High School punts on football

Ha, it's interesting. Middle of Nowhere Kansas has plenty of communities that are either football towns or basketball towns. Part of it for us was just that in a town of 500 or so you were a lot more likely to have four or five good athletes to put on the basketball court than eight to round out a football lineup.

Smith Center was a nearby football powerhouse and a 3A school to our 1A and had way more good athletes than we did. We were 8-man so we were never going to play in football anyway, but it would have been murder. Like, somebody could have actually died. But we kicked their ass in hoops my junior and senior seasons.

 

The problem, shottie, is presuming the "half your little town spilling into the stadium" model will continue indefinitely. I don't think that's a safe presumption, because the world of small towners is expanding too.

For example, when I was growing up, these were my town's evening entertainment options: A single-screen movie theater airing one film per week, a bowling alley ...oh, and the Pizza Hut was also a huge gathering point. On TV, we got only four channels via antennae (didn't have cable) with crap like Laverne and Shirley often being the night's best viewing option.

In that setting, the local HS football and basketball games were the shit. Best show in town. Everybody went, and we convinced ourselves this was really important. I loved going to those games as a kid.

But if I were growing up there today, there'd also be all the wonders of the internet, social media, youtube, etc. Hundreds of TV channels to watch on huge clear HDTV screens, streaming sites with thousands of movies/shows on demand, unbelievably cool video games that can be played against people from around the world. And whatever other entertainment tech marvels are out there, lord knows I can't keep track.

I don't think I'd be nearly as interested in watching the local high school game if I were a small town kid today.

 

Football was the absolute pinnacle in my small hometown. Our school was the biggest in the state (in its division) so the numbers were favorable from the get-go, and then there came an amazing six or seven years when it went undefeated in the regular season. We went to all the home games, of course, and when I started junior high I was allowed to ride the church bus to the away games.

Like most everyone else I assumed that one day I'd play, but when it came my time I got through the hellish part of the pre-season -- the week of two-a-days and then the week away at camp -- and then was watching scrimmage film that third Monday and thought ... fuck this shit. Turned my stuff in and never looked back.

The way people reacted, you'd have thought I'd committed some mortal sin. It wasn't like I was any good or anything ... I would have spent that whole year holding a blocking dummy as a scout-team defensive tackle, then I'd have played some tight end or defensive end as a senior ... so there was no loss to the team. It was just that if you could play, you played. That's what everyone did! Well, not everyone.

 

South of Fredericksburg.

Waynesboro JV football struggling to find players

 

Yep. Barely.

 

Aw shit. Someone at the Wall Street Journal is gonna get an angry letter from here.

Could Football Go Extinct in Vermont?

 

A couple of public schools in the DC suburbs have cancelled the football season for lack of players.

Low turnout forces Manassas Park High School to cancel 2018 varsity football season

 

My very large Mass. town, 36,000 residents, over 2K lids in the high school, has had more than once bigger crowds watching youth soccer games in the adjacent fields than the high school football game.

 

Historically, they’ve been pretty good, too.

 

Two high schools in my neck of the woods have canceled their seasons:

Chapel Hill becomes 2nd Triangle school to cancel varsity football season. Here’s why

 

Good for them. Good for all of them.
I do wonder what Dr. Fedora will have to say about the local high school cratering to libruhl defeatism and costing the USA future military victories.

 

I wonder why a couple schools don't just combine teams. Or allow players to play at different schools.