Woodside forfeits

[colhenrylives]

You could see this one coming. Woodside has informed Burlingame and the PAL that it can't field a proper (healthy) team Friday night. The Wildcats bailed out of their fourth quarter vs. Seaside last week. So the forfeit vs. the Panthers was almost a foregone conclusion from the get-go. Will Woodside (enrollment 2,000) finish out the 2019 season? Who knows. It's a Lake Division (C league) outfit. So is South San Francisco which is also winless and giving up about a half-a-hundred depressing digits per outing. The Lake is a 2019 nightmare _ too many programs barely hanging on for dear life, or not so dear life. The dregs of the PAL are barely above water these days.

 

[Rmbr26]

Anybody have a clue why Woodside is self-destructing? Their season preview shows 9 starters returning from a not very good 2018 team of 6-4 and yet the projection shows them as twice as bad as last season.
As bad as that sounds and with their current 0-4 record their projection was 3-7. Roster shows 47 players so is this for real or a mirage?? Now calling it quits on the game last week and already forfeiting an upcoming game - how is that fair to the players who've been practicing and training since last season? Who is in charge OR does somebody need to take charge? A dismal situation for sure for a school of this size - Julian Edelman where are you??

 

[colhenrylives]

The slow, depressing decline of public school football in the schools from SF to SJ is not going to stop anytime soon. Too many factors are conspiring to put a fork in the prep sport for too many of the publics. The private/parochials will benefit as the publics deteriorate. It's not pretty to watch from the sidelines. But it's an inexorable slide.

 

[HurricaneFan1990]

Let’s face it at many peninsula schools the administrators don’t care enough to really invest in football. It’s been declining for many years. And if it’s being run badly they don’t know enough to know the difference. Parents may complain a little but there’s not enough pressure to promote real change. So the private’s get stronger and stronger because they take an intentional approach to winning and real football people flock to them, justifiably so.

HMB has 25 kids but they are bought in heart and soul, so they win. There are a few other peninsula schools that continue to play good football despite their obstacles. Solid coaching, correct weightlifting and intense personal sacrifice can get it done. But not easy. And many kids lack the intestinal fortitude to work hard in the off season so there is that as well.

Just my thoughts

 

[CoachDada]

That's how many they have. Minus the 3 injured during the game. About 8 left dressed. They're in white.
.

 

[da real]

Smart parents. For the majority of students, the risks outweigh the benefits.

 

[HurricaneFan1990]

So the parents at Serra, VC etc who’s kids are playing at a high level are not smart?

 

[Lil49erCoach]

Having just gone through this there are a lot of factors that play into it. It's really not fun having 11 on the field and 4 dressed on the sidelines.

It's not that there are 15/16 players, it's that during the game kids get dinged. Now you have players in places they have not played (WR is now the FB, the CB is now the Mike), and that can get them hurt, or worse, they get someone else hurt. Moving kids around when you have 25 or 50 players is one thing, moving a players when you have 6 total OL or 2 RB's/LB's is quite another. You can plan for when a player goes down, but when he goes down and now you are making 3 other moves on the fly it gets tough, you end up taking timeouts just to get a playing into a position.

You can't practice with 16 kids. All the drills, exercises, team time, all that stuff is displaced/disrupted because you don't have bodies. Options are to scavenge the JV and/or have them practice with the varsity. Which may help the varsity, but varsity players are varsity for a reason, if the JV's were good competition for the varsity players they would be on varsity. There are things you do (half-line, video, board work, agilities) and things you don't (hitting is out, can't go team, might not be able to go 7-7 or group). But your practice is not what it was.

JV players (parents) aren't coming up. Fear of getting hurt and/or players not being 'mentally ready' to play is most often cited. You can't force a kid to come up and in a lot of places going to the varsity is not the Big Deal it was back before.

Because you have low numbers you have to have everyone able to play everywhere. That means it all has to be very simple. But you don't have the time to teach everyone every assignment and every technique. And the numbers can drop in-game so you are caught. You do the best you can.

