Is High School football for the kids, or is it for the adults?

F

footballforever

Active member
Remember when you were in high school and for the "ones" who played, football was meant to be fun. From recess to Pop Warner, the game was played with fun. Granted, coaches who were tough was excepted, but was it necessary? Majority of the kids playing the game played it for the enjoyment; moreover, never planned to coach at any level, in their future. However, Adults react in a different way. In general, they have more of a desire for a win, then the kids do. The football coaches(the majority) are hired, and fired depending on their record. Is this for the children, or the adults? So I wonder, as a former player, present parent, and a former coach, who is this game for? Taking a large amount of time off from coaching to raise my kids, I realized a whole lot that goes on, to make this game, not as pure as it should be. I realized I wanted them to win more then they did. Thank Goodness I realized it and changed. Don't make it bigger then it really is... Let me know the way you feel. Because I am okay with 16 teams per region making the playoffs. More kids can experience the playoffs. Job well done "OHSAA." Because this game is meant to be for them, the kids. Right?!?
 
 
Overall football, like any sport or extracurricular activities, is suppose to be for the kids and to have fun. Anyone who says otherwise has lost the plot in my eyes.

Football is just a huge part of our American culture, and way too often you'll get parents that think their little Braxton needs more playing time or old high school heroes that would give up their wife and kids (one of them being Braxton who STILL NEEDS MORE PLAYING TIME) just to relive their glory days one last time. They def put a bad taste in the mouths and thus making it about themselves.

Just my two cents.

rolling_cents.gif
 
Kids.

And yes....some HS kids are also saying the 16 is too many, including some in programs who don't make it often.

They aren't stupid. They know it's not going to be as big a deal making the playoffs now.
 
I enjoy HS football as much as anyone, but youth sports in this country are way out of hand in my opinion. The time and money involved now is ridiculous for players, parents, schools and coaches. Back in the day football was a seasonal sport and it was fine. Now it’s a year round program that burns out both kids and coaches. I wish we could go back to that, but the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.
 
High school athletics are for those who will play at the next level, and their parents. You might as well start weeding out the rest in middle school.
 
This thread won't have too many positive replies since from what I can gather most of the Yappi community believes the young people play for them.

Another South Carolina forum I frequent has a thread going about how one district is going to year round schooling and how that will kill the football program. Imagine that. Doing something policy wise that benefits the kids and teachers and not the old guys who constantly gripe about every little thing.
 
First, you've got to separate parents from the rest of the adults. Some parents are good. We all know the "I didn't make it, so my kid must succeed" or "my kid is a superstar and everyone else is blind" parent who think it's a reflection of them.

Most parents are just supporting their kids in an activity they enjoy actually following.

As for other adults.... It's not for them.

However, if you go back and see why all these state associations were created, it was basically to fend off the adults intent on corrupting it because of, just how popular live organized civic based sporting events were in an age without internet or TV and radio was a nascent medium. Attending games, any games, was a pastime of that era unlike anything we see today. We're on the tail end of live sports attendance. Ultra HD, virtual reality, etc will make make the "lesser sports entities" trivial.

High school sports thrived at a time when going to your local high school's game was THE ONLY GAME most Americans could ever watch, let alone attend. As we move deeper into streaming virtually everything, the top level games will be watched by even more and things like high school sports will only exist as an exercise for the kids.

Want to see high school sports in 20 years, go look at city school games today. Sparse crowds, little outside interest, coverage, etc.

But let's not kid ourselves why the OHSAA was founded or why it still exists. It was to protect high school sports from the adults, not to protect it from the kids.
 
cjb56 said:
I enjoy HS football as much as anyone, but youth sports in this country are way out of hand in my opinion. The time and money involved now is ridiculous for players, parents, schools and coaches. Back in the day football was a seasonal sport and it was fine. Now it’s a year round program that burns out both kids and coaches. I wish we could go back to that, but the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.
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I'd argue football is less year round than baseball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer.

You are literally lifting in the offseason for strength training and injury prevention. How many football games did kids play after the state championships were played?

How many basketball shootouts have their been already for schools to enter since the state championships? How about summer baseball leagues?
 
cjb56 said:
I enjoy HS football as much as anyone, but youth sports in this country are way out of hand in my opinion. The time and money involved now is ridiculous for players, parents, schools and coaches. Back in the day football was a seasonal sport and it was fine. Now it’s a year round program that burns out both kids and coaches. I wish we could go back to that, but the genie can’t be put back in the bottle.
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Sykotyk said:
First, you've got to separate parents from the rest of the adults. Some parents are good. We all know the "I didn't make it, so my kid must succeed" or "my kid is a superstar and everyone else is blind" parent who think it's a reflection of them.

