High school football coaches see fear of injuries draining talent pool

Back in 7th grade I'd guess 20-30 of our 2018's baseball peer group said they would play high school football. Come freshman year only 6 of those kids actually did, and now only 3 of those 6 chose to come back to play football sophomore year. I believe two years ago the varsity baseball team had ten football players on it, last year they had four, and this year it looks like two. 

 

Between injury risk and the desire to focus on one sport (agree with it or not), most all of the best athletes in 2018's class are focused on baseball or basketball, and every one of these kids would have been a football player back in my high school days. 

It's not just football! Have you noticed the shortage of catchers?  Perhaps those baseball centric countries should take up football as well?

 

http://www.netshrine.com/rosciam.html

 

I think my favorite quote is "It's the Little League mothers," said Rodgers, who suffered worse injuries in a bus crash in 1992 than he ever did in seven major league seasons behind the plate. "They don't want little Johnny to get hurt. It's dangerous back there, and parents aren't letting their kids do it. That's the reason for the scarcity. Because of what's happening in the States, more and more Latins are becoming catchers. That's the way it's going."

 

So, basically if your kid stays out of sports that MIGHT hurt them they will live healthier lives.  HOWEVER, our younger generations are turning into obese couch potato's who can play a mean baseball game on their X-box.

 

Humm, I wonder if they are connected?

I've been watching this develop in our community as well- our area is traditionally a football "hotbed".   Both of my boys  (2014 and 2017) played youth football.   Youth program is 50% of what it was just 9 years ago.  When 2014 was in Junior high, we had two full 7th grade teams, two full 8th grade teams, a freshman team, JV and varsity.    As of last year that was down to ONE combined 7th and 8th grade team, and JV/Varsity, with no freshman team.    Western PA has traditionally been a football hotbed, but I don't see it continuing.    I wonder what this all means for the long term health of college football, and in turn, what it means for the non revenue sports?  I have to believe this is not a good trend for college sports in general.

BTW, make sure you don't take the sound out when he is hitting.

Regarding a supposed shortage of catchers ("It's the Little League mothers...They don't want little Johnny to get hurt.  It's dangerous back there")

 

When I was coaching young kids, I always had enough kids willing to catch and never heard that moms didn't want their son to catch.

 

At the HS level, I haven't seen a shortage of catchers.  Of course, I have seen a shortage of excellent catchers. And a shortage of excellent shortstops, etc.,  That's normal.

 

 " It's dangerous back there"

 

I think of catching as painful, not dangerous. Back in the day, maybe 50 years ago, catching was dangerous to fingers because everybody caught two-handed.  But, no more.

 

I think my favorite quote is "It's the Little League mothers," said Rodgers, who suffered worse injuries in a bus crash in 1992 than he ever did in seven major league seasons behind the plate. "They don't want little Johnny to get hurt. It's dangerous back there, and parents aren't letting their kids do it. That's the reason for the scarcity. Because of what's happening in the States, more and more Latins are becoming catchers. That's the way it's going."

 

I had a very smart Baseball person tell me the reason we see so many Latin catchers is because we (in America) have coaches call pitches for the catchers all the way through college and our catchers never really learn how to  call a game where as in Latin America the catchers are taught how to call games and then allowed to call them.

I had a very smart Baseball person tell me the reason we see so many Latin catchers is because we (in America) have coaches call pitches ...our catchers never really learn how to  call a game

 

I have to disagree.  To me, calling a game is more about baseball IQ than it is about experience.  IME, a SS with high baseball IQ can call a fine game the first time he is asked to get behind the plate in an emergency.

 

  

This recent study published in the Am. Journ. of Sports Med. concludes that it isn't "dangerous back there." In fact, it's less risky than other positions.

 

 

In Atlanta we have a MUCH smaller version of this board mostly geared to below high school baseball. It's rare to see a team post an opening for any specific position, occasionally a LHP,  but in the last few years there have been many "Team X in need of a catcher" postings or teams posting openings saying "catching or pitching is a plus".

 

Perhaps the catcher shortage is just in the Atlanta area? 

