OT: Three Virginia High Schools cancel varsity football

[Class of 67]

Trend or outliers?

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — Three Virginia high schools are canceling varsity football programs, citing a lack of interest.

Media outlets report that Charles City is canceling its entire program and other schools are canceling varsity schedules.

Park View High School in Sterling canceled its varsity schedule after only 18 players reported for tryouts. Manassas Park High School Principal Pamela Kalso told parents Tuesday that they’ll play a junior varsity schedule after practices routinely drew only 15 players.


The Virginia High School League recommends against playing varsity football with fewer than 25 students.

The declines come amid concerns about injuries, rising equipment and participation costs and demographic shifts. The National Federation of State High School Associations says high school football enrollment dropped 4.5 percent nationwide from 2006 to 2016.

 

[psuro]

Why can't they play 6 on 6 like small schools in Texas?

 

[DeBing]

That's a shame about Park View in Sterling VA. Both of my daughters graduated from Park View in the early 2000's. In those days Park View would always make it to the State Championship game. Park View is also the school where Allen Pinkett played his high school football in the early 1980's. Pinkett went on to have a very successful college career at Notre Dame and played in the NFL for the Houston Oilers. What has happened to Park View I believe is the result of demographic changes in the make of the community. Since the time that my daughters went there, the community has become largely Hispanic and most of the Hispanic kids are more interested in playing soccer than football.

 

[marshall23]

This year in my area of New York, we have 7 smaller schools opting to play 8 man football.

 

[Nashville Lion]

Trend or outliers?

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — Three Virginia high schools are canceling varsity football programs, citing a lack of interest.

Media outlets report that Charles City is canceling its entire program and other schools are canceling varsity schedules.

Park View High School in Sterling canceled its varsity schedule after only 18 players reported for tryouts. Manassas Park High School Principal Pamela Kalso told parents Tuesday that they’ll play a junior varsity schedule after practices routinely drew only 15 players.


The Virginia High School League recommends against playing varsity football with fewer than 25 students.

The declines come amid concerns about injuries, rising equipment and participation costs and demographic shifts. The National Federation of State High School Associations says high school football enrollment dropped 4.5 percent nationwide from 2006 to 2016.

I think just outliers for now...but I could see this becoming a trend in say 10-20 years.

 

[Delco Lion]

Can Pitt be far behind?

 

[Ranger Dan]

Taking my love of sports out of the equation, I can't even see the logic of having sports sponsored by high schools and colleges. This is even more true for expensive sports like football. Certainly the big time college football programs fund themselves and other sports, but how many high school football programs fund themselves and how many use a portion of tax dollars to fund the sport? Public education is a common good, but is scholastic sports really a common good? Not all kids participate and those that do could just as easily participate in club teams.

 

[Nitt1300]

see the future, be the future

 

[TCFA-Nit]

My son is a freshman and is playing for his school (Springfield, Montco) this season. He's in the midst of his first two-a-days. A true learning experience!

The school couldn't field a team two years ago because they had so few players, and had just enough to play last year, although the school had to drop out of their longtime league and now plays an independent schedule of similar-sized teams. This year my son estimates they have 45-50 out, which is enough so they can actually have a JV team as well. So we shall see how this goes.

He did say a few kids quit during the first week.

 

[Cletus11]

i live in a big suburban high school in NJ. for the first time in anyone's memory they did NOT have a freshman football team last year as not enough kids came out. Just a JV and Varsity. Talking a 400+ per class, 1600 student high school in suburbs. Football is definitely on the decline in many areas for participation.

 

[bison13]

It is a very cultural/community issue. Centennial HS in Howard Co MD dropped varsity after a week of practice and had JV only last year for football. Predominantly Asian community (50% Asian, 35% White) with the AD being a old lady who didnt care about doing what it takes to make sure they had enough for a team prior to camp and parents of freshmen not wanting their kids to get beat up playing varsity. Five miles away in a predominantly African-American community with 400 less kids in the HS has 80 kids in their program.

 

[PSURDM1987]

It is a very cultural/community issue. Centennial HS in Howard Co MD dropped varsity after a week of practice and had JV only last year for football. Predominantly Asian community (50% Asian, 35% White) with the AD being a old lady who didnt care about doing what it takes to make sure they had enough for a team prior to camp and parents of freshmen not wanting their kids to get beat up playing varsity. Five miles away in a predominantly African-American community with 400 less kids in the HS has 80 kids in their program.[/QUOTE
We have 50 kids out for Junior High and 40 plus in in each youth division along with 48 on our 3A high school team here in Central PA. Haven’t seen much of a decline in our area and only minimal talk about the head injury thing. In our area any numbers decline primarily is due to decreased school enrollments and extension of other sports into the fall season (baseball, travel basketball soccer). Also I would add in the electronics age. People want to say the numbers thing is all about concussions and cte but there are a bunch of other factors as well.

 

[PAgeologist]

I think the decline is a combination of parents being more aware of safety issues and the electronics age.

Coaching also plays a part. I went to a decent size AA school in PA (around 140 kids per class). Our coach was so hated that we only had around 30 kids playing varsity and JV. The previous coach had close to twice that many. They canned the coach and now field full squads again.

As I write this, I'm at a pep rally for a small A school with close to 50 kids on it grades 9 to 12. So the decline isn't everywhere.