Some teams have setup a hard number - 16, 17 or something, for whatever reason(s) their numbers drop, where if they are at/below that number they cancel. That's a discussion that the coaches don't want to have, "we'll play with 12...", but it should be a number that is determined before the season gets started, and communicated to the AD/administration.

And the numbers can drop, a lot, without warning. Meaning you have to adjust to all this on the fly. Not a good situation these days.

And this is not just the bottom feeders that are getting hit. Some bigger programs are dropping Frosh or JV programs, etc. 8-man is really starting to get some discussion over dropping the program. Too many things are counting on home football games for schools to be willing to give up football.

And the "Smart Thing" above - It's different when you have 15-16 kids vs. 40 kids. What is smart/acceptable at 40 players is not smart at 15 players. The odds of getting hurt change with the number of players.

 

[colhenrylives]

That 8-man comment is starting to make more and more sense in many of the pricey precincts of CCS these days.

 

[Breen1234]

This is not about parents not letting their kids play.This is kids choosing not to play. Not because football is dangerous but because it is hard. While football gets all the media attention about numbers other sports are down as well, wrestling cross -country ,sports that are hard. Yes some sports numbers are up but most of those are new sports like lacrosse or rugby but those numbers can only go up when they are relatively new. There are also easy sports that are filling the college applications box. When I say easy I mean physically and less commitment than say football.
Administration is another problem. If you have someone running the school that could care less about sports that school is not going to be very good at anything.It is sad to see the schools with so much history and talent playing such bad football but it does start at the top with hiring coaches and good ADs.

 

[colhenrylives]

Very true. You cannot have a great school without great families and a great administration. The latter sets the tone, hires the teachers, creates a positive environment and asserts budget, academic and extra-curricular priorities. The former provides the students and, one hopes, plenty of support for the administration. It's not rocket science.

 

[HurricaneFan1990]

This is not about parents not letting their kids play.This is kids choosing not to play. Not because football is dangerous but because it is hard. While football gets all the media attention about numbers other sports are down as well, wrestling cross -country ,sports that are hard. Yes some sports numbers are up but most of those are new sports like lacrosse or rugby but those numbers can only go up when they are relatively new. There are also easy sports that are filling the college applications box. When I say easy I mean physically and less commitment than say football.
Administration is another problem. If you have someone running the school that could care less about sports that school is not going to be very good at anything.It is sad to see the schools with so much history and talent playing such bad football but it does start at the top with hiring coaches and good ADs.

Correct. I think that if something is important you will commit resources to it, and have an intentional approach to making it go. Woodside is no worse off talent wise than Sequoia or Carlmont (take MA out of the equation as the district has artificially enhanced their talent pool.) What's the difference? Not sure.

 

[larry legend33]

This may not be popular or PC but reality is African Americans as a % of NFL players keeps going up. I believe it’s 70% now with some positions like CB almost entirely black. Turn on an SEC game and you will also see what I mean. For a lot of these kids this is there ticket out. They are willing to work hard and put in the effort. They don’t have the means that many of the white/Asian/Indian kids who grow up in affluent areas like the peninsula have. And football is hard. Damn hard. The peninsula and certain Bay Area communities will slowly get rid of football as the demographics keep changing. There is just not the interest. A lot of these kids are shifting to things like lacrosse.

Sad sports like baseball though are losing African American kids because it’s become so expensive to play.

I may not have articulated this well but I think people get iton this board.

 

[colhenrylives]

Very well said and right on point. Solid perspective.

 

[da real]

Football is a poor people sport no different than boxing.

Not many nfl players come from households making over 100,000.00 a year.

The general public is finally coming around to the inherent risks of the sport. 3 football players have DIED playing for school teams in the last 11 days. DIED.

 

[HurricaneFan1990]

Football is a poor people sport no different than boxing.

Not many nfl players come from households making over 100,000.00 a year.

The general public is finally coming around to the inherent risks of the sport. 3 football players have DIED playing for school teams in the last 11 days. DIED.

Since most of the national top 25 are very expensive private schools (and yes they give some scholarships but not all) your theory doesn't hold water. St. Francis, VC, Serra rosters are loaded with rich kids from Hillsborough, Atherton, etc. The top 1% in our country. Sacred Heart Prep is in the heart of Atherton and the team is 90% white and probably very rich. Using the NFL doesn't make sense since we are talking HS participation numbers.