 

Youth (pre-high school) tackle football is never a good idea. Both of my sons played in high school but we didn't allow them to play before. You can start football in 8th grade and develop just fine-I started then and went to college on a full football scholarship.  These little guys get whacked around before they are physically or mentally ready for it, and develop a bad taste for football early, then walk away by the time they would otherwise be ready.     My old high school coach, a legend in these parts, didn't allow HIS sons to play youth football and thought it was a bad idea.   There are aspects of football that help develop a good baseball mentality-mainly getting back up after you get knocked down, learning that there is pain that isn't necessarily bad, developing a little "toughness"...things 5th graders really aren't ready for IMHO...  My sons simply loved their high school Friday Night Lights experience, and wouldn't trade it for anything.  

I saw an article a couple of years ago that the pro football leagues are worried due to the decline at the youth level...can't put my hands on it now, I'll keep looking.  With all of the studies regarding concussions, I'm not surprised at the decrease.  This is the first year neither 2017 or 2019 are playing.  Both referenced not wanting to get hurt (both have had concussions in the past due to football and a few other injuries).  Our school only has a JV squad because the state allowed 6 juniors to move down to fill out the roster.  

 

I don't see where number of catchers is declining.  PBR lists 10 catchers in the top 40 of players in son's class in the state.  

I grew up in PA. Just out of curiosity, I checked my high school's football roster -- a total of 77 players this year, with three teams (freshmen, JV, and varsity). When I played 30 years ago, it was well over 100 players -- probably averaged about 120. And the school is about 25% larger now. If the participation rate was the same now as it was then, they'd have 150 players . . .

 

I suppose we'll know this trend really has legs when -- or if -- it hits Texas.

Texas football is holding steady...both spring, summer, and fall seasons the same.  LOL!

In our neck of the woods, football is slowly falling away (as well as baseball). Our A Squad team (7&8 grade) had to forfeith the entire season and plays 8on8 games on the weekend. On the other hand our D Squad (1 & 2 grade) has 28 players. 

 

A lot of what's happening here in North Jersey also has to do with cultural and ethnic shifts; but the concussion issue is big too. Some cultures prefer other sports (soccer and basketball mainly), so our numbers for those sports are healthy and growing. 

HS football is on its way out of existence.  There is no way the schools will be able to absorb the liability once they start getting sued.  And it is not just the concussions which are the problem. It's all the other hits to the head.  They used to have HS boxing, but no more.  Football will be next. 

"Football is still the most popular sport played at high schools in California and throughout America, but there are signs of trouble brewing."

 

Sure there's trouble brewing, but as has been shared in other threads on this sight there are fewer kids playing baseball, basketball and hockey too.  Maybe it's fear of concussions as one of the coaches suggests, but maybe it's because fewer and fewer kids are playing multiple sports.  Compared to a generation ago, kids aren't playing football, basketball and baseball anymore.  More and more kids are playing one sport.  When kids play fewer sports there are fewer kids playing each sport.

 

My son is a freshman and he's playing football.  He absolutely loves the experience.  There's just nothing like the team experience of football.  But, he's missing out on fall baseball and his travel team is very active in PG tournaments, playing at college campuses etc.  It's ok this year since he's a freshman but next year things are going to get complicated.  He wants to play baseball in college so he may end up a casualty of this system and play just baseball in his HS upper class years, but it won't be because he didn't want to play football.  I hate that he'd have to make that choice.  Right now he's taking it one season at a time.

IMO  concussions r a part of it, but not only reason. My son played football 2 yrs at age 10-11 and u wouldn't believe the coaches who thought they were coaching at high level. To them it was all about the win. There was a rule each player on team(22) had to play at least 4 plays Per game. They had a hard time doing that. They found their stars and many kids were left on bench.

My son played a fair amt., but many kids who came to every practice rarely saw field. They were young it should have been about developing players. Many stopped playing after a yr or two and our local HS teams were not that good. Only a few ever go on to play at next level.

ive also seen LL and travel  teams find their catchers at age 8, and never teach other players on team how to be a catcher. I say put them all back there at least once in practice. They r padded up. Stop specializing in a position so early. 

