Oso planning to go pro
The youth football league in my town has gone to a padded flag program staring with 4th grade this year, and moving up to 5th and 6th the next two years. Basically, the kids wear full pads but still pull flags. Part of their rationale was that numbers are down.Unfortunately, no other program joined them, so the 2 teams are playing each other for 6 or 8 weeks straight, which is pretty dumb.We pulled about 10 kids from our town and moved to play full tackle in Madison. However, there are only 5 4th grade teams in the Dane County league. Most other programs have a 4th/5th team.If we had kept our kids in town, we would have had enough for 2 teams, figuring that some kids playing padded flag wouldn't play full tackle and stay in the rec flag league. Instead, the youth program is divided already, and our full age group won't play together until 7th grade. It will be interesting to see how this plays out at the high school level.
Padded flag just sounds weird
This hides the fact that high school football by necessity involves more students. The numbers for football (1.1 mil) are about twice that for basketball (550K) and baseball (490k), but football teams often have rosters in the 80s up to triple digits, especially if the school has a JV and Freshmen teams. Basketball teams are limited to more like 15 players at each level, so maybe 50 total. Of course there are going to be more football players than basketball players!
Let’s see what the next few years brings. There have been huge decreases in our youth leagues, which will filter up to the high school eventually. Not sure if that is common to other places but I would guess so. Probably not at places with a strong tradition and more people however.
Wow, I'm very concerned for Benny. Being able to mimic Myron Medcalf's writing so closely implies an oncoming case of dementia.
Hadda reed dis 4 times ta make sum cents outta watt F*ckin's tryin' ta 'splain, aina?
I would agree that football is still strong and that children still want to play it. There is a strong interest in the game, still. The problem with high school football is the size differential among the youth that play it.I tend to think that for children below high school age, the injury risk is over-blown.
I would agree that football is still strong and that children still want to play it. There is a strong interest in the game, still. The problem with high school football is the size differential among the youth that play it.I tend to think that for children below high school age, the injury risk is over-blown. Our son played youth league football from third grade onward and played freshman football at our local high school. His injuries were fewer and less severe than my daughter, who played competitive girls soccer. High schcool is The problem generally begins in high school football, where the difference in size and weight can be severe.My bigger concern with high school football, and all high school sports for that matter, is the amount of resources poured into it by school districts whose first job is to educate minds. The massive expenditures on sports facilities, coaching, equipment and training take away from the primary educational job of schools. How many school districts in this country screamed that President Bush's No Child Left Behind was an unfunded mandate when they were spending millions and millions on athletics and related activity?In our local Chicago area community, we have a brand spanking new $30 million Olympic-sized swimming pool. Our sister in-district high school now wants a $22 million dance hall. And, because the pool took out parking spaces, we have to build a parking garage. Yikes
“Youth Football!!! Concussions!!! CTE!!! Murder-Suicides!!! You too can be just like Junior Seau & Aaron Hernandez!!!”With marketing pull like that - not to mention with all the rednecks that keep breeding in record numbers - any overall participatory declines will be temporary at best.