Current Events > High school football rosters hit 10-year low

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/high_school/2017/09/high_school_football_rosters_hit_10_year_low_amid_concussion_concerns#.WbKFi17w9n4.twitter

It isn’t just Millis. Statewide, amid growing concussion fears, high school football rosters have seen a 10-year decline, while soccer and cross-country participation are climbing.

The number of boys playing football dropped for the ninth time in 10 seasons last year, Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association statistics show. From 22,169 players who suited up in 2006, there has been dramatic drop of more than 3,200, or 14.7 percent, with just 18,913 playing last year.

During that same period, soccer enrollment has shot up 7.1 percent to 14,031 last year, while cross-country has spiked by a staggering 23.9 percent, to 7,051.

High school football participation is falling nationally, but Massachusetts is leading the trend away from the contact sport. Across the country, the number of players fell 2.5 percent year over year last season and it’s down 4.5 percent since 2006, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

The number of schools offering football in Massachusetts has remained steady since 2006. But in New Jersey this summer, low participation numbers led at least three schools to suspend their varsity teams.

Coaches say they believe the mounting evidence linking football and head injuries to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has scared some families to the point where they are steering kids toward other sports.

“I’m sure people are worried about the safety thing,” Olson said. “We had seven kids who played football last year deciding to play golf this year. For a program that has 90-100 kids, they might not feel the bump of losing seven kids, but it is big for a school like ours with just 170 boys.”

Lexington athletic director Naomi Martin certainly understands the dilemma. Her son, Tyler, is an eighth-grader at Buckingham Browne & Nichols with visions of playing football at the varsity level in the not-too-distant future. She has the same parental concerns, but also doesn’t want to limit her son.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about Tyler getting hurt,” Martin said. “My husband and I have talked about this at home with Tyler. I would hate to tell him he can’t do something he loves and football is a sport where you have to be all-in. Now, if he were to get hurt somewhere down the road, we would have to sit down and reassess it.”

Martin has practiced what she preaches at the high school level. Seeing a steady decline in football numbers at Lexington back in 2011, she decided to become proactive in terms of alleviating parental concerns as much as she could. Stressing safety at all costs, she worked with the coaches and parents in the community to provide support and education.

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Good. Between the entitlement culture it fosters and the head trauma children are suffering, it's time for it to go.
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Coaches also want 3+ hour practices and expect kids to be there Saturday most times. Pop Warner is also dying lot due to costs while youth soccer has been growing like crazy. I'm sure the CTE stuff isn't helping.

So it all makes sense.
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Millennials posted...

Good. Between the entitlement culture it fosters and the head trauma children are suffering, it's time for it to go.

this. highschool football should be illegal

its funny, a football journalist said that football will die out in about 25 to 40 years due to the emergence of CTE/concusson awareness and many others criticized him.

looks like he was correct.

For my part, when people talk about the NFL dying, or declining, this sort of thing is what's going to undo it. Death from below.
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Forget politics. This has to do with lazy kids who are doped up on rx medicine and addicted to electronics.
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If football goes away it might be longer than a century

Despite injuries games are packed as ever.
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--kresnik-- posted...

Forget politics. This has to do with lazy kids who are doped up on rx medicine and addicted to electronics.

and being coddled by leftists. Also fuck soccer that shit is boooring.
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--kresnik-- posted...

Forget politics.

What politics do you see in this article?
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The_Donald posted...

--kresnik-- posted...

Forget politics. This has to do with lazy kids who are doped up on rx medicine and addicted to electronics.

and being coddled by leftists. Also fuck soccer that shit is boooring.

a soccer player is fucking Malaria

Antifar posted...

For my part, when people talk about the NFL dying, or declining, this sort of thing is what's going to undo it. Death from below.

You mean 'do it'? Yeah. The pool to draw from will likely continue to shrink. But it'll be a long, slow decline and could level off eventually.
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NBA gonna leave NFL in the dust
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Sir Will posted...

You mean 'do it'? Yeah.

Yeah, whoops.
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I don't have anything against it, but I don't understand people giving a fuck about it. I mean if this trend does end up being really bad for the nfl, that sucks and I would disapprove, but high school football in and of itself has never mattered to me in any way, shape or form. Soccer getting more popular is annoying though.
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KlRBEH posted...

NBA gonna leave NFL in the dust

Because the NBA has gone and have been soft for the last 20 years.
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fair next

bye bye football


would rather e-sports replace it then soccer though
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ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

Soccer getting more popular is annoying though.

Why?
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The_Donald posted...

--kresnik-- posted...

Forget politics. This has to do with lazy kids who are doped up on rx medicine and addicted to electronics.

and being coddled by leftists. Also fuck soccer that shit is boooring.

You're right. Everything is so watered down. I was it regress throughout clinton's reign and throughout Bush's (I graduated at the end of his term).