Most parents are just supporting their kids in an activity they enjoy actually following.

As for other adults.... It's not for them.

However, if you go back and see why all these state associations were created, it was basically to fend off the adults intent on corrupting it because of, just how popular live organized civic based sporting events were in an age without internet or TV and radio was a nascent medium. Attending games, any games, was a pastime of that era unlike anything we see today. We're on the tail end of live sports attendance. Ultra HD, virtual reality, etc will make make the "lesser sports entities" trivial.

High school sports thrived at a time when going to your local high school's game was THE ONLY GAME most Americans could ever watch, let alone attend. As we move deeper into streaming virtually everything, the top level games will be watched by even more and things like high school sports will only exist as an exercise for the kids.

Want to see high school sports in 20 years, go look at city school games today. Sparse crowds, little outside interest, coverage, etc.

But let's not kid ourselves why the OHSAA was founded or why it still exists. It was to protect high school sports from the adults, not to protect it from the kids.
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HS sports have always evolved and adapted, albeit slowly over time. Remember there was a time pre-playoffs when all that really mattered was beating your local rival and maybe winning your league or whatever end of year local charity bowl game existed. That has evolved into a 15 game season. The same will happen to the culture of HS sports. I've stated once or twice on here I 100% expect by the time I retire from teaching / coaching (11 years to be precise but not counting right) that what we know as varsity interscholastic athletics will look much more like what we currently call intramurals right now but in the future. Schools will still compete against one another but the private sector (sports academies, etc...) will have taken the "burden of sports" off of schools to the point that the level and quality of competition for your run of the mill high school will be mediocre at best and the fan interest will like another poster said look a lot more like what we see in the TCAL, Senate, Columbus City League, etc....

High school sports for whatever reason were able to escape capitalism for the longest, while almost every other industry / aspect of life fell victim to it. My guess is sometime in the 1980s, the rise of the show company sponsored basketball camps comes to mind, someone figured out how to profit from teenagers and their athletic abilities.....while they were still in high school and then of course beyond.

We are simply living in an age where interscholastic athletics are finally falling victim to a capitalist mindset. Just look at how quickly the collegiate landscape has changed in the last 12 months. Things like transferring without penalty and players being able to make money off of their talent. If you'd a told me that in the late 90s I'd a said you're full of it.
 
doubtme said:
I'd argue football is less year round than baseball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer.

You are literally lifting in the offseason for strength training and injury prevention. How many football games did kids play after the state championships were played?

How many basketball shootouts have their been already for schools to enter since the state championships? How about summer baseball leagues?
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True, regarding the inability to play games compared to other sports, but we know the HS football program has become a year round endeavor. The time involved is so heavy now coaches, especially head coaches, can’t do it for more than a few years at a time before they step away. I can see it at the college and pro level where it’s your job, but it shouldn’t be that way in HS.
 
Silly Rabbit, high school sports are for the adults.

Adults get great joy out of planning, scheduling and monitoring athletics. From the athletic director who knows just how important they are in scheduling kids for a playdate, to the coach who organizes, explains, motivates and gets the kids to compete for him, to the referee who requires the kids to play the game the right way it is mostly about the adults.

If it were about the kids this board would be filled with current players commenting on the sport. Mostly adults on here, getting added value to their involvement in high school sports and their critical role as a member of the chain gang or keeper of the stats.

Athletics play a huge role in development. The coach develops managerial skills, the referee develops decession making. The statastician is kept from bordem on a otherwise repetitive Friday night at home with the wife and kids.

High school sports is all about the adults. Shouldn't it be that way?
 
doubtme said:
I'd argue football is less year round than baseball, basketball, volleyball, and soccer.

You are literally lifting in the offseason for strength training and injury prevention. How many football games did kids play after the state championships were played?

How many basketball shootouts have their been already for schools to enter since the state championships? How about summer baseball leagues?
Click to expand...

Of course , football 'games" are not played year-round. When many of the guys out here say aged 40- 60 + , were in HS the multi-sport[s} athlete was more prevalent. 2 sports minimum and some of us played a different sport each season growing up and some through HS. Overall burnout occurred with some of us as sports overlapped and you were training and or playing a few different sports at the same time . [Lifting and running for football, American Legion baseball and Hockey summer camp{s} Tournament for me } . Now , with all the individual skills and training options available , kids are under some pressure to specialize and get as proficient as soon as possible in their sport which requires a certain number of hours of training to attain.

