Texas High School Students Are Moving Away From Football

BleedGopher

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per Texas Monthly:

Are Texans losing faith in football? That might be a heretical question in the land of Friday Night Lights. In pretty much every little town between Waskom and Dalhart, the state’s ardor for the sport has run so deep, for so long, folks only half-joke when they talk about football as the unofficial religion of Texas.

And fervent Texans do pay their tithes: taxpayers lavish as much as $72 million on high school stadiums that put many university facilities to shame. What might seem like outlandish excess to outsiders doesn’t faze hometown fans who see their high school team as an extension of their community’s unity and grit. In rural areas, especially, the town and team are synonymous, explains author Gray Levy in his 2015 book, Big and Bright: Deep in the Heart of Texas High School Football. “In Texas, it’s still accepted wisdom that football builds boys into men and can lift a school and community in ways no other activity can.”

But if high school football really is that important, then Texans have cause for concern: The share of high school students who play the game has been sliding for years, according to records maintained by the University Interscholastic League (UIL), the state governing body for public school extracurricular activities. Between the 2000 and 2016 seasons the sport’s annual participation rate fell off by one quarter. Last year, just under 11 percent of high schoolers in the state—167,428 students—played UIL-sanctioned football and six-man football in Texas. That’s a big drop from 2000, when the number stood at 14.5 percent.

And the trend seems to have hit younger players as well. In the Central Texas Pop Warner youth football league, participation is “down all over the place,” says administrator Charles Simpson. Five years ago there were forty teams in the league. Today, there are only eighteen—an enormous drop that suggests that we’ll be seeing even fewer high school players in a few years.

Why the decline? Amid the steady drip of revelations about harmful effects of concussions and sub-concussive hits, many parents are keeping their sons away from tackle football as a safety precaution. In September, Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center released a particularly scary study that found playing tackle football before age 12 doubled the risk of behavioral problems and tripled the risk of depression later in life.

“I think the concussions have concerned a lot of mamas, especially,” says coach D.W. Rutledge, who built a dynasty at Converse Judson in the 1980s and 1990s, coaching in seven state championship games and winning four of them. “The media can scare mamas to death.” But Rutledge, Rutledge, who is now the executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, thinks the fears are overblown. “I really believe football is safer now than it’s ever been,” he says.

UIL Director Charles Breithaupt is skeptical, though not dismissive, of the notion that health concerns are responsible for the decline. “I’m not hearing from parents around the state saying they’re afraid for their children to play,” he says. “But maybe they’re speaking with their feet and not showing up.”

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/texas-high-school-football/

Go Gophers!!
 


Tackle football before the age of 12 is insane. SW metro league for football starts at 5th grade.
 

Football is at it's peak right now and the downhill slide is happening. It's an extremely expensive sport for schools to support (and at the university level that expense is growing rapidly), and the number of players in the pop warner-type leagues is dropping. As FYI, baseball and hockey have also seen drop offs in "little league" participation, whereas soccer is growing. To field a full team, you'll be seeing a lot of high schools join up (as you're seeing today in Minnesota hockey); and you'll be seeing a lot of colleges (starting with Div III colleges) drop football all together.
 

Tackle football before the age of 12 is insane. SW metro league for football starts at 5th grade.

Would love to see Flag Football continue to grow at the youth level as football is a great game but I totally agree that young kids don't need to be tackling in order to learn how to play. Wait until kids are older to start tackling when the coaches are better and the kids are more prepared to learn how to do it the right way.

As to the story, not shocking that Texas is seeing a hit in numbers but when a football hotbed like Texas is declining as well that definitely is not a good sign for the overall health of the sport.
 



Everything that doesn't involve staring at a phone is declining.

Ha! - Too close to the truth.

Back to the OP. Football will really need to drill "heads up" into players. I also won't be surprised if they change the rules to regarding tackling. Still won't eliminate head injuries though.
 

In SW MN, where I live, there is a tackle football league for kids that starts with 3rd and 4th graders. But, some towns have been dropping out of the tackle league and going to something called "NFL Flag Football."

I would not be surprised if tackle winds up being banned before the 7th grade. Vikings DE Everson Griffen just had a kid, and he said he does not want the kid playing football before Junior High.

Lot of programs in my neck of the woods are hurting for numbers, and more schools are pairing up. The big problem is this: the winning programs can get kids out. It's the losing programs that keep dropping numbers, which only makes them less competitive, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots keeps getting wider, making for more blow-out games.
 

Lot of programs in my neck of the woods are hurting for numbers, and more schools are pairing up. The big problem is this: the winning programs can get kids out. It's the losing programs that keep dropping numbers, which only makes them less competitive, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots keeps getting wider, making for more blow-out games.

I wonder if that is a bit of a microcosm of sort of professionalizing kids sports.

We did some sports with my oldest but everyone in his sports seemed to be doing camps left and right and basicly doing the sport 24/7 and eveyone who doesn't eventually drops out. You're either year round full time sports kid or just not. (and that doesn't account for the mental toll on me sitting next to full time sports kid parents... OMG)

Oddly enough there was a summer camp program my son did that was just a bunch of sports, a much more casual day camp kinda thing where this week is one sprot, next another. There was crazy demand for that camp I heard....
 



