Low Numbers

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reugenev
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Low Numbers

Post by reugenev »

Heard at the officials’ meeting Blacklick Valley, Conemaugh Valley and Bishop Carroll already cancelled their JV football season!  Is this a trend?
Scarlets1992
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by Scarlets1992 »

Sure feels like it is. Ever since they did away with 9th grade football- due to low numbers- I can’t help but feel like this system is just going to dig a deeper hole. 9th graders fear varsity practices so fewer play. Then those who do play don’t get any attention in varsity practices or games, then fewer still want to play as 10th graders. Playing in JV games on a Monday afternoon just doesn’t hold the same appeal- and fewer kids are willing to put in two years of Mondays to get to Friday nights. Couple that with concussion concerns and it is going to be one major challenge for small districts to field teams at two levels.
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by crfball »

I'm going to go with kids just get more pussified as the years go by
pahntr
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by pahntr »

I am going to agree with crfball on this one. I really don't think 9th graders at varsity has that much to do with it. I grew up in eastern PA. Graduated 20 years ago from a large high school (AAAA under old system) in district 3. We regularly had 80+ kids on our varsity roster, grades 10-12. We still had a freshman team of 30+ and then 7th&8th grade had sometimes over 70 kids combined.  Just looked at their roster on maxpreps for this season. They have 54 kids on their varsity roster this season, grades 10-12. The school district graduates over 100 kids more per year now than what it did when I graduated. They have a school district alum as the head varsity coach who played in NFL Europe. So, they have lost around 35% participation in varsity football over 20 years! The school is bigger, great energy in the program, program is successful and wins, but they have a tremendous drop in kids playing. They have never had any 9th graders with varsity so that hasn't affected their issue at all in regard to lower numbers. It's an issue with our society and all sports, except maybe soccer...
theprophet
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by theprophet »

I think it is just the times we live in. Popularity of football has been going down for the past 5 years. Also with year round sports like baseball and basketball who has a high level of travel events throughout the year also gives kids a reason to opt out of football. 15-20 years ago you didn’t have these options. I fear football will look more like wrestling in the next 15 years where it is more of a regional sport for high school student athletes.
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say_oww
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by say_oww »

crfball wrote:I'm going to go with kids just get more pussified as the years go by
Meanwhile the ones who do play play are bigger and stronger as the years go by because they specialize just like every other sport nowadays.  Kids today play tackle football when they are in first grade and by the time they hit 9th grade they have 8 years of lifting and practices under their belts.  Say what you want about kids, but they are only the product of those who raise them and put them through this insanity.  
BTW I love old guys who call young kids pussies... but then again, name-calling is the most practical way to analyze and solve an issue.
jayjay6218
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by jayjay6218 »

From what I am seeing the Low Numbers are at all levels, from Pee Wee Football, Youth, Jr High, JV and Varsity. My son’s Pee Wee team has 13 kids, and they play full 11 on 11 tackle football. Every team in the league is the same. It’s not just 9th graders playing up, it’s a much bigger problem than that.


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12HankQB
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by 12HankQB »

It's a combination of a lot of these issues mentioned above. I will agree though, this is going to be the lazy generation. There are those who are involved and they seem to put an extreme amount of effort into sports, but there's so many kids that are just too lazy. They've had everything handed to them and do not want to work. They resort to video games or drugs as of late for instant gratification. Kids play Madden instead of pickup games. There seems to be a lot more quitters now. They've been given trophies for every fart or peewee performance. Been told they're all winners, but at the moment they have to work to earn something they quit. They don't need the aggravation, they can just hangout and play Fortnite. There's way to many classmates who do nothing.
It takes an entire school population to break this bad trend. Winning is obviously the easiest promoter of attendance. Ferndale Football has made a great turnaround from a couple good seasons. 
All of this added in with a decreasing class sizes in a lot of area school districts combines for these low numbers and continual crappy seasons.
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Crimson's Ghost
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by Crimson's Ghost »

I think you are focusing on the kids too much, parents aren't letting their kids play football as much. That's the biggest thing. We can blame video games all we want, but I think parents are concerned with head injuries. 
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say_oww
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Re: Low Numbers

Post by say_oww »

Kids don't give themselves trophies.. and btw you can play the blame game all you want but it doesn't change anything.
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