Basketball players at larger HS's rarely paly football now. If football is your main sport, basketball is given up . Sometimes baseball as well. Lacrosse is getting big in CO the last decade or so and some kids dedicate themselves to that giving up football for instance. I happen to think that football training would and has benefitted the Lacrosse player and other sports players. College coaches love multi- sports athletes. The problem is some kids and their parents want to do what they think will get them 'Really" good at ONE sport, and that a ton of time and effort needs to go into that . Not every kid is really special enough athletically to NOT have to devote this large amount of time to the task.


Basketball player , Lacrosse players , and some baseball players think they have to devote a couple more months to that sport in fall , so that takes football out . Falling behind the ONE sports athlete in that sport is the fear. Hoop players in HS are more skilled than ever before. Better handle , better shooting skills . How ? By dedicating themselves to this singular sport and shooting hundreds of shots each day and working on their games year-round . Is this good ? It can be, I guess. Burn out { physical and mental } and peaking a bit early can be a pitfall .

So, the man has a point. " Playing " football games isn't anywhere near year-round . But if you break down what some kids do year-round IT IS a year-round endeavor. Working with coaches [QB's obviously have been doing this for years , } to improve skills, speed agility , strength etc. Camps, Team lifting programs. Work with receivers and position groups in the off-season on your own. Conditioning on your own. 7 on 7 . Team camp days . Season is 3 full months and may be a bit longer. In no other sport is the ratio greater in the training , practicing and preparing to actual 'games" being played . Boxing obviously is the highest. Football being so physical , is not a sport that is or should be played year-round . When you think about the actual time spent preparing your body, improving your skills, team building stuff and individual work that many kids do to try to be at their best for a handful of moments in time over a couple months in games ONCE a week ? It's pretty humbling actually. Our coaches talked about this before our first game of the year in HS.

And this was BEFORE the more year-round mind set. But they would talk of the off -season lifting and conditioning { Not all together most of the summer but in groups} and a lot of running and conditioning { Sprints , receivers and QB's got together , some agility stuff ,and this hellacious hill we ran up and down } . Camp week { three a days} 3 scrimmages , the heat of August and the month of pre-season. All of this coming down to executing and being able to go full out for 44 minutes { 11-minute quarters back then for us} . Doing that and executing makes all the work worth it . It was . To be fair, in larger Highs schools it is tougher to play a few different sports and start in all of them than it was back in the day because of the number of ONE sport athletes you might competing against. I think playing multiple sports at the younger ages and may be cutting down a bit once in HS helps you to develop into a better all-around athlete , which will help make you better in your 'favorite "or "Main " sport.
 
Adults need to hang up their varsity jackets (face it, it's over) and let the kids play. Adults also need to come to terms that the overwhelming majority of kids will not get a scholarship. When you have kids nowadays posting on social media "where they are committing to" (sarcasm) in middle school...its sad.
 
thavoice said:
Kids.

And yes....some HS kids are also saying the 16 is too many, including some in programs who don't make it often.

They aren't stupid. They know it's not going to be as big a deal making the playoffs now.
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I see your cup is half empty. Mine is half full! I see those who you think don't deserve to be there get a "taste" and they now want to be better and work harder to go further in the playoffs. Inspiration and the taste will do that to some programs.
 
footballforever said:
Remember when you were in high school and for the "ones" who played, football was meant to be fun. From recess to Pop Warner, the game was played with fun. Granted, coaches who were tough was excepted, but was it necessary? Majority of the kids playing the game played it for the enjoyment; moreover, never planned to coach at any level, in their future. However, Adults react in a different way. In general, they have more of a desire for a win, then the kids do. The football coaches(the majority) are hired, and fired depending on their record. Is this for the children, or the adults? So I wonder, as a former player, present parent, and a former coach, who is this game for? Taking a large amount of time off from coaching to raise my kids, I realized a whole lot that goes on, to make this game, not as pure as it should be. I realized I wanted them to win more then they did. Thank Goodness I realized it and changed. Don't make it bigger then it really is... Let me know the way you feel. Because I am okay with 16 teams per region making the playoffs. More kids can experience the playoffs. Job well done "OHSAA." Because this game is meant to be for them, the kids. Right?!?
Click to expand...
Right on!
 
scbuckeye99 said:
Schools will still compete against one another but the private sector (sports academies, etc...) will have taken the "burden of sports" off of schools to the point that the level and quality of competition for your run of the mill high school will be mediocre at best and the fan interest will like another poster said look a lot more like what we see in the TCAL, Senate, Columbus City League, etc....
Click to expand...
IF sports academies took the cream of the crop (and I don’t believe they will), competition will still be just fine. People (at least in my area) don’t go to see ‘talent’ - they go to watch local kids play football.
 