“I think the concussions have concerned a lot of mamas, especially,” says coach D.W. Rutledge

I love this take. What a tough guy he must be.


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I heard a recent interview with the always thoughtful Charles Woodson, who said he's not sure he'll even allow his 11-year-old to play football at all, but if he does he won't start until high school. So if a player as accomplished as Woodson (Heisman Trophy, national champion, NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Super Bowl champion, certain Hall of Famer) is hedging on the sport, that makes me wonder of its long-term future.
 




Here are the stats from the National Federation Of State High School Football Associations:\

http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/

The participation statistics for every athletic program by state from the year 2002-2012

Interesting data. When you combine both the boys and girls participants in a given sport, the top 5 sports (Football, Basketball, Track and Field, Baseball/Softball, Soccer) each have about 1 million participants, with soccer being the one that's grown a lot over the past few decades.
 

The numbers will continue to drop as the number of kids specialize or quite sports all together increases. When you used to have 12 kids playing 3 sports and now you have 3 sports with only 4 kids each the participation numbers are going to continue to look bad.

There are is a huge market opportunity for a modified football programs at a young age. It is almost overwhelming: Flag football 5-man or 7man, 7on7 touch, modified football, tacklebar football and so on. Those will be the choices kids will get to experience football until an older age when they take on full 11on11 football. However none of that matters when parents are spending thousands of dollars on year round soccer starting at age 5.
 

My Godson is a sophomore at Stratford High School in Houston....Craig James, Andrew Luck, etc.....His older brother was a four year starting QB and got hurt in the first game of the year this past fall. Insert little brother as a sophomore and he had a great year filling in for his brother and received numerous awards. Now he starts on the Varsity basketball team. After the football season he told the coaches he was done with football and will be concentrating on, wait for it......golf.

Can you imagine being the starting QB your sophomore year and then telling your team and the coaches, sorry guys I am done. Golf beckons. He loves golf, only liked football and doesnt want to get his brains beaten in every Friday night.
 

make it more interestin

Football is at it's peak right now and the downhill slide is happening. It's an extremely expensive sport for schools to support (and at the university level that expense is growing rapidly), and the number of players in the pop warner-type leagues is dropping. As FYI, baseball and hockey have also seen drop offs in "little league" participation, whereas soccer is growing. To field a full team, you'll be seeing a lot of high schools join up (as you're seeing today in Minnesota hockey); and you'll be seeing a lot of colleges (starting with Div III colleges) drop football all together.

Watching soccer is like watching paint dry. While kids may enjoy the runnng involved, I have yet to talk to spectators who loved watching a 1-0 soccer game. Maybe expanding the net might make the game more watchable. But would I pay to watch, I would rather mow grass.
 

I personally think the rise of specialization hurts football more than concussion fears.
Football is a numbers game.

The kids football is losing are the kids who view football as their second or third sport. Not enough kids view football as their number one sport in an era of specialization.
 

Watching soccer is like watching paint dry. While kids may enjoy the runnng involved, I have yet to talk to spectators who loved watching a 1-0 soccer game. Maybe expanding the net might make the game more watchable. But would I pay to watch, I would rather mow grass.

The net is already huge in soccer, I don't think making it larger would make games more exciting to watch.
 

per Texas Monthly:

Are Texans losing faith in football? That might be a heretical question in the land of Friday Night Lights. In pretty much every little town between Waskom and Dalhart, the state’s ardor for the sport has run so deep, for so long, folks only half-joke when they talk about football as the unofficial religion of Texas.

And fervent Texans do pay their tithes: taxpayers lavish as much as $72 million on high school stadiums that put many university facilities to shame. What might seem like outlandish excess to outsiders doesn’t faze hometown fans who see their high school team as an extension of their community’s unity and grit. In rural areas, especially, the town and team are synonymous, explains author Gray Levy in his 2015 book, Big and Bright: Deep in the Heart of Texas High School Football. “In Texas, it’s still accepted wisdom that football builds boys into men and can lift a school and community in ways no other activity can.”

But if high school football really is that important, then Texans have cause for concern: The share of high school students who play the game has been sliding for years, according to records maintained by the University Interscholastic League (UIL), the state governing body for public school extracurricular activities. Between the 2000 and 2016 seasons the sport’s annual participation rate fell off by one quarter. Last year, just under 11 percent of high schoolers in the state—167,428 students—played UIL-sanctioned football and six-man football in Texas. That’s a big drop from 2000, when the number stood at 14.5 percent.

And the trend seems to have hit younger players as well. In the Central Texas Pop Warner youth football league, participation is “down all over the place,” says administrator Charles Simpson. Five years ago there were forty teams in the league. Today, there are only eighteen—an enormous drop that suggests that we’ll be seeing even fewer high school players in a few years.

Why the decline? Amid the steady drip of revelations about harmful effects of concussions and sub-concussive hits, many parents are keeping their sons away from tackle football as a safety precaution. In September, Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center released a particularly scary study that found playing tackle football before age 12 doubled the risk of behavioral problems and tripled the risk of depression later in life.

