It's that time of year again. I'm getting emails asking me to play in a pep band at YSHS football games. I'll be 65 in a couple weeks. Pep band? Gimme a break! If the music director can't get enough kids to play at the football games, then he should give it up. And that brings me back to something that bugs me every year at this time. Not only do we not have enough kids to play at the games, we don't have enough kids to play in them. I wrote about this last year when the Blog was in it's infancy, I did a piece titled "Why not get rid of football?" Then in a series of followups, I recounted the trouble Principal John Gudgel was having getting kids to come out for the sport.
At the beginning of the season last year, the Dayton Daily News reported that YSHS had only 16 kids on the team. The McKinney season was canceled when only two boys showed up for the first team meeting. Somehow Gudgel managed to pull it together at the high school.
Where are we now? Last week the YS News reported that Schools Treasurer Joy Kitzmiller reported at the latest School Board meeting that tax revenues for last quarter were down 35%. At the meeting before that it was announced that school bus service is being cut back.
I've heard all the arguments ranging from soccer is more violent and injury prone to it would be culturally insensitive to cancel football (racism?). The fact is, we are just too small to field a football team.
It's too late to dump football this year. We couldn't afford the monetary penalties for canceling our schedule as happened a few years ago (Who are we, Ohio State?). But it's not too late to notify the league that we won't be playing football next year or anytime in the near future.
Related posts:
Why not get rid of football?
A follow-up to my football rant
Football fizzle
Posts
11 comments:
I agree with you 100%.
Another reason, to me, is that there really is no equivalent girls sport, and that of all the sports, football is extraordinarily more expensive.
I also agree 100%. I am not unbiased: I prefer soccer. YSHS has the capacity, the skills, to field very competitive soccer teams (girls and boys) largely because of the community soccer effort.
I also agree. Dropping football is probably one of the best cost cutters that YS can do. Sure, a few people will be upset, but there are other sports for fall that we EXCEL at.
Having such a small team makes us look pretty lame. When I go to the games the other team usually has a great marching band, a pep squad bussed in, and great uniforms. We have this half hearted effort that makes us look like their poor relations. Our team tries but clearly some of the kids were pressured to play, which isn't the reason to have a team. There aren't a lot of parents there and the kids seem to see it as a hang out spot. They do need to rethink it.
Photo gallery of this years Bulldog football squad:
http://projects.daytondailynews.com/cache/galleries/Sports/High%20School/2009ysroster/
Photo gallery of this year's Bulldog football squad:
http://projects.daytondailynews.com
/cache/galleries/Sports
/High%20School/
2009ysroster/
As I look at the picture in the Dayton Daily News, the thing that jumps out to me is the amount of diversity present on that team. I know we've already lost students and families to other schools with larger sports programs. I'd hate to see us lose more.
I played football in parochial school leagues from 3rd grade till high school.It offers a camraderie that does not happen in other sports.My son is playing this year for the 7-8th grade squad and they have about 16 or 18 guys.I see many parents out there rooting on their kids and if it is a hang out ..great, there could be worst places.
I love football. I watch Ohio State and the NY Giants any chance I get. I'll even watch the Bengals. But you need 35 players to realistically field a football team. Yellow Springs, at both the high school and middle school levels, cannot even come up with 22 (11 kids to play offense and 11 for defense, not counting kickers). Setting the school population size aside, the problem is that there is no pipeline into the middle school program. So, not only is there not the training, there is very little interest. Most of us like football. But in this case, we are beating a dead horse and an expensive one at that.
Please do not start the Marching Band cheer either, folks. That is WAY over what we could afford! It takes different instruments from what we have...especially in expensive percussion, but also in brass...our kids are not keen on uniforms, but those are THOUSANDS of dollars. Do we really want to go there for a sports program that's struggling? I think part of the problem with the football program IS that it isn't such a positive boost to our kids. We DON'T have what those other schools do and we struggle just to get by. Why are we doing it at all? Why not do what we are GOOD or GREAT at and leave this go?
Go Blue! 65 almost really? You do not look a day over....at all, must be the beer.
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