superman7515
August 16th, 2015, 09:18 PM
http://www.inforum.com/sports/3818885-future-high-school-football-doubt-minnesota-participation-numbers-dropping
Moorhead - Moorhead football coach Kevin Feeney paused for a second. It was as if he hadn't prepared to even think of the possibility of football becoming a club sport and no longer part of the Minnesota State High School League.
It was as if someone had told him high school football had died."I'd hate to see that," Feeney said. "I think there's just such great life lessons to learn from the game of football. I wouldn't be where I am today without the game of football. I'd hate to see that."
Football still has the largest participation numbers of any high school sport in Minnesota with 377 teams fielding 25,487 players in the 2013-14 school year. But the drop over the last 15 years is hard to ignore.
In the 1999-00 school year, there were 385 teams and 32,193 participants. Since then, participation numbers for football have steadily dropped every year but two.
The drop has Hawley football coach Peder Naatz thinking football will someday no longer be a sport provided by high schools.
"I feel that schools will finally decide to not support football or provide football as an opportunity and it'll become a club sport," Naatz said. "I have a feeling because of the liability of injury possibility and the traumatic things that often times happen, it's probably going to be a club sport and we won't have to worry about the (MSHSL) and we won't have to worry about it in school."
Naatz was in the same boat as Feeney, saying it's not something he wants to see happen.
"Just because I think it's going to happen sometime doesn't mean I think it's a good idea," Naatz said. "If it becomes that, I really wouldn't want too much involvement. I just think that if it gets to that it's going to be too many people thinking that they have too much influence over it because of maybe a sponsorship they're providing. It won't be run as true as a high school program because you won't have an athletic director or a superintendent and a head coach and a coaching staff, who have a chain of command to follow."
Moorhead - Moorhead football coach Kevin Feeney paused for a second. It was as if he hadn't prepared to even think of the possibility of football becoming a club sport and no longer part of the Minnesota State High School League.
It was as if someone had told him high school football had died."I'd hate to see that," Feeney said. "I think there's just such great life lessons to learn from the game of football. I wouldn't be where I am today without the game of football. I'd hate to see that."
Football still has the largest participation numbers of any high school sport in Minnesota with 377 teams fielding 25,487 players in the 2013-14 school year. But the drop over the last 15 years is hard to ignore.
In the 1999-00 school year, there were 385 teams and 32,193 participants. Since then, participation numbers for football have steadily dropped every year but two.
The drop has Hawley football coach Peder Naatz thinking football will someday no longer be a sport provided by high schools.
"I feel that schools will finally decide to not support football or provide football as an opportunity and it'll become a club sport," Naatz said. "I have a feeling because of the liability of injury possibility and the traumatic things that often times happen, it's probably going to be a club sport and we won't have to worry about the (MSHSL) and we won't have to worry about it in school."
Naatz was in the same boat as Feeney, saying it's not something he wants to see happen.
"Just because I think it's going to happen sometime doesn't mean I think it's a good idea," Naatz said. "If it becomes that, I really wouldn't want too much involvement. I just think that if it gets to that it's going to be too many people thinking that they have too much influence over it because of maybe a sponsorship they're providing. It won't be run as true as a high school program because you won't have an athletic director or a superintendent and a head coach and a coaching staff, who have a chain of command to follow."