Football is king in Texas.  

my 2017 and 2019 both played pop warner, both got concussions, and both were treated poorly by Woody Hayes wannabes (who, ironically, wouldn't recognize Woody Hayes if he fell in their laps).

 

  For us, I don't know what came first to turn them off: the concussions or the neanderthal coaching.  But, by their choice, they will never pick up a football in heated competition again. BTW, they are soccer players, too.  In our neck of the woods soccer is the same time as basketball, so if they'd had a better experience with football they'd be three sport guys.

       
       
this was my experience also.  My older son (huge) played all the time.  My younger son (growing now - later grower) rarely played.  There was one game he played on two kickoffa or something stupid like that.  I agree this also plays into the equation.  I don't care for the mentality of football coaches.  Never have.  I have friends of course who are football coaches.  Like them plenty off the field.  But that 'football mentality'...  not a fan.

I agree with those that point out all sports are in decline.  Multiple reasons for this I suppose.  One trend I notice is there is not as much value placed on 'team' anymore.  If kids aren't playing a lot they quit.  Also - and I don't know how to put this kindly - kids are encouraged to be 'different' now.  Its actually cool to be somewhat odd or unique.  And the pseudo intellectuals like to take some high ground and look down their noses at the 'dumb jocks'.  Walk through the hallways of a high school sometime and ask yourself how many of these kids look like athletes.  The mlb fan base keeps going up in average age.  As much as we sports fanatics hate to admit it sports in general in this country are on the decline.  Even the great Roman empire fell...  And so too someday the American empire will fall.  No doubt these kids in the hallway I speak of will have a hand in that too.  Judgemental?  You bet.  But also true.

It doesn't always have to be either/or (HS football vs college baseball). Lots of guys do both. IMO, the main problem with playing a fall sport is that it reduces your opportunities to be seen by college baseball coaches, at a time when many are pretty actively recruiting. That's a bigger problem for some players than others. I've also learned on this forum that this problem varies by region. Different levels of commitment and time required by the high school programs (both sports) in different areas. For my son it was pretty straight forward; no baseball from late August through about Thanksgiving.

My son played two years of high school then switched to basketball and baseball, cut out the football.  He went from playing O, D and special teams to being a back up and sort of lost interest.  He was late bloomer too.  By the time he was a senior the FB coach was asking him to go out for the team....you can be a WR or a QB, your choice.  Yeah, no thanks.  

As for the mentality that fake tough non sense is in all sports.  Baseball is no different.  Its a little more absurd in baseball.  But, there are plenty of idiot youth-high school baseball coaches who fancy themselves Red Grange or something.  

In our experience I have been very unimpressed with the vast majority of my kids coaches....both as coaches (ability to teach, having knowledge to pass on, doing things with a real end goal in mind) and as people.  This goes from youth sports up to where he is now, in college.  The level of arrogance and stupidity is mind boggling.  

I played football through high school.

 

My wife and I were dating at the time, so she got to see first hand what I looked like the day after games.  She made it pretty clear when we had kids that there was no way she was going to let them play football.

 

For those who haven't played, let's just say guys who aren't sore and banged up probably spent most of the game on the bench. It isn't too bad after a few days - but that first morning after a night game usually sucked.

 

Favorite injury... Went in to assist on a tackle and my hand got smashed between two helmets.  Imagine putting your hand on top of a bowling ball and then dropping another one on top of it from about 5 feet in the air.  I don't recommend.

I don't think reports like this are helping:

 

http://bleacherreport.com/arti...m_campaign=editorial

 

"Through two weeks of the NFL season, 15 percent of players have suffered injuries, according to thinkprogress.org."

As a current AD and former football coach I'm afraid that football is going to end up going away - due to the injury factor, increasing liability from injuries and Super Bowl Champ wanna be coaches.

 

1.  Concussions are a legitimate fear and we need to do a better job of taking care of this problem.  Sadly, the way most states deal with it is through paperwork and useless "professional developments" that waste time, paper, energy and resources.  It's crazy what I have to do in order to get our coaches (not just football but even cross country) cleared with concussion information.  I wish someone would find a happy medium to educate without having to paperwork it.

 

2.  Three reasons why concussions are on the rise

A) better education / awareness.  Although the paperwork is a pain it does work.  We do a much better job of identifying possible concussions which lead us to actually catch more concussions.

