If you read any national magazine or website regularly, youโve surely seen some form of this headline: Have millennials killed off _____?
Fill in the blank: Television, automobiles, bicycles, โAmerican Idol.โ Whatever.
Youโd think that as a generation, millennials were axe-wielding sociopaths, hacking away at all of our treasured institutions.
But conversations with numerous coaches throughout Tucson has me begging one question, which is sure to generate a flood of InstaSnaps, or whatever the young whippersnappers are doing these days:
Have millennials killed off high school football in Tucson?
(Cue dramatic music).
This conversation only started because I was having trouble picking my jaw off the floor.
A few weeks back, while chronicling Canyon del Oroโs attempt to rebound from a down year, head coach Dusty Peace said something along the lines of, โWe have a stronger group of seniors this season, 26 instead of 14.โ
Fourteen senior starters, I half-inquired, half-corrected.
โOh, no, 14 total,โ Peace said.
Fourteen?...Total?
That had to be incorrect, but there it is on the Doradosโ online roster: A bakerโs dozen, plus one.
Their opponent this week, Catalina Foothills, has 33 players on its entire roster. I called Justin Argraves over at Tucson High; heโs got 11 juniors on his whole varsity team.
Not to get all back-in-my-day, but my high school football teams teemed with players in Thousand Oaks, California, a sizable suburb in the Ventura County outside Los Angeles. My freshman season in 1998, the Lancers โ not the Salpointe Lancers, mind you, but the TOHS Lancers โ had almost six dozen kids. The backupโs backup had a backup.
My senior year, we had about three dozen in my class, and only about half started.
Now, a team is lucky to run two-deep.
Two-deep? Heck, what some of these guys wouldnโt do for 11 reliable starters.
โItโs really bad,โ Peace said. โI did the numbers last year, and the reality is the percent of football players is way down. Itโs not even close. All across the city.โ
Itโs not like Tucson high school football was ever like the game deep in the heart of Texas, but even a cursory look at a stack of mid-1990s football programs reveals a decline. Many of the Tucson-region state playoff contenders two decades ago fielded teams of 45, 50, 60-plus โ Catalina Foothills had 50 players in 2001 โ never really competing in size with the likes of Scottsdaleโs and Phoenixโs powerhouses, but enough to offer some healthy competition.
Like a quarterback who doesnโt see a blitzing safety on the backside, local coaches have been blindsided.
โItโs been very, very gradual,โ said Foothills head coach Jeff Scurran, whose Falcons head to CDO Friday to face Peaceโs Dorados. โI had teammates who were literally beat up by the coach, hit in the head with a helmet. And the whole thing was if you donโt like it, donโt play football. Our coach used to line us up and paddle us for group noise. Bend over, hands on our knees, with our heads two inches from the wall, and bam, youโd walk away holding your head and your butt.โ
Those days are long gone, but even with fewer fire-breathing coaches singeing the eyebrows off of 16-year-olds, the kids are staying away.
And it is a combination of factors that has led to a declining local high school football population.
Factor 1: The risks are too great.
There is some debate among area coaches about the recent health scares that have been attributed to the violence of the sport. Scurran doesnโt believe concussions are scaring away kids in droves, pointing to the vastly higher number of head injuries that occur in sports like soccer. But Pima College coach Jim Monaco, who has extensive local high school coaching experience, believes itโs a big factor.
โParents, theyโre just, theyโre worried,โ Monaco said. โThereโs been so much made of the concussion thing. I donโt know man, I played for a guy who was a terrible coach; punched me in the sternum, broke it. I wouldnโt leave. I blew my knee, my patella was gone; I played with a knee brace. I wasnโt going to let anybody get the best of me. Those kids donโt exist now. I hate to say it, but itโs a fact.โ
Factor 2: Sports specialization.
Exhibit A: Local would-be stud Turner Washington, a senior at CDO. He played football for two years, but after getting better and better at the discus, he transitioned solely to track and field. A 6-foot-5-inch, 245-pound specimen, Washington would be one of the most coveted football players in the state, and as Peace said, โOur best lineman on campus doesnโt even play football.โ
Washington acknowledges that he likely couldโve earned a small-school Division-1 scholarship, maybe lower-tiered Pac-12, but, the thoughtful senior said, โThrowing is what I really love, and itโs a more manageable sport to do in college. Itโs safer; one of my best friends just tore his ACL, and I wasnโt going to risk managing both sports. Any given second, my knee couldโve blown out and I could be done.โ
Maybe he belongs in the Factor 1 section about risks, but he admits, if he wasnโt so good at the discus, heโd still be playing football.
Factor 3: The Cool Factor has chilled.
A confession: I played high school football to get girls.
It didnโt work, of course. Rarely does it for the funny, 5-8, 230-pound backup, backup guard. But you know what? As they say, it got me in the conversation.
Truth of it is, I loved the sport, and I had desperately wanted to play for years to the dismay and ultimately disapproval of my mother. By about Day 3 of summer practice, I realized that just about the only tangible benefit Iโd get, at least as that portly freshman, was the right to wear that sweet, sweet jersey on Friday morning.
For the gangly kid who couldnโt fill out a milkshake straw or the chubby kid who couldnโt put down the milkshake straw, this was it, baby. We were one of Them.
โHey man, the last guy who graduates out of med school is still called a doctor,โโ Monaco said. โBack in the day, if you were on the football team, if you just had the fortitude to get through two-a-days, that was all you needed. You were in.โ
Newsflash: Football ainโt that cool anymore, bud.
โTen, 20 years ago, football was glorified,โ Tucsonโs Argraves said. โEveryoneโs eyes were on the sport. Itโs still a big thing, but itโs just not as big. Youโre throwing in technology, all these studies that go into the long-term risks, and itโs getting some of the borderline kids who 15, 20 years ago wouldโve played, now they have an excuse not to.โ
Why put yourself through the gruel of two-a-days when you can get just as High School Famous by being pithy online?
โKids have found different ways to โ and I hate to sound old โ but to get the attention,โ Peace said. โWe were football players, kings of everything. Now you can be a king of school if you have a funny Twitter account.โ
Washington admitted as much himself.
โGlory comes from whatever youโre doing and being good at it,โ he said. โThe biggest thing now โ and Iโve thought about it the last year โ but itโs cooler to be smart and get good grades more than anything else now. Yeah itโs great to score touchdowns, but the stereotype of all the jocks are the popular kids โ now you see some of the most popular kids are in all AP classes.โ
Jonas Leader, one of a handful of CDO senior leaders, agrees.
โPlaying football has nothing to do with it anymore,โ he said. โItโs all about personality and whatever. I donโt think thereโs anything negative about it, I just donโt think itโs like such a positive thing any more. But I guess maybe Iโm not the perfect guy to ask.
โI just love football.โ
So, fellow football followers, fear not.
Thereโs still a few of them left out there.
