FOUNTAIN LAKE, Ark. – It was announced Tuesday afternoon that Fountain Lake would be the latest school, in this case a 4A program, to give up funding for a full football program in favor of 8-man football in Arkansas.
A move like this should come with some shock, and it does to a certain extent. However, it’s not the kind of shock one might expect.
The shock isn’t that there are now enough 3A and 4A 8-man football teams to start their own conference should they so choose. The shock is that it has taken so long to get to this point.
As studies of CTE and brain trauma began to uncover the cause of so many problems around the turn of the century, it became clear that football would eventually experience a decline that was expected to match boxing’s level. It was easy to imagine a world where the only people who would continue to play the sport would be the desperate among us, who saw it as their only chance to change their position in life.
What started as a movement among mothers to protect their young children slowly spread to fathers as well, as they began to recognize in themselves some of the symptoms that have been described in the deaths of so many high-profile athletes whose brains were badly damaged.
We have now met the second generation that sees the price of football as too high to justify the cost of youth sport. The number of households where the sport is watched and not played has increased dramatically.
In many corners of the country, the reaction is no longer astonishment that a family would prefer their sons not to play football. Especially in families where wealth and education are readily available, we’ve reached a balance point of borderline amazement at anyone letting their child play soccer.
In Arkansas, where numbers have always been relatively low compared to other states, not many athletes have to look to other sports to keep attendance low enough that Friday night’s injuries are an injury or two away from a sit-out. That’s exactly what happened.
For those who have lived their entire lives in the state, it might be possible to consider football king. However, if you push the boundaries for a broader look, the sport seems to be life-sustaining, and has been for some time.
A robust 4A roster in Arkansas consisted of 35-40 players even before CTE was known. JV teams were a luxury and included large numbers of varsity players.
In states where football really is king, a 4A team consists of at least three full teams of 40-45 players each.
Basketball is actually king in Arkansas. If you were to take Bentonville Football Stadium, considered a jewel in the Natural State, in Texas, it would be a decent 3A stadium at best.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a beautiful stadium. That’s what sport demands.
Go to Mills in Little Rock and you will find a stadium that is equivalent to a Class A stadium, maybe a small 2A stadium in Texas. Again, that’s what demand demands, so there’s no need to build a $120 million cathedral that seats 15,000 to 20,000 spectators, with huge billboards, cameras that walk the rails, and indoor Golf/wrestling facilities buried within.
However, if you go to Frisco, Texas, the city where the Dallas Cowboys are headquartered, you will find 13 high schools, most of which were built in the last decade and each house 2,000 to 3,000 students. While football is played in huge, state-of-the-art stadiums, the smallest of which is the 12,000-seat Ford Stadium, you’ll find dark gyms the size of a 1A-2A Arkansas gym with smashed floors in these schools.
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To find a gym on par with Cave City, a 400-enrollment school in Arkansas, you have to go to the largest, wealthiest, most elite tax authorities in Texas, and even then there is much dismay as to what the money went to a basketball gym.
Add to this the recent demand for sports like soccer, wrestling and swimming, three sports that were unavailable in most Arkansas schools in the 1990s, and there are many safer options for young men to meet their competitive needs without that Risking waking up next to her wives in the future unable to remember who she is.
Fountain Lake will not be the last to take this step. In addition to declining enrollment, school budgets traditionally get thinner each year as unfunded mandates, rising technology costs, and the pressure to pay teachers enough to turn on the lights and get food increase.
Football is an expensive sport that needs to be maintained. When the broadcasts begin to run in full there will be a group who will mouth protests with great viciousness, but if asked to back up that bark with a bite from their wallet they will walk out with a whimper.
As eSports becomes a more popular competitive option in other states, while more colleges offer scholarships for their eSports teams, it’s possible that the only soccer game the grandchildren of the current senior year will play will be on a giant screen in front of thousands is held by spectators screaming fans at a basketball gym in Arkansas.
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