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High School punts on football

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by heyabbott, Aug 19, 2017.

  1. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Centennial High School disbands its varsity football team

    This is a 1500 student school in a solidly middle class community with solid resources and a turf field. Very good academics, lots of STEM participation. Probably 90% of the graduates go to college. For boys they play soccer, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, track and wrestling.

    It looks like it's an interest issue, not a statement.
     
  2. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Baltimore Sun version for those paywalled out by WaPo:

    Centennial varsity football team disbanded for 2017 season

    Sounds like they had only 18 kids in uniform (with 5 injured to some extent). Having covered games with threadbare teams hobbling around with 12-15 players, that's not enough.

    The NFHSA needs to pass a rule nationwide: 22 players healthy and in uniform at kickoff -- or no game.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
  3. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    This is staggering to me for a 1500 student school. A completely different HS world than the one I grew up in.

    Never thought I'd see the day when American boys did not want to be on the high school football team, if nothing else only because those are the boys the pretty girls want to date (or is that also no longer the case?).
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Not the case at all especially where the coastal elites live. This almost happened with a school in Marin (hoity-toity area north of SF) but they rounded up some players at the last minute. And this was a school with a rich history including an appearance in a state final recently.

    Novato will field varsity football team after late turnout

    My son is a sophomore. 6 feet, 210 pounds, pretty solid (he could lose some but is still a natural 190-200). In a different era, he gets dragged there and doesn't have a choice not to play. He has never had any interest and has never faced peer pressure because none of his friends play either.
     
  5. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    High school nerds must be so much happier today. Having a math/tech head has never meant more, being a muscular jock has never meant less.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
  6. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    So, who do the girls want to date?
     
  7. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    The Internet has become the great equalizer in high school culture. Now the funny kid making goofy YouTube videos has an equal shot of being as popular as the jock.
     
  8. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    When I was in high school, we had fewer guys out for football at our Class 6A school than a nearby 8-man school did. It was the culture. Football sucked and no one wanted to stick with it. My senior class won two games, both against the same school and both on the road. At one point, we had lost to our big rival 17 straight seasons and hadn't had a winning season since the early 70s. And just because we had a bad football team, we had to have some extra bullshit sprinkled in that good football teams don't encounter.

    So I kinda get the culture thing. The football team's suckitude affected everything in the high school except wrestling; we've always been good at wrestling. Walli Jones (a former 76er none of us had ever heard of) came in with his "All-Stars" schtick late in my senior year. It was too late to help us but the junior class got behind it and the proof in the pudding was going to be the first football game of the next season.

    Which they lost to a Colorado 3A school by 21. At home. The "All-Star" movement was dead the next Monday, according to my sister.

    Four years and another coach later, the football team went 5-4 and that was after losing the final game of the season at home. People still went apeshit over it. They won state in 1999 and then ended up firing that coach because of a controversy over treating the players with horse lineament.

    So between 1986 and 1999, we went from a program no one wanted to be a part of to a program that was super spoiled and kinda-sorta cheated.
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    It takes 4-6 years to really get a strong continuing program going in football (or really any sport).

    You have to start with a group in 5th-6th grade and start establishing an atmosphere that the program is fun and interesting to be around.

    It is possible for coaches to do it faster than that, even overnight sometimes, but that's usually built on a handful of superstar D-1 prospects; as soon as they're gone, the program goes right back to shit.

    It certainly helps to win, but the real key is avoiding having washout classes where you're just awful. Two or three of those in a row can tank any program.

    Kids are usually OK playing on a .500ish team, if you've got a chance to be good. But if you're just getting ass kicked game after game, it gets easier to quit.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
  10. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Well, maybe if coaches didn't start pushing specialization on 10-year-olds and "voluntary" workouts and 7-on-7 ...
     
  11. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    Take a look at the lower levels as well. The JVs aren't playing just as hard. Most prominent, Long Beach Poly, one jof the most legendary programs in California, isn't fielding a JV team this year.

    Long Beach Poly drops JV football program
     
  12. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Yeah, I'm kinda calling bullshit on this one.

    From the story, they've got 60 varsity players and 40 freshmen. That's enough for three teams.

    Put 40 on the varsity, 30 each on the JV and freshman teams. There are plenty of schools who would be delighted to have 60 JV/freshman players.

    If you're keeping 60 on the varsity, 15-20 of them are getting five plays a game.

    If you go 60-40 on the varsity/JV team, a dozen or so on the 40-player JV are only playing a series or so.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
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