BIG HIT AMID INJURY WORRIES

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.

“We were one of the first schools to start ImPACT Testing and we invested in the Speed Helmets from Riddell,” Martin said, referring to an immediate assessment tool for players with head injuries and helmets designed to reduce concussion risk.

“We talked to the parents about everything, I just wanted to be upfront about it,” she said. “I think it helped to get our numbers up a bit, though it doesn’t hurt to have the success we’ve had recently.”

Everett coach and athletic director John DiBiaso understands the concern over concussion issues, but attributes the decline in part to other activities that now compete with football for kids’ time.

“When we were kids, there weren’t sports around like la- crosse and rugby and there weren’t any video games,” DiBiaso said. “Football isn’t an easy sport, it’s something you have to work at every day and some kids can’t or don’t want to make the time commitment.”

The MIAA Football Committee and the state coaches association have taken steps in recent years to make the game safer. Despite that, the numbers keep trending downward and it doesn’t appear that it will change in the future.

Stoneham athletic director David Pignone, whose son is a two-way starter at the high school, runs a youth program and the numbers are dropping there, too.

“As commissioner of Commonwealth Youth Football, we see numbers dropping in the programs,” Pignone said. “The league is made up of schools in the Middlesex League and Northeastern Conference and several of the communities are seeing numbers declining in the third-fourth grade program as well as the fifth-sixth and seventh-eighth.

“Some of them don’t even have enough to field a team at those levels,” Pignone said.

STAFF FILE PHOTO BY CHRIS CHRISTO LOSING SCORE: Millis football coach Dana Olson, right, has seen the number of players on his team dwindle down to 28 for this season, having lost seven to golf alone.