Is football dying in small schools?
“I’ve been begging kids for years to play,” said Cornell coach Ed Dawson, who also works in the disciplinary office at Cornell. “The dropoff comes in depth after the first seven or eight players. I mean, we’ve got a kid playing receiver this year who was a swimmer.”
It should be pointed out that not all small schools are having problems with roster size. Jeannette, defending WPIAL and PIAA champion, has 46 players this year. Carmichaels has 35 players on its roster, perennial power Clairton 34, Greensburg Central Catholic 34 and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart 32.
But many schools have had drastic drops in numbers compared to 10 years ago. In 2008, Northgate had a 53player roster, Springdale 50 players and Mapletown 32. Bishop Canevin had 44 players on its roster 10 years ago and now dresses 23 to 25.
The problems
Part of the lower participation numbers in football on the national level is certainly traced to fear of concussions. That also plays a role in the shrinking rosters in Western Pennsylvania. But a drop in school enrollment also has played a big part in the decline of participation in the WPIAL and City League.
“We have 26 boys and girls total in our junior class,” said Mapletown coach George Messich. “So that says a lot. We have only three seniors on our entire team.”
Cecchini said, “We only have five seniors on the team and none of them are linemen. This year, our offensive line is four sophomores and a freshman. They should probably be playing JV games and not defending state champion Jeannette like we did two weeks ago.”
Coaches and school administrators will tell you that many more activities for kids nowadays also has an effect on football participation. “There’s AAU basketball and fall baseball,” said Dawson.
It’s not easy coaching at a small school. Coaching peers will say some excellent coaches are at smaller schools. But you might not know it because they don’t have much talent to coach.
“I’m accustomed to [low numbers],” said Stacy Robinson, Union’s coach for 22 years. “But it definitely seems to be more of a challenge these days. I probably have four or five kids that are under 120 pounds. So you have to be careful if and how you might use them.”
Is there a solution?
Avella’s Cecchini believes things go in cycles and some schools with small rosters will have more players in two to three years. Fans and even some coaches believe more small school teams need to fold and get into cooperative sponsorships. Under the PIAA’s cooperative sponsorship rule, students from one school that doesn’t have a team can play for a neighboring school. It is more popular in other sports, but not football. When Cornell folded its program for a few years, Cornell players could play for Quaker Valley under a cooperative sponsorship.
But a sampling of some coaches shows a lot do not like the idea of cooperative sponsorships. The reason is they feel like schools and towns lose some of their identity without a high school team.
Messich doesn’t like the cooperative sponsorship idea and criticized the WPIAL, saying the league paid no attention to his request that small schools that often struggle to win games and also annually have low participation numbers should be placed in the same conference.
“It’s not to make the playoffs,” said Messich. “It’s for the kids to just let them be competitive.”
WPIAL executive director Tim O’Malley said the WPIAL doesn’t use competitiveness or roster sizes to make conferences or sections in any other sport.
“The organization has forever used geography as the biggest factor [when making conferences],” said O’Malley.
Fulmore doesn’t believe shrinking rosters is the WPIAL’s problem.
“It’s not the WPIAL’s responsibility to seek easier games if you’re playing in [Class 1A],” said Fulmore. “The onus falls on the individual teams to compete. I believe there are cycles in football. Even Northgate had a good cycle two years ago. But pity isn’t part of this game.”
Even if you have only 12 players.