Some people are scared of hard work, weights, and the dirty little secret is that some very good looking athletes are scared of contact. So if the general public you speak of are these individuals, I'm failing to see what we are losing in the equation? A bunch of scared kids and parents? I think it's a win for football.

 

[da real]

https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2...homa-football-death?__twitter_impression=true


https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...end/?outputType=amp&__twitter_impression=true

 

[colhenrylives]

Here's a very disturbing question for lovers of prep football: Will a California public school district board of trustees ban the sport at its district schools at some point in the near future? Don't think it can't happen.

 

[Lil49erCoach]

Here's a very disturbing question for lovers of prep football: Will a California public school district board of trustees ban the sport at its district schools at some point in the near future? Don't think it can't happen.

Pop Warner/Babe Ruth/AAU expands their age limit to 19 and see what happens. I can see a time when sports are not part of the school, they are all club.

 

[colhenrylives]

Pop Warner/Babe Ruth/AAU expands their age limit to 19 and see what happens. I can see a time when sports are not part of the school, they are all club.

That's the Euro model. And it does make some sense.

 

[colhenrylives]

This may not be popular or PC but reality is African Americans as a % of NFL players keeps going up. I believe it’s 70% now with some positions like CB almost entirely black. Turn on an SEC game and you will also see what I mean. For a lot of these kids this is there ticket out. They are willing to work hard and put in the effort. They don’t have the means that many of the white/Asian/Indian kids who grow up in affluent areas like the peninsula have. And football is hard. Damn hard. The peninsula and certain Bay Area communities will slowly get rid of football as the demographics keep changing. There is just not the interest. A lot of these kids are shifting to things like lacrosse.

Sad sports like baseball though are losing African American kids because it’s become so expensive to play.

I may not have articulated this well but I think people get iton this board.

...and this would include the critical local component of Polynesian guys...look no further than M-A...Serra even has an annual Polynesian Day to stimulate enrollment in that ethnic category...Mills is having some modest success (3-1) with an 18-man roster which is more than one-third Polynesian...

 

[MC415]

...and this would include the critical local component of Polynesian guys...look no further than M-A...Serra even has an annual Polynesian Day to stimulate enrollment in that ethnic category...Mills is having some modest success (3-1) with an 18-man roster which is more than one-third Polynesian...

And the South city/daly city schools at their peak had significant poly contingent as well, now their demographics are more likely to play badminton then football

 

[RidgeRider]

Unintended consequence of the shifting demo and social views of that area over the last three decades. Sad.

Perhaps one of the many reasons people are leaving and being replaced by more who view football with some disdain.

Football is a poor people sport no different than boxing.

Not many nfl players come from households making over 100,000.00 a year.
.

That is not the case where I live, so I would argue this is not true.

Bay Area has a unique set of issues I won’t even get into for fear of upsetting some on this board.

 

[larry legend33]

Very well said and right on point. Solid perspective.

Thanks. I grew up watching a lot of great African American baseball players. Look at the A’s back in 80’s-90’s. A lot of potential that will never get opportunity to be realized today.
Sports are so good for development. You just hope we still find ways to support avenues that kids can develop the sort of self esteem playing gave all of us.

 

[scvalfan]

Demographics, player safety, difficulty of football, other sports options, and dominance of the private schools all play factors in declining participation; however, the ONE sure way to boost numbers and maintain a viable program is through a legitimate coach, and coaching staff. Finding coaches is difficult enough in the Bay Area, but to hire and keep a coach that recognizes who his kids are, and be willing to set realistic goals for the program is near impossible. Many coaches who find success at smaller programs tend to grow frustrated about the limitations of their player pool, and/or cannot stand the dance between the B league and A league, where you just want to survive the schedule. Why would I stay at a hybrid B/A school, when I could assist at a more accomplished school? You guys keep saying playing football is hard, but coaching is just as tough.

