(08-14-2018 08:15 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 07:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  https://www.highschoolot.com/chapel-hill.../17767266/

Seems odd to me that this isn't a "bottom up" lack of interest. There were enough younger players, but just not enough upperclassmen willing to play varsity football. That doesn't sound like it's parents who won't let their kids play.

Are there more high schools out there where this is happening?

My old HS decided to join an 8 man league last year because they couldn't field a full team.

Part of it comes from the Coach/AD being an arrogant sod who refuses to accept reality.

Eventually someone has to be the adult in the room and make the decision to drop it all together. My old HS team's league is from all over the state. The question must be asked, as a taxpayer do we really need to spend all that money on coaching & travel for 10 kids?

Aside from that, I don't ever see a point where "tackle football" will ever regain the numbers they once had. Should make for some hard choices in the next decade or so.

Illinois now allows athletic co-ops - two or more HS can contribute players to a common team.

The town my parents moved to after I graduated HS has own basketball teams, sending baseball/football to a bigger school to the north, has a combined team (with separate mascot) for most other sports.

(08-15-2018 04:01 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 08:15 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 07:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  https://www.highschoolot.com/chapel-hill.../17767266/

Seems odd to me that this isn't a "bottom up" lack of interest. There were enough younger players, but just not enough upperclassmen willing to play varsity football. That doesn't sound like it's parents who won't let their kids play.

Are there more high schools out there where this is happening?

My old HS decided to join an 8 man league last year because they couldn't field a full team.

Part of it comes from the Coach/AD being an arrogant sod who refuses to accept reality.

Eventually someone has to be the adult in the room and make the decision to drop it all together. My old HS team's league is from all over the state. The question must be asked, as a taxpayer do we really need to spend all that money on coaching & travel for 10 kids?

Aside from that, I don't ever see a point where "tackle football" will ever regain the numbers they once had. Should make for some hard choices in the next decade or so.

Illinois now allows athletic co-ops - two or more HS can contribute players to a common team.

The town my parents moved to after I graduated HS has own basketball teams, sending baseball/football to a bigger school to the north, has a combined team (with separate mascot) for most other sports.

I can see a logistics nightmare arising from merging teams: Which school gets top billing? Whose colors? Logo? If you're merging multiple teams, do you split all games between the two locations 50/50 or give one school half the sports and the other the other half? And as has been brought up here, getting the kids to practice might be difficult if they have to go 30 minutes or more to get there.

Not insurmountable but definitely challenges to be faced.

It has happened in New Jersey with the Group 1 (small enrollment) schools. If the numbers aren't there, they can't compete on the varsity level and the injury risk is unacceptable. New Jersey does allow combined teams between school districts.

(08-14-2018 07:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  https://www.highschoolot.com/chapel-hill.../17767266/

Seems odd to me that this isn't a "bottom up" lack of interest. There were enough younger players, but just not enough upperclassmen willing to play varsity football. That doesn't sound like it's parents who won't let their kids play.

Are there more high schools out there where this is happening?

"Bottom up" may not be the issue. It may be more of an issue of older players/parents deciding to get out now that they've already sustained some "bell-ringers" from prior years and not wanting to risk any more.

NC isn't a football state, they care about basketball, if this was SC, or anywhere in the deep south. There may be a concern. NBC ran a story about this the last year, a record amount of schools are shutting down their football programs, while at the same time a record amount of schools are starting football programs at the high school level. Basically keeping the participation flat in this country.

(08-15-2018 06:05 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  I can see a logistics nightmare arising from merging teams: Which school gets top billing? Whose colors? Logo? If you're merging multiple teams, do you split all games between the two locations 50/50 or give one school half the sports and the other the other half? And as has been brought up here, getting the kids to practice might be difficult if they have to go 30 minutes or more to get there.

Not insurmountable but definitely challenges to be faced.

Up north you're seeing some schools merge their football programs, and we've been seeing a fair number of schools that didn't previously field ice hockey teams launch them with one or two other schools as co-op programs . A lot of times the co-op programs will get individual branding and a uniform that incorporates both schools' colors.

Football keeps having more and more issues. Here is another piece of publicity it doesn't need, but which is shaping parents and players perception of the sport:

https://www.newsobserver.com/article215861440.html

Football is in serious decline. That HS programs are starting to see the question of dropping the sport now in the South too does not surprise me, it has already impacted the Northeast and Pacific regions. The South is not a different country, it simply lags most trends of the greater nation by a decade.

CNY has formed up an 8 man FB league. It is basically for the rural smaller schools. Interestingly, a Syracuse city HS has joined due to a lack of interest among students to go out.

The biggest suburban HS's still have no issues fielding teams but the rosters are alot smaller than in the past.

Lacrosse is a huge sport in CNY and many of the best athletes play that (Spring) and skip football in the Fall.

(08-15-2018 06:05 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(08-15-2018 04:01 PM)dbackjon Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 08:15 AM)BadgerMJ Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 07:26 AM)ken d Wrote:  https://www.highschoolot.com/chapel-hill.../17767266/

Seems odd to me that this isn't a "bottom up" lack of interest. There were enough younger players, but just not enough upperclassmen willing to play varsity football. That doesn't sound like it's parents who won't let their kids play.

Are there more high schools out there where this is happening?

My old HS decided to join an 8 man league last year because they couldn't field a full team.

Part of it comes from the Coach/AD being an arrogant sod who refuses to accept reality.

Eventually someone has to be the adult in the room and make the decision to drop it all together. My old HS team's league is from all over the state. The question must be asked, as a taxpayer do we really need to spend all that money on coaching & travel for 10 kids?

Aside from that, I don't ever see a point where "tackle football" will ever regain the numbers they once had. Should make for some hard choices in the next decade or so.

Illinois now allows athletic co-ops - two or more HS can contribute players to a common team.

The town my parents moved to after I graduated HS has own basketball teams, sending baseball/football to a bigger school to the north, has a combined team (with separate mascot) for most other sports.

I can see a logistics nightmare arising from merging teams: Which school gets top billing? Whose colors? Logo? If you're merging multiple teams, do you split all games between the two locations 50/50 or give one school half the sports and the other the other half? And as has been brought up here, getting the kids to practice might be difficult if they have to go 30 minutes or more to get there.

Not insurmountable but definitely challenges to be faced.

For football and baseball, the larger school (New Berlin) is the home team, and the Waverly and Franklin students travel there. Uses team colors and mascots, but is officially The New Berlin Waverly Franklin Pretzels. For other sports, Waverly and Franklin created a new name/mascot for combined teams (South County Vipers) and sports have a permanent home in one town or the other.

Note also that the school cooperate on upper level classes (Chemistry in one school, Calculus in another), so buses are running constantly between them, (each less than 8 miles apart).

My parents voted for a combined school district about 15 years ago, but that was voted down.

FWIW, heard from a coach at one high school in Arkansas that they had 61 players in spring camp and will have 34 for their first scrimmage (couple guys got hurt, six got kicked off for discipline reasons, rest just disappeared) the bulk of the players they lost are juniors.

Another high school coach told me that of his 35 players, only 11 live in the district, the rest came in via school choice.

RALEIGH, N.C. — High school football participation is down nationally and in North Carolina, according to a report released Friday by the National Federation of State High School Associations.

According to the 2017-2018 High School Athletics Participation Survey Results, an annual report released by the NFHS, the number of American high school students playing football dropped from 1,088,863 during the 2016-2017 school year to 1,065,733 last year – a decrease of 2.1 percent.

Drilling down on specific numbers reveal less participation in 11-man football, which dropped 1,059,399 to 1,038,179 year-over-year, a decrease of 2.2 percent.

******************************************************************

In North Carolina, since peaking in 2013, participation has declined by almost 20%.

lacrosse in gaining popularity in the new England area and around the country. Its a safer alternative to football. i played lax up throughout high school. At least from what I have seen more parents would rather have their kid place lax than football.. that is just from my observations while living in new England. it could be way different in the south.

Four public high schools in VA have announced they will not play football this Fall due to the number of kids out for the team. Two more schools are only playing 5 games due to to the same problem. Many schools have folded JV teams into the Varsity because there are not enough players for 2 teams. Private schools are also having issues and 8 private schools are going to 8 man football and a few others have dropped the sport. FWIW - You may or may not know this but in VA Public School sports and Private Schools are seperated. Numbers are down enough statewide that the VHSL is going to have a special meeting to study the numbers and see what can be done to reverse this trend.

(08-14-2018 09:20 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-14-2018 08:52 AM)ken d Wrote:  This sort of thing is especially problematic for those upperclassmen who wanted to play and may even have had a chance at a scholarship. Will they be allowed to transfer freely to a high school nearby that does have a team?

Last year, Chapel Hill's sister school, East Chapel Hill, had the same problem. Most rules about high school transfers are intended to prevent poaching kids from one school district to another. This situation doesn't fit that problem.

I could imagine the other schools in Chapel Hill's conference not being thrilled about those two schools being able to field a combined team though.

I think we'll see more of this. What may eventually emerge is states deciding to stop sponsoring high school football entirely in favor of allowing students to participate in elite leagues like we have already seen in soccer.

They should just not allow playing down. The varsity team is a schools top players in a given sport. There is no guarantee they will be competitive. Other than a new start up school with no senior class---all schools should field a varsity team in the sports it participates in. The JV is just an opportunity/developmental option for younger players. Like I said---Ive never seen a team only play JV when there were senior players on the roster---regardless of how few.

The only even remotely similar situation I saw in my sons district was baseball where a few schools had no JV because the number of players going out for the sport only allowed one team. Basically, everyone made the varsity at those schools. There was also the case of Scarborough HS in Houston that fielded a varsity football team when a roster of less than 30 total players. They didnt win a single game that season---but made the playoff due to a quirk in the rules. Apparently the top 4 teams from each district usually make the playoff--but that district only had 5 teams that year. Then, due to a school being forced to change from class 4A to class 5A---Scarboroughs's district was reduced to just 4 teams during the summer prior to fall camp---so everyone made the playoff out that district for that one year.

In Scarborough’s case, it wasn’t because a school had to change classifications, it was because Houston Jones got shut down. Also they made the playoffs because of this for 2 seasons, not just 1, although I believe they ended their 40+ game losing streak sometime in that second season.