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Exposing any 13-14 year old boy to high school 18 year old (and in some cases older) seniors on a football field is a travesty. The only reason the LHAC, WEAKPAC , Heritage and others do so is because they have no numbers and no competition. They are grasping at straws and putting children in grave danger by allowing freshman to compete on the HS or even JV team against men -- in most cases just so that can field a team. That parents go along with this is unbelievable.

Other that a few isolated teams, local football is P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C. How else could a freshman have any chance of getting on the field, unless of course , you are taliking about the 15-16 year old freshman and I guess there are more of these every year.

Psycho apparently you don't follow High School football around the country much. Time after Time now on ESPN when they have their "High School Showcase" games that contain some of the BEST High School Football programs in the country almost ALL have Freshman playing somewhere in their lineups so sorry its not just in the LHAC, Heritage or the "WEAKPAC". Stick to your babbling and in one ear and out the other rants about consolidation and leave the ACTUAL football game and players to people who know whats going on thanks.

The only way a 13-14 year old gets on the field against 18-19 year old men is if the competition is pitiful as is the case with the football I have seen the last several years in our area. Weak and uncompetitive beyond description. There are always freaks of nature (Bill Fralic, etc) that are one in a couple million kids who are mature enough physically as a freshman to step on a competitive HS football field. But by and large 13-14 yr old children should NOT be placed on a football field to compete against men -- competitive or non competitive. When this happens it is done solely to benefit adults, not the kid and that's plain wrong.

It is absolutely freaking nuts that it has come to this. Consolidate these dying districts out of existance and this problem goes away. Come to thionk of it, alot of problems go away.

If a 9th grader starts on varsity, then he "beat out" ALL others to get his position on the team. If he did, then he deserves his spot. In wrestling, a 9th grader often beats out an upperclassman to start at his weight class. That means he is the better athlete at that weight class. In football, a 150 pound senior can also get hurt on the playing field. And most 9th graders will be 15 during that particular school year. A lot of seniors won't be 18 until AFTER football season. So the age discrepancy is not as steep as you put it.

There are plenty of freshmen wrestlers who do very well against upperclassmen, last time I checked it is a pretty physical sport as well. In a perfect world freshmen would play junior high, but that's not what we have now. All across the country freshmen are moving up. Around here it is giving kids and schools a chance to play JV, most coaches are protecting the freshmen as much as possible from having too many run-ins with older guys. But how much of a difference is it seeing a young 7th grader play against freshmen who may be young men?

Or in the old system you could have to play junior high when you are 12 if you didn't make weight and you could be playing against 15 year olds, again whats the difference.

Most of your freshmen wrestlers are competing in the lower weight classes.

But it is true that many of today's freshmen would have been sophomores years ago. The cutoff date for school was changed at some point from January 31 to August 31.

You should have seen current Pitt starting TE JP Holtz as a freshman...An absolute monster child who would have torn apart and I mean DOMINATED the ICC, LHAC, WestPac, or any other league in districts 5 or 6 as a QB, WR, TE, HB, FB, DE, OLB, or ILB, all positions JP played while in HS. He even averaged close to 40 yards a kick as Shaler's punter for 3 seasons.

As a 6'3" 210 frosh, Holtz was a starting LB and backup QB. He actually started Shaler's first round WPIAL AAAA playoff game at QB and did an excellent job leading Shaler to a 19-0 opening round win over Mike Hull (PSU) led and#4seeded Canon-MacMillan.

Now at 6'4" 250, watch JP last year as the starting TE at Pitt as a true FROSH absolutely jettison and destroy former Syracuse and current Pittsburgh Steeler strong safety Shamarko Thomas...On this clip, #86 Holtz catches an quick out, turns it up field with a bit of steam, and knocks Shamarko out COLD. Wow. Just WOW...

WPIAL~Titan wrote:You should have seen current Pitt starting TE JP Holtz as a freshman...An absolute monster child who would have torn apart and I mean DOMINATED the ICC, LHAC, WestPac, or any other league in districts 5 or 6 as a QB, WR, TE, HB, FB, DE, OLB, or ILB, all positions JP played while in HS. He even averaged close to 40 yards a kick as Shaler's punter for 3 seasons.

As a 6'3" 210 frosh, Holtz was a starting LB and backup QB. He actually started Shaler's first round WPIAL AAAA playoff game at QB and did an excellent job leading Shaler to a 19-0 opening round win over Mike Hull (PSU) led and#4seeded Canon-MacMillan.

Now at 6'4" 250, watch JP last year as the starting TE at Pitt as a true FROSH absolutely jettison and destroy former Syracuse and current Pittsburgh Steeler strong safety Shamarko Thomas...On this clip, #86 Holtz catches an quick out, turns it up field with a bit of steam, and knocks Shamarko out COLD. Wow. Just WOW...

Way to stand over and taunt the guy he just knocked out too, classy. Typical Shittsburgh bum.

"He even averaged close to 40 yards a punt for 3 seasons"........lol. That is a classic quote....Titan is definitely a CLOWN!

GreenMachine: Where did the word "typical" come from? Is this seen a lot?