As a public school guy, I always look to a coach like Kevin Collins at Lincoln, who runs a successful program, but will never receive the attention or accolades of a coach at a Los Gatos, St. Francis, or Bellarmine. His teams are always competitive, and win 6-7 games every year. Finding that sort of stability at a local public school is so rare, and should be the model for these programs that are struggling for numbers. Again, easier said than done.

 

[LecheDeMiPalo]

Not much of an excuse for Woodside TBH.

Look at who is in the Lake: Woodside, Mills, Capuchino, South City, El Camino, Jefferson. The facilities at Woodside are day and night compared to what the other 5 schools have. They pay coaches much better than any of the other schools. To be bad is one thing but to go in and get beaten up to the point where you do not have enough to play is another thing.

 

[LeeCorso1234]

There is some team in East Texas that has been winning with a 12 player roster. They actually had to suit up the Team manager with an injury. How amazing would a deep run be in the playoffs for them.

 

[Barking Dog]

The pay might be different just because they are schools from 4 different districts. San Mateo Union HS District, Jefferson Union HS District, SSF Unified School District and Sequoia Union HS District. All these coaches are getting paid through there school District. Pay is going to be within a few dollars per coach per season. Woodside coaches aren't paid extremely more than Jefferson or SSF coaches. Not even close

 

[colhenrylives]

Jefferson Union and SSF Unified have full-time teacher-coach pay/benefits packages markedly lower than PA Unified and Sequoia Union (and San Mateo Union). Pay (no benefits, no security, no tenure rights) for walk-ons is something entirely different. No walk-on head coach makes anything close to what his time and effort are worth no matter where he labors. It's the full-time staff people who make the significant bucks in the premier Silicon Valley districts which remain among the highest-paying districts in California, according to data provided by the CTA.

 

[colhenrylives]

By the way, for a telling percentage of key public school administrators, football is a problem, not a benefit. The sport requires no end of supervision, personnel/hiring issues, eligibility problems, parental gripes, crowd control headaches, you name it. For the new breed of campus honchos (and honchoettes), if football went away tomorrow it would be blessing. It's not 1969 anymore.

 

[WM483]

And the South city/daly city schools at their peak had significant poly contingent as well, now their demographics are more likely to play badminton then football

It's hard to hear and believe that South City has fallen on such hard times. Back in the early to mid 80's the Warriors always fielded tough, large (players) and championship caliber teams. They had a great mix of Polynesian and White kids. Too stay in line with this thread there was a 60 Minutes segment shown about 7 years ago called Football Island. All the words used on this thread like tough, dedicated, strength and commitment are pretty much the theme of the segment. It's on you tube if you have time.

 

[Barking Dog]

Yes correct, pay for TEACHERS, not team coaches, is quite different with the SMUHSD, SUHSD, etc than SSF/Jefferson. But aren't the coaches season's pay about the same per varsity sport, 4-5K for head coach? No matter on campus or off campus coach.

These guys aren't coaching for the season's stipend. With all the hours, prep, league meetings, coaches clinincs, Spring/Summer workouts, etc, probably works out to less than $1 per hour, if that.

 

[colhenrylives]

Yes. Walk-ons get fairly comparable salaries (roughly $2,500 to $4,500 or so). But even the high end is pathetic when you consider the work these off-campus people perform. The key for any football program is to have a full-time teacher on campus running the show. That's a big head start. Then there are other factors: Administrative support, great assistants, good facilities, workable budgets, parental support, committed kids who stay eligible and commit to the program all year.

 

[Barking Dog]

On campus teacher/coach is I think the key to most high school sports success and most beneficial for the kids who participate.
Always seems to be problems/trouble with off campus coaches. Either from the parents, administration, or the kids themselves. On campus teachers and coaches have a pulse on the school, kids, parents. Off campus guys/girls can't fee the same vibe around campus. Just my opinion

 

[EBALISBEAST]

Us Bay Area folks understand this is a real problem. What also is happening too is that “American Culture” is changing in the Bay Area. This was no more evident when I saw Amador Valley play Del Oro last year. I purposely sat on the Del Oro side to try and see why this program is so successful. The number 1 thing that popped out to me is COMMUNITY! Del Oro is two Hours away and their stands were packed! Everyone engaged! Families upon families young and old cheering for their kids. The excitement from their fans is real! We are losing community and looking out for each other in the Bay Area is being replaced with self interests and the advancement of SELF. I think there is a Bible verse or two about feeding self interests is VERY BAD! But what do I know? I am just a dumb football Dad.