Depends on the school.

It should always be about the kids. Showing them the ways to get stronger, be athletic, eat properly, teach life lessons, and obviously win games because nobody in life should go into something looking to lose.

Unfortunately, thats not the way it goes way too often. Kids and families are entitled. Or somehow they think their 5'5" 125 lbs kid who runs a 5 sec 40 yd dash will be the next Ohio State signee.
 
Joe Schmo said:
Unfortunately, thats not the way it goes way too often. Kids and families are entitled. Or somehow they think their 5'5" 125 lbs kid who runs a 5 sec 40 yd dash will be the next Ohio State signee.
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Funny, reminded me of a late season King of the Hill episode (season 13, episode 16 for those interested).

Bobby was put on a new baseball team to get a fresh start and the coach was really over-encouraging. Bobby would come home and tell Hank his coach said he'd be able to play in the pros.
Long story short Bobby still was the worst one on the team and Hank was lampooned by the coach for not "believing in his son" ...Or you know, being realistic.

My point is, we need more Hanks in the world.
 
LELL said:
I see your cup is half empty. Mine is half full! I see those who you think don't deserve to be there get a "taste" and they now want to be better and work harder to go further in the playoffs. Inspiration and the taste will do that to some programs.
Click to expand...
I am just telling what a few kids told me from a program that doesnt even make the playoffs very often, who will benefit from it.
Imagine it will be a big deal when they do make the playoffs as a 14+ seed.
 
I love the posted question. I hadn't really thought about it at all. But since I read the question, it did get me thinking. For me it isn't an OR question. It actually has many levels to it. And it can be for both. So regarding is it for the "adults". The answer is yes. But it is all in how they handle their like for HS football.
1. coaches - we all know there are good and not so good coaches. Some are truly about the kids, the relationships, and the positive role models they are and that HS football gives them. Some have more structure, better morals and ethics, and are developers of quality young men. The really good ones also emphasize academics. For those coaches IT IS truly for them, but also for the kids because they benefit from those type of coaches. . Other coaches... well you can fill in the blank... They shouldn't be allowed to coach- EVER! They are selfish, all about winning only, or are just collecting a paycheck. Also they have no idea how to relate with HS kids. No, it is NOT for them!
2. Parents of HS football players- where do I even start with this area. I believe there are many high character, tough love, always about their "kids best interest" parents out there. And for them, HS football IS for them. On the flip side there are many parents that could care less about being a parent or fan for their kid. And even if they do go watch their kid play, it will be critique city when they get home. Never good enough. There are also many that truly live their lives through their kid and have become very troublesome. And the apple does not fall far from the tree. Many are delusional regarding the possibility of their kid getting a "full ride". Many will be the first in line to meet with the AD, Principal, or even the Superintendant when they don't like how their son isn't playing enough or whatever thing they feel they have been wronged by. And so HS football IS NOT for them.
3. Adult Fans- I have seen many fans get into verbal altercations at games. Many dropping F bombs at games. Many fans just degrading coaches for anything under the sun. Many fans abusing referees over calls. HS football IS NOT for them! I have also sat with people I meet that night for the first time that have class, win and lose with class, and are very positive no matter what. Yes, HS football IS for them.

That is my 2 cents. It won't be long now. I hope all of the yappi posters and HS football fans fall into the adult categories that respect the game, stay positive, conduct themselves as mature example setters for everyone around them at every game. Good luck to every HS football coach, player, players families, and all the fans that we all have a very enjoyable, relaxing, fun, positive, injury free upcoming season.
 
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thavoice said:
I am just telling what a few kids told me from a program that doesnt even make the playoffs very often, who will benefit from it.
Imagine it will be a big deal when they do make the playoffs as a 14+ seed.
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I'm so glad you didn't mention the program because that speaks volumes to me. Those kids need to know that nothing comes easy in life, if you want it, you have to work hard for it. I guess they take it as an extra game to get whipped.:oops:
Everyone wants something for nothing these days. And people complain about something not being worth anything these days. Yikes!
 
LELL said:
I'm so glad you didn't mention the program because that speaks volumes to me. Those kids need to know that nothing comes easy in life, if you want it, you have to work hard for it. I guess they take it as an extra game to get whipped.:oops:
Everyone wants something for nothing these days. And people complain about something not being worth anything these days. Yikes!
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And 40 year from now they'll remember how they made the playoffs. Even if they got whipped... Let the kids play!
 
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