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HS football enters critical stage as participation continues to decline

That’s the headline in the Oregonian here:

“As a head coach, you start questioning, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’” Southridge’s Dean said. “Then you start talking with other programs, like a well-respected Lake Oswego, and you go, ‘Well, maybe it’s not about me. Maybe it’s a systemic problem that needs to be addressed systemically.’”

When Southridge met Lake Oswego in the season opener Sept. 4, Dean and Coury discussed declining participation before the game. They talked about organizing a summit for this winter to get a grip on the issue and plot for solutions.

“We think that football has an awful lot to offer young people, and it’s too bad that we can’t impact more people with it,” Dean said.

No, given the concussions it’s a good thing you “can’t impact more people” with football. Let them play Ultimate.

2 Comments

  1. Ben 10/07/2015

    Maybe if they took away the helmets for the leather ones, the concussion bit would fix itself. Hypothesis being that concussions are more frequent if a player is willing to bang the head instead of protect it.

  2. Sports Fan 10/10/2015

    Football will die in this country for the most American of reasons: pricing itself out of existence. Rich kids who can pay for it won’t want to (concussions). Poor kids won’t be able to afford it. Taxpayers have so scrimped on school budgets that whole athletic programs will die on the vine. Soon, the only football-playing states will be California, Texas, Florida and the deep South states, who would rather lose accreditation than cease playing on the gridiron.

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