 

[colhenrylives]

The concept of "community" is a very big deal. And communities in Silicon Valley are changing rapidly. Just one example: Nearly half the adults living in Foster City today are foreign-born. That has huge implications for the local high schools (and their athletic programs) where children from those families attend (Hillsdale, Aragon and San Mateo in particular). By definition, football is an alien sport for most of those parents in question.

The demographics of San Mateo County have changed dramatically in the last 50 years. In 1969, the school-age population K-12 was 95 percent white; today, that percentage has declined to 27 percent, a staggering drop. According to the state Department of Education's most recent data, there are nearly as many (combined) Asian, Filipino and Pacific Island students in county public schools as there are white youngsters. Hispanics, with about 40 percent of the total, are the dominant ethnic group now. As for black students, there are fewer than 2,000 left in the county's K-12 public schools.

Westmoor in Daly City, with a large Asian and Filipino student body, dropped football in the 1990s. Badminton is king there now. Oceana in Pacifica did not bring back football when it re-opened. Football programs in South San Francisco high schools are floundering terribly.

Roster numbers are down. Mills had 18 available players last week _ and won. Its opponent, Yerba Buena of San Jose (also with 18 kids in uniform), had a grand total of six people sitting in the visitors' bleaches. Freshman teams are rather rare. Even parochial powerhouse Serra has felt the pain. One of its best young prospects, a 6-4, 290-pound Asian lineman, quit football due to reported family pressure to leave the sport.

It's a new ballgame on the Peninsula. Slowly but surely, football is becoming an outlier, a curiosity unloved by administrators and foreign to increasing numbers of families. The overall talent pool is far smaller than it once was. Coaches are struggling to keep their programs afloat.

A new generation of public school trustees and administrators sees the violent sport with a jaundiced eye in a skeptical age focused on liability, injury, crowd control and concussions _ oh, and lest we forget, chronic male aggressiveness seen as dangerous and disturbing as the MeToo movement plows forward. Football may survive. But it's going to be a continuing challenge in the pricey precincts stretching from San Francisco through San Jose.

 

[da real]

Will a California public school district board of trustees ban the sport at its district schools at some point in the near future? Don't think it can't happen

Yes. I believe there are only one or two insurances companies currently writing policies to cover head injuries resulting from football. Winter has not even arrived(sizeable plaintiff verdicts). When verdicts start rolling in, the sport will be become uninsurable. If this happens high school football dies a quick death. Any entity that can not self insured will ban the sport.

And if they ever develop a way to test for CTE in living people, the sport at all levels dies.

Football will be the new asbestos, tobacco, etc litigation in the 2020s.

 

[da real]

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/i...ing-major-threat-nfl-pop-warner-colleges-espn

 

[HurricaneFan1990]

Yes. I believe there are only one or two insurances companies currently writing policies to cover head injuries resulting from football. Winter has not even arrived(sizeable plaintiff verdicts). When verdicts start rolling in, the sport will be become uninsurable. If this happens high school football dies a quick death. Any entity that can not self insured will ban the sport.

And if they ever develop a way to test for CTE in living people, the sport at all levels dies.

Football will be the new asbestos, tobacco, etc litigation in the 2020s.

Girls soccer also? Virtually same concussion rate so therefore also (based on your information) uninsurable?

 

[da real]

CTE is not about concussions, it is about sub concussive hits. Every full contact practice for certain positions involves multiple hits to the head. Soccer does not have the same level sub concussive hits.

Additionally, I do not know many TBI's or deaths happening in girls high school soccer. Please provide me links to those incidents, so that I can better inform myself.

The article I previously linked to mention that any youth sport involving the head injuries is at risk of being eliminated if the insurance companies go away.

But you can eliminate "heading" the ball out of soccer.

Collision Football, on the other hand is like cigarettes, it is not possible to make it safer.