Things gradually devolved, in front of my eyes, to where everybody came in first. Then, coaches were harangued and forced into no longer having kids compete for slots on the team. Everybody makes the team.

The liberals started the coddling and demasculization of kids around 25 years ago and things have gotten worse. They have essentially labeled gender roles offensive. They have created a society where way-too-young parents leave their kids to be raised by electronics and teachers, while they go party.

This environment doesn't provide for masculine male role models for young boys, which is probably part of the lack of interest in physical activity. When I was a kid, we did stuff outside and played video games at night. These kids are weak, uncoordinated, unmotivated, and terrified of competition.

We are going to have an entire generation full of tech people. Why do you think people get paid $100k+ to drive a truck?
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^ so much bullshit
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Good. I don't see what the big deal is with football anyway. No son of mine is gonna get involved with that ****.

With my 6'4" height and my girlfriend's 5'10", he'll be a basketball phenom.
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CTE has been found in former soccer players too with headers being the main culprit. Concussions arent the only contributing factor, any head strikes even inside a helmet without pain does cumulative damage, also some people with CTE dont suffer any symptoms.
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I played football and loved it and called the few kids in the 90s who were afraid to play pussies. I had 1 grade 3 concussion, 1 grade 2 and probably a lot of undiagnosed grade 1 concussions.

I still maintained possession with the grade 3 though I lost consciousness for about 3 seconds.

If I ever have kids I wouldn't let them play contact football.
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>people are looking out for the safety of young people's minds
>southcoast thinks that's bad

rofl, what a joke
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Thanks Trump for making America "great again"
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sktgamer_13dude posted...

>people are looking out for the safety of young people's minds
>southcoast thinks that's bad

rofl, what a joke

he definitely exhibits symptoms of CTE
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fenderbender321 posted...

There are benefits to playing football at a young age. Let's not just look at the risks and negatives.

What benefits specifically are there to playing football at a young age that can't be gotten by playing a different team sport?
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Butterfiles posted...

sktgamer_13dude posted...

>people are looking out for the safety of young people's minds
>southcoast thinks that's bad

rofl, what a joke

he definitely exhibits symptoms of CTE

Which is?
Sir Will posted...

^ so much bullshit

Care to explain how? (didn't think so)
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ReignFury posted...

CTE has been found in former soccer players too with headers being the main culprit. Concussions arent the only contributing factor, any head strikes even inside a helmet without pain does cumulative damage, also some people with CTE dont suffer any symptoms.

True, nothing is totally safe of course, but there are varying degrees of risk with different activities. Contact football will be more dangerous than soccer. Hockey can be pretty dangerous too, especially when contact is allowed. Expensive too, but that's another issue.

fenderbender321 posted...

All sports give different benefits because you train yourself to do different things.

Didn't answer the question. What is so specific to football that you think would outweigh the risks?
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ImAMarvel posted...

Millennials posted...

Good. Between the entitlement culture it fosters and the head trauma children are suffering, it's time for it to go.

unironically this >_>

It was unironic when I said it <_<
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Damn 10 year low. The NFL has just been dying these last 10 years!
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If you're making "$100k+ to drive a truck" you're way out in left field a few standard deviations away from the median.
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Millennials ruining football
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This is going to be a devastating blow to minorities that depend on foot ball scholarships to get into colleges.
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not too surprising - the same thing happened with boxing
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Football's been one of the greatest ladders to success for African Americans, sad to see it go
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I think its comes down to a lot of people just not having kids or as many kids now-a-days, and all the bad news coverage of football injuries.
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MACisBack posted...

I think its comes down to a lot of people just not having kids or as many kids now-a-days,

I'd wager that there are more high school students now than in 2006
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Good. I hated how I was forced to go to all home football games because I was in marching band
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Antifar posted...

MACisBack posted...

I think its comes down to a lot of people just not having kids or as many kids now-a-days,

I'd wager that there are more high school students now than in 2006

There are DEFINITELY more kids now.

Been a teacher for a few years and population has done nothing but go up since I started. Specifically the last 10 years our high school has gone from like 1.8k to 2.5k kids, and still just keeps going up across all the nearly districts.

FWIW football players are easily the shittiest kids to have here. Also between all levels they probably have 100 kids so they're still about 4% of the school's population.
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fenderbender321 posted...

Sir Will posted...

Didn't answer the question. What is so specific to football that you think would outweigh the risks?

The hitting, shoving, contact, huddles, calling plays, audibling plays....just everything about football. It's a set of skills that you practice. There's no way to "weigh" something against risks in this aspect, because everyone's goals in life are different, and respond to things in different ways.

Personally, I wish my parents let me play football. My life would have been better, IMO.

every sport is a set of skills that you practice

in fact, most things people do in general are sets of skills that you practice
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Fair, next.