The Slow Demise of High School Football in South Carolina

[5thqtr]

. . . An Idle Mind, Is > > > > > > !

**Communities with no outlet for these kids will suffer! Not every kid wants to play Tennis, run cross country, etc.

The problem is much deeper than player safety. It's an unwillingness to potentially give grounds for legal action. Problem is where is the evidence that suggest playing X number of minutes of football leads to CTE or any other reason for a lawsuit? Show the data(they can't b/c there is none) or stop being chicken and allow these kids to participate.

[5thqtr]

. . . An Idle Mind, Is > > > > > > !

**Communities with no outlet for these kids will suffer! Not every kid wants to play Tennis, run cross country, etc.

The problem is much deeper than player safety. It's an unwillingness to potentially give grounds for legal action. Problem is where is the evidence that suggest playing X number of minutes of football leads to CTE or any other reason for a lawsuit? Show the data(they can't b/c there is none) or stop being chicken and allow these kids to participate.

[Deputy]

Many of the proven winners have retired, left the state for better pay.

Ashley Ridge has set Summerville back quite a bit, and the winningest (cheatinest) head coach in the country is now retired.

I see no simple solution, as a matter of fact, I see a further dilution coming. Enjoy what we have now, it is only going to go down from here.

What states are paying significantly more? SC pay in some areas is great. In others it is average. Do most coaches that leave for bigger pay do so because they retire from the SC system?

Summerville has over 3,000 students. Should be able to put a quality team on the field. Ashley Ridge has right at 2,300. That would be a huge school.

The pay kind of depends on where you are. Spartanburg area as a rule pays very well. The schools, especially on the west side of Columbia, have really upped their pay scale over the last decade. Anderson's pays very well. But as a whole apparently pays much better than NC as we are seeing programs in SC luring NC head coaches from successful programs. Dont really care for that as there are a lot of deserving assistants that get deprived of their shot here in SC. Now some of Georgia pays better. Some a lot better. Some of those programs in south Georgia, and around Atlanta are like small college programs.

[Onion Rings]

not as many people going into coaching partly because today's parents are a pain in the butt. You cannot really coach the boys like you could in the 90's/2000's, and I'm not talking about abusing them with brutal practices and lots of profanity, just good old fashioned hard work. Most kids today don't want that

the way kids have been raised you can't really coach them hard or they will revolt with low effort, fake injuries, and being absent from practice. The parents are a big part of this equation as they are at practice, and are influencing the kids behavior either directly or indirectly.

Once you see the lay of the land, so to speak, many figure why dedicate that much time and preparation if the players/parents are not "all in"

Not a Clemson fan but Dabo is right, you gotta be all in, from the administration to the managers and trainers and everyone in between. Not much of that going on today

Then you have the emphasis on doing as many 7 on 7's as you can, which people thought would get more kids involved but I'm not sure it has. It has added many days to the required dates these kids and coaches have to be at the school. At some point it gets to be overkill and the kids lose their enthusiasm for the sport. It becomes drudgery

not going to debate the benefits or drawbacks of 7 on 7, but I will say this. Football is not 7 on 7. 7 on 7 is fun and loose. It's backyard football. It's all the fun parts of football minus the hard parts like getting tackled, having to block, or getting your qb leveled

people over all in society are getting softer, and football is reflecting that

[Onion Rings]

add to the above, to go into coaching you have to teach from 8-3 as well. Discipline is gone from the schools and political correctness has replaced it, so teaching all day before football practice can be challenging.

if you're not teaching P.E., Driver's Ed or weightlifting, you're looking at 30 kids per period who know that they cannot be punished for anything really. Tough day

[Damefan]

Teaching today is totally different than what it was even 15 years ago. The athletes have so many more options to compete and look to their year around coaches for guidance often over their high school coaches which creates a conflict. The kids today are raised in a world of reward whether they earned it or not, trophy for everyone!

The issues of obedience and respect are not the same as your parents or even close to your grandparents. These kids don’t know what it is to not have AC. We now have restrictions on when we can practice because of the temperature. Never heard of back when I played. We never had water breaks, just salt tablets, and these kids have breaks regularly. The training is better. But the toughness is not the same. These kids today are afraid of a tough coach who will instill if not demand respect, toughness, and perfection. Sure there are some places that still have it, but most of them have been watered down over the years if you will be honest.

The issue of safety has gotten so much better over the past 10+ years that with the improvement in training and equipment there are still injuries which concern the average parent. This generation of parents is so much more informed as well which makes them ask more questions as to whether they should let their kid play certain sports. As coaches all we can do is provide the best possible training and conditioning, teach the proper techniques and hope they execute these in live conditions. One issue I have brought up for years and still believe after watching the Greenwood vs River Bluff scrimmage a couple years ago where the next day the player died from a heart related condition. I do believe that every player should get a EKG done prior to participation. Almost every incident where a player has died nobody knew the player had the condition and a simple EKG might would have shown it. We take these simple cattle call physicals for granted and say the kids are healthy when in reality some may be a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

I have said enough for now and will add to my comments if I feel the need. Football can be a great sport to develop the warrior instinct in a young man. In can also allow for them to learn tactics, teamwork, brotherhood, respect and humility. I would hate to see it gone.

[96fanatic]

i think one reason some kids don't play now days
is they come to practice,lift weights and set on
the bench on friday nights.i think if a kid comes
to practice and does what he is told by the coaches
he should see playing time on friday .

[Onion Rings]

No days off!

no vacations or going to the lake. It's like a more than full time job

the first day of football use to be a time of excitement. The first day of pads even more so! Now it's ho hum, another day, another workout

Once when Independence won one of their 6 or 7 titles in a row, they boarded the bus, went back to the school and had a coaches meeting on next years depth chart. No celebration. Lifting resumed on Monday

[CSRA FBFan]

No days off!

no vacations or going to the lake. It's like a more than full time job

the first day of football use to be a time of excitement. The first day of pads even more so! Now it's ho hum, another day, another workout

Once when Independence won one of their 6 or 7 titles in a row, they boarded the bus, went back to the school and had a coaches meeting on next years depth chart. No celebration. Lifting resumed on Monday

This is going to keep young coaches from becoming old coaches. Having no real time off and a young family are two forces working in opposition to each other.

[Deputy]

i think one reason some kids don't play now days
is they come to practice,lift weights and set on
the bench on friday nights.i think if a kid comes
to practice and does what he is told by the coaches
he should see playing time on friday .

That sounds good. In a perfect world, that works. But at most all schools, and some in a more urgent manner than others, coaches get fired if they dont win a certain amount of games that is acceptable for that particular situation. So they are going to play the kids that give them the best chance of winning. Workouts and doing what the coaches tell them doesnt make them worthy of playing time if they cant really help win games. Unfortunate I suppose, but that is the reality when they keep score and people have to pay to watch you play.