With kids being able to "report a potential head injury and take proper precaution without the fear of being unable to return to play, it will reduce the incentive for young players to try and play through a potential head injury" that may or may not cause long term brain damage (Fuglsang).  This plays to emotions of parents who now can rest knowing that their kids can get looked at properly without losing their spot in the game.

Using logos, Fuglsang looks at the statement released by US soccer on the player safety initiative, which is significant because ... . He calls the rules change "vague and perplexing" due to the wording of the statement (Fuglsang).  He does this rightfully so because within the settlement agreement, US Soccer says that they will improve concussion awareness, implement new protocol, and modify rules to help this issue (Fuglsang).  Nowhere in that statement does it say how exactly these changes are going to happen. By pointing out the vagueness of the settlement, Fuglsang argues logically that US Soccer is simply just talking about making changes, not actually making them.  The word 'vague' support Fuglsang's central point of really "that not much was changed other than limiting the liability for U.S. Soccer" (Fuglsang).  Unfortunately for Fuglsang, his argument comes apart in the final part of the settlement agreement.  Part D of US Soccer's pledge was to "eliminate heading for children 10 and under and limit heading in practice for children between the ages of 11 and 13" (Fuglsang).  With him assuming all four parts of the statement to be vague, he loses power to his argument.  That statement from US Soccer clearly stated that there will be no more heading in those age groups of players.  

Logos is also used while talking about the encouraged rule adoption.  US Soccer is the overpowering soccer organization within the states and is slowly becoming a power in global soccer.  In the states, US Soccer only has direct ties to the youth national and academy teams, and loose ties if any to local leagues that the majority of young kids play in (Fuglsang).  Fuglsang's argument relies on the logic that US Soccer cannot control the thousands of youth leagues that are not their affiliates, so that once again, "not much changed" with the new rules (Fuglsang).  The part that he forgot to consider was that any standardized league, which accounts for the majority of youth players, uses the United State Soccer Federation Referees Association to hire referees.  US Soccer will be training their referees with these new rule changes.  Therefore, these "recommended" changes are being slowly being forced upon them anyways.  Also, Fuglsang uses a logical fallacy when talking about affiliates of US Soccer.  He says that "[he] is going to assume all of the affiliates will adopt some form of these new rule proposals in order to limit exposure to lawsuits".  This is an ad populum because he assumes that every league will follow US Soccer's example for the sole reason that they are the overpowering organization in the United States.  In reality, that rule change is going to happen for other reasons like referee training by the organization.  

A poorly organized conclusion hammers the nails in the coffin for Fuglsang's argument.  It begins with a flawed attempt to use logos and ethos together.  The author, Doug Fuglsang, a sports lawyer, looking at the liability of the organization, US Soccer, with the possibility of lawsuits thought it was a great idea for these proactive changes.  He believes that "U.S. Soccer successfully limited their liability by implementing modest rule changes that do little to change the fundamentals of the game" (Fuglsang).  He created a sense of credibility through which he attempted to make logic from.  However, any reader reading rhetorically can do their own deductive reasoning to disprove Fuglsang's statement.  Heading the ball is a fundamental skill within the game.  US Soccer eliminated the ability to head the ball with these new rule changes.  Therefore, US Soccer's new rules changed the fundamentals of the game in a major way.  This hurts both the credibility of himself and any point he tried to make within the article. 

Following that, Fuglsang states his opinion that the rule is a mistake (Fuglsang).  Then he goes on to explain that once he "takes into account the research available, potential exposure to liability, and understanding this is an essential skill for U.S. Soccer players; he would probably ban headers in games for all players U-14" (Fuglsang).  He goes full circle by first stating that the ban of headers was a mistake to saying how headers should be banned entirely until age fourteen.  He loses the opportunity to finalize his argument effectively because of how these comments were inconsistent and poorly organized; unlike how logos should be.  

