HS players not playing "for" their school

bob

I think you need to go work for National Geographic or some firm that is going to fix the economy or global warming.

Could you simplify? Or in other words, "what are you hoping to prove or disprove?"

This.

I live in Virginia but come from Pennsylvania. With the exception of a few ninth graders who play for youth teams high school kids either play HS ball or don't play organized ball.

It is here in New York City, which I thought was exceptional and am getting confirmation of. It seems to be basically because compared to almost the entire rest of the country, HS football is a much smaller deal here, so youth football (organized by adults, not student-organized clubs) has filled the void by expanding into the middle & upper teen age years with teams that are independent of any school, but sometimes have permission to use school facilities. In some cases the student's school doesn't have a team, but in others it's because the school team roster is kept small or because they'd have a chance to play, or play more, on a team outside of the school rather than being a bench sitter on the school's team. Generally this seems to mean the schools get the pick of better players, but sometimes the non-school teams get those who just don't get along for some reason.

I was wondering whether there were any other parts of the country where it's like this. The Vermont example is interesting in that even if their own HS doesn't have a team, they're playing on another school's team rather than an independent organiz'n.

I think some here in NYC and nearby are using teenage youth football (I forgot what the AYF affiliate organiz'n calls the 14-15 and the 16+ YO age groups -- All-American Div. or Eagles or some such) as a kind of bargaining chip to get the schools to increase football, and some of the schools with advanced varsity programs but little or no JV are happy to treat these teams as developmental. Still others see it as the JV for their adult amateur ("semi-pro", which they're really not) clubs. However, others just sincerely want to provide an alternative, or a possibility for those who have no alternative.

The situation of being a much smaller deal in NYC is not unique to football among sports. I understand that 50+ years ago it was different, but although people may think of this as being a big sports town, that's true only for the big time. As in major league pro. At least in terms of spectators. There are plenty who play sports here, but few go to watch them unless they're making mucho bucks as players. The high schools here play varsity football mostly on Sat. afternoons, which is fine for them because there's not much local interest in local college football, so many fields don't have lights. And while the audiences for HS varsity football are bigger than for men's or women's amateur football or rugby, it's not by that much! It's not unusual for a HS football field here to have little or no seating on its own ground, spectators mostly standing on the sidewalk watching thru a chain link fence -- but that's largely because of the real estate prices.

Plus, I think American football suffers here from demographics which favor soccer & baseball as outdoor spectator sports.

Whats hockey? here in Florida we know of no such sport.