YOUTH FOOTBALL: LOCAL TEAMS FOCUS ON BOOSTING PARTICIPATION (12 PHOTOS) (2018-08-22)

BY TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
TIOGA COUNTY - Participation in youth football in the Unites States is on the decline. There are a variety of factors can be attributed to this, but according to most research, the leading cause of dwindling numbers is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease found in people who have had multiple head injuries (i.e. concussions).


Locally, leagues within the Southern Tier Youth Football Conference have been feeling the pinch in recent years. The Apalachin Youth Football League is among them.

"Football participation, on a broad spectrum, is down across the nation, so that's the number one thing," said Aaron Youket, AYFL director.

"There were a couple leagues in the area that had similar issues, so we kind of came together, pushed each other, pushed players to each other, and kind of made it happen for this year."

Youth football organizations across the country have been working to make football a safer sport, but, according to Youket, there has been a lack of getting this information to the public.
"There's been a lot of research on how the sport of football has been made safer, but I don't think it's been made super public at this point, so parents are a little bit afraid," Youket said. "Between that and all the technology, I think that's probably the biggest culprit for football participation."

Football participation has dropped nearly 18 percent over the past 10 years, according to engagesports.com. However, concussions aren't the only contributing factor. According to various research, the increasing popularity of technological devices that consume much of young people's lives, increasing costs, and the lack of qualified coaches are also at least partially to blame. Some also blame soccer, which is has seen a slight decline nationally, but is still popular in the Southern Tier. And, believe it or not, some researchers are even pointing the finger at the controversy surrounding kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games.

"The two footballs are at odds," Youket said. "Soccer has kind of been on the rise. Parents kind of see it as a safe alternative, but football has really come a long way, between all the research and development for helmets and pads and safety plays, and all the drills. USA Football has really come a long way as far as making it quite a bit safer for kids.

"Our biggest thing is to provide an environment for the kids to play sports, and to learn sports," Youket said, "and also to provide them with the tools to be able take on any challenge in life as they grow up, and be able to work their hardest through it. That's basically what we're about."

To help boost numbers in its league, Youket says the AYFL is working to improve communication with the parents, as well as emphasizing transparency and honesty.

"We've just kind of put ourselves out there publicly," he said. "We built a website. We started becoming more technologically evolved as far as accepting credit cards, being available on social media.

"As far as getting kids to participate in the league, I think the biggest thing we've done is kind of just reached out to all the local leagues who haven't been able to field certain teams and said hey, send them our way. If they want to play, we'll let them play. Even if it's two weeks, three weeks into the season, let's just get them on the field. We've just been available, just kind of opened up the community."

AYFL did not even have an A division team (11-12 years old) in 2017, but has a decent-sized roster this season. Youket said there are more than 100 players registered in the three tackle and one flag divisions. He also said there are approximately 50 cheerleaders in the league as well.

"All those numbers are up," he said. "The numbers have changed. The diversity of where the players are from has changed. We have Endicott players, players from Pennsylvania, we have players from Johnson City players from Owego, as usual, and players from Vestal. We've always accepted player from any district, but this year has kind of become sprawled out quite a bit."

On Tuesday, Apalachin scrimmaged the combined Spencer-Van Etten / Candor team, which merged this season. Both organizations had solid numbers on the field.

Like AYFL, SVEC has more than 100 players in its flag and three tackle divisions.

"We actually were pending the merger on our school modified / JV teams and once they merged we merged," said SVEC co-director Kyle Beach. Beach represents the Spencer community while co-director Cody Rose represents Candor.

Beach said numbers have been an issue at both Candor and Spencer, even though they were always able to field teams.

"We never had a year like that, fortunately for us," he said, referring to the lack of an AYFL 11-12 team last year. "I think it was two years ago, we struggled to the point where we (Spencer) had, on our 11- and 12-year-old team, we were down to 18 kids at one point. And, for the past few years, we've had to open our 7- and 8-year-old team up to 6-year-olds just to be able to field a team. Last year, we were very week on the 7- and 8-year olds numbers-wise."