North High School’s football players – in casts and braces – didn’t have to limp far to shake hands after the game, since they’d all been on the field for every down. Not a single one was able to take a break during the three-hour contest with George Washington. North’s star played the entire time on a bad leg.
And this, Coach E. Paul Kelly says, represents a dying football program in the city’s urban core.
“It’s so different from when I played,” said Kelly, who also graduated from North. “When I played, you had to make the team. … Now we can’t let anyone get injured. We don’t have enough guys out there as it is.”
Though the overall number of kids playing football in Denver Public Schools has held steady at about 700 a year since 1990, individual programs at some of the city’s schools are suffering.
This fall, North High canceled its junior varsity team for lack of participation. John F. Kennedy High has to augment its freshman team with junior varsity players. West High is limping along with about 20 kids on varsity and 18 kids on junior varsity.
Prep football observers say school choice, an overall decrease in population, changes in neighborhood demographics and higher poverty contribute to the decline in high-school football programs.
But North senior Keith Valdez puts it another way.
“DPS is making so many changes, we feel experimented on,” said Valdez, who will play for Santa Barbara (Calif.) Community College next year. “People don’t want to play for a school where the feeling in the building is bad.”
School choice is probably the biggest factor. Twenty years ago, football programs were stocked with neighborhood kids and the many urban high schools were full.
Now, because Colorado kids can pretty much attend school in any neighborhood or district they want regardless of their address, many schools such as North and West, with struggling student achievement and soaring dropout rates, have become poorer and less populated.
“We’re transient; we have people moving in and out of schools and neighborhoods,” said Bert Borgmann, assistant commissioner to the Colorado High School Activities Association. “It’s much easier to select a school that is not in the school district simply by choice.”
Statewide, football programs are growing. Roughly 17,800 kids played this year, up from 13,400 four years ago. That growth, Borgmann said, is primarily in suburban and rural areas.
In the cities, though, large flight from some schools and neighborhoods means higher concentrations of poverty and at-risk kids.
Nine of 24 boys on Coach Kelly’s team a few years ago had their own kids. At West, one of the star players had a daughter, missed a few weeks of school, and became ineligible. Almost all the players have jobs to support their families. And many don’t have health insurance. Kelly befriended a neighborhood chiropractor who donates his services during practice and finds doctors who will see the kids for broken bones and torn ligaments.
Coaches also say they struggle to keep students’ grades up. At North, Kelly has implemented a mandatory tutoring hour before practice each afternoon to make sure the kids aren’t falling behind in their schoolwork.
“The best athletes in this building are ineligible,” he said. “Half the kids in here can’t even read or write. … They’re living for now.”
An increase in the immigrant population – many of the kids come from Mexico and prefer