“I think the concussions have concerned a lot of mamas, especially,” says coach D.W. Rutledge, who built a dynasty at Converse Judson in the 1980s and 1990s, coaching in seven state championship games and winning four of them. “The media can scare mamas to death.” But Rutledge, Rutledge, who is now the executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, thinks the fears are overblown. “I really believe football is safer now than it’s ever been,” he says.

UIL Director Charles Breithaupt is skeptical, though not dismissive, of the notion that health concerns are responsible for the decline. “I’m not hearing from parents around the state saying they’re afraid for their children to play,” he says. “But maybe they’re speaking with their feet and not showing up.”

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/texas-high-school-football/

Go Gophers!!

Per the linked data on high school sports:

Texas
2002: 992 teams, 157778 participants
2016: 1069 teams, 163922 participants

Given that population growth in most places in positive, while availability of high school teams and roster spots is limited, it stands to reason the percentages of population playing the sport may not reflect the state of the sport. That’s probably the worst number they could have used. Number of teams and participants is up at the high school level in Texas.

At the youth levels they polled one Pop Warner League. Well, there are other youth football organizations, as described in this article. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/sports/youth-tackle-football-texas.html

Maybe grade school/middle school participation is really down over 50% but I tend to doubt it. The author didn’t really do much legwork for this article, or editing. Rutledge comma Rutledge is a pretty badass name, or maybe it slipped past the goalie.

Football isn’t going away anytime soon. Sorry folks.
 

I love this take. What a tough guy he must be.


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Are you shocked he’s still alive at age 66 after playing college linebacker in the 70s? Shouldn’t he have blown his brains out, or be afflicted from crippling and ultimately deadly neurodegenerative disease like every other former player? Did you hear 98% of brains of neurodegenerative disease patients show signs of neurodegenerative morphological changes? What are the odds? Football players and their parents must be morons!
 

Are you shocked he’s still alive at age 66 after playing college linebacker in the 70s? Shouldn’t he have blown his brains out, or be afflicted from crippling and ultimately deadly neurodegenerative disease like every other former player? Did you hear 98% of brains of neurodegenerative disease patients show signs of neurodegenerative morphological changes? What are the odds? Football players and their parents must be morons!

Much more bothered by the "it's the moms, they don't get football like the dads" attitude. How could a "mama" understand, right? The head in the sand approach to the idea that head injuries don't cause long term effects is less surprising to me as we even have that kind on GH.


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Watching soccer is like watching paint dry. While kids may enjoy the runnng involved, <b>I have yet to talk to spectators who loved watching a 1-0 soccer game. </b>Maybe expanding the net might make the game more watchable. But would I pay to watch, I would rather mow grass.

I won't try to argue the merits of soccer as to each their own, however, the bolded is silly.
I watch EPL games each and every weekend. I also watch countless youth games as my son both plays and refs. I am a spectator for each of those games and absolutely can love watching some 1-0 games. Saying you can't would be like saying you can't enjoy a 7-3 football game with good defense. Silly.


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Much more bothered by the "it's the moms, they don't get football like the dads" attitude. How could a "mama" understand, right? The head in the sand approach to the idea that head injuries don't cause long term effects is less surprising to me as we even have that kind on GH.


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What are my odds of developing suicidal tendencies or early neurodegeneration?


Preordained
Very likely
Likely
Not likely
Vanishingly rare

Is a child more likely to die or suffer mental or psychological issues from:

Inactivity
Excessive cell phone/social media use
Solar radiation exposure
Food additives, pesticides, and herbicides
Vaccination adverse reaction
Vehicular accident
Football
 

What are my odds of developing suicidal tendencies or early neurodegeneration?

Your odds are better if you play football than if you don't play football.

The rest of your list involves mutually exclusive events outside the scope of this conversation. It isn't like kids either a)play football; or b)eat pesticides or that a kid is less likely to get in a car accident if he plays football. Irrelevant nonsense steering attention away from the argument. I'd expect that from GWG, but not from you.


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Your odds are better if you play football than if you don't play football.


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Yes this is the thing with soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, etc. Playing sports put you at risk.
 

Yes this is the thing with soccer, wrestling, gymnastics, etc. Playing sports put you at risk.

Of course. Some more than others.

I never said everyone who plays football will have issues, I never even said kids shouldn't play football, I only object to the notion that there isn't a link between football, head injuries, and long-term effects.


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Yes. I totally agree. I keep being amazed at these year round soccer kids putting their heads at risk so often for so long. It is amazing that these parents seem to believe there isn't a risk between soccer, head injuries, and long-term effects.

However, i keep looking at the other side and looking at all these kids burning out from year round sports and stopping sports all together and seeing the long-term effects of not playing sports. I then can understand why sports like football really need to be emphasized to get us back to multi-sport healthy active kids. I continue like the football options being developed at lower levels and hope they take hold in local associations.
 


I think the debate turns from sports or no sports down a level to which sports. Driving the debate back up a level is basically preaching to the choir. I don't see anyone here advocating that sports are so risky not to do it.
 




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