B) its the key word to get out of practice.  Hate to be the bearer of bad news but some kids don't want to practice everyday so they get up from a drill and say they got a headache.  Some of these are actual injuries and some aren't but we have to treat them as if they are

C) fundamentals are not being taught at the youth level.  Kids come up to high school not knowing how to tackle using their body and shoulders in order to get the head out of the way.  Youth league coaches (and all levels really) would rather "win" than teach the actual game.  Drives me up the wall.  How do you teach someone to "win"? What drill is that?  You teach to win by teaching the game to played correctly.  The magic formula to winning any sport is to be better at it than the other team.  You get that way by being better than them.

 

If football does end up going away then you may as well chalk up 90% of sports in high schools being gone unless the fundraising aspect goes up.  If there's no football then non-revenue sports like cross country, tennis, golf, track, swimming and many others like those do not have the money to continue.  For this year we had to allocate about $3000 from football money to fund those sports for our school.  They do fundraising but without getting money from football they will no longer be able to field teams.  Stinks but it's true.  

 

Football is a dangerous sport but so is all of them.  Football happens to have more opportunities for injury than others but still there for all sports.  At some point you have to take an accepted risk in order to do something.  

Here's what I wonder about: is there a "tipping point" in which fewer and fewer kids play football, causing fewer kids to try out?

 

Here's what I mean. When I was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, EVERYBODY played football. Every grade school had tackle football teams starting in 5th grade. In 8th grade something like 75% of the boys played football. Freshman year in high school was definitely over 40%. If you were at all athletic, you played football.

 

I am very familiar with some of the high schools mentioned in the L.A. Times article in the original post. At one of them, we had heard in years past that "everyone plays freshman football." While not literally true, of course, in years past they would have 120+ freshmen out of a class of 320 boys come out for football, which means the vast majority of athletic kids were going out for football. This year they have 83 . . . now if in future years that drops to 60 or 50 . . . it's just a different mindset -- clearly, at that point everybody does NOT play football. At that point, it's just another sport, and there's no peer pressure to play football, which will cause the numbers to go down.

 

I know a few posts have mentioned that participation in all sports is declining, but I'm not sure that is true. Overall high school participation in athletics is increasing. Some sports, like lacrosse (mentioned in the article), are growing quickly. The Southern Section of CIF (largest section in California sports, covering an area with ~15 million people) now has 80 boys lacrosse programs. When they get to 120 it will become an official CIF sport. In fact, if I were responsible for lacrosse in SoCal, I would make it a fall sport for high schools -- their competition in the fall is football (with declining numbers), cross country, and water polo. I think it would really take off. In the spring, the competition is baseball, track & field, golf, swimming, volleyball, and tennis.

Probably should have had "sons will play football" in the pre-nup agreement before you got married.  

This is exactly what I fear, you hit the nail on the head.  Thinking even further out than HS, I've been thinking about the implications for college sports- what happens when this de-emphasis on football hits the college ranks?   Especially at the non power 5 schools?  When football goes away, then non revenue sports will be obliterated.   

This is interesting.  Since football is the major revenue source for HS and 4 year colleges it seems logical if football goes away, then all the other sports will die.

Anyone stop to think about JuCo's?  Not many JuCo's have football teams and yet those that have sports find funding for all the other sports.  The JuCo my son attended had 11 sports.  For men they had baseball, basketball, soccer, golf and cross country.  For women they had basketball, softball, soccer, golf, volleyball, and cross country.  They also had two club sports - bass fishing and cheerleading.  They do have an athletic booster club, but I believe that only contributes a small portion to the athletic budget (if any).  None of those sports are real money makers.  I think the basketball teams had the most fan attendance followed by baseball, softball and volleyball.

 

 

The college numbers don't tell the same story. Depending on who's numbers you use, football programs lose money at about 50-80% of all NCAA schools. "Activity Fees" and other nondescript fees charged to all students increasingly contribute to the athletic department budget.

 

Honestly, at the college level I can see the smaller JUCO, NAIA, D3 and most / some D2 schools surviving but it will come down to travel expenses and probably have some scaled back schedules.  

 

You can survive if you have a strong basketball program and strong fundraising / booster club.  Football is the main money maker and then it's basketball but you have to be a winner in basketball to make the money.  A football team that goes 1 - 9 will still PROBABLY make more money than a .600% winning basketball team.

 

A lot of the sports you talked about in your post are profit sports and they can survive without football if they win as well.  It gets tougher if they don't win though because winning and losing are reflected in gate money.  Typically for us our volleyball team will make in the $1000 - $1300 on a season and out of that they will spend about 80% of that on next year's equipment, officials, etc...  That extra is what's saved up to purchase new uniforms.  New uniforms will take a lot of fundraising or several years of planning to build up money to purchase.  The thing is one of these sports cannot truly support a non-revenue sport.  On the good years you can support one but on the bad years you can't.

 

This is why football is so important for non-revenue sports because a typical 5 game home season will bring in around $8K - 10K and they will spend around 60% of that for the next year.  That left over a good chunk of that will go to the non-revenue sports.  Now to help offset bad years for the football team we do several "_____ night" to help bring in crowds.  Homecoming and Senior Night bring in bigger than normal crowds to help with gate money but we also do things like Youth Night and recognize our Pop Warner kids.  We may try to recognize a former team at halftime.  Anything to bring people into the game because that's $6 a head.  Plus whatever they spend in concessions which go to our booster clubs.

 

There are some really great economic ideas going on to fund high school sports.But take football out of the equation then it dries up very quickly.

Coach2709 - you're right about football income.  Even when the local HS football team is sub .500 they still draw a pretty good crowd - about 1500-2000 on any given home game.  In part because it's a rural county and there is not much else to do unless you go to the nearest city 25 miles away.

 

I think my point was other school sports could survive without football, but they would probably have to adjust their budget knowing the gate receipts would be down severely.

 

The other item to consider is the cost for football equipment and field maintenance which is a substantial expense would no longer be there.

 

Not sure what you mean by lacrosse becoming an "official CIF sport".  I think it already is, at least that's what the banner hanging in the high school gym says.

Just so happens I am at a football game right now.  Couldn't help but think of the irony that I am outside the fence because there I s not a seat in the house!  Granted it is the traditional two best teams in the conference and two best draws.  But still ironic as there are thousands of people at this dying sport!

Now…imagine how fun and exciting it is for those kids on the field.  I'm telling you there is nothing like it.

       
       
yeah I get that.  Still not sure I want my son playing in spite of the fact his body screams football.  Obviously since I am playing on my phone during a close SRO game I am not the biggest enthusiast.  Most games I sit with a baseball dad of a prominent player in the area and we spend the entire game talking baseball!

My son played through half of high school, I played, although not very well in high school. If I had a son still in high school I would let him play.  

The outcry over football injuries is a bit over the top.  The injury risk is high in general in football.  The risk of serious injury is there but not super high.  The concussion thing is a real thing and should certainly be a priority.  However, people need to get a bit of a reality check.  I know parents that will not let their son play football because they are worried about injury, but, they let the same kid ride and race dirt bikes, an activity that is profoundly more dangerous than average high school football. Not to even mention letting their kids drive cars.  

There is accepted risk.  Schools, administrators, coaches, player and everyone else involved needs to do their best to avoid serious injury and concussion, I think most do.  There are always exceptions and injuries can be tragic.  However, the mindset that worries endlessly about a JV football game but lets a kid jump a dirt bike, drive a car or swim in a river is strange to me.  

I meant that there are no CIF playoffs/championships because not enough schools play it yet. Here's an article explaining it: http://maxlaxoc.com/lacrosse-i...ser-to-cif-playoffs/

 

". . . .the high school lacrosse playoffs are not conducted by the CIF Southern Section. Instead the playoffs are conducted by the Orange County and Greater Los Angeles Chapters of US Lacrosse. Without the support of these two chapters, there would not be any lacrosse playoffs. The reason for this is that article 3200.3 of the CIF Southern Section 2014-2015 constitution and bylaws states, “No playoffs will be conducted by the Southern Section Office when less than 20% of the membership field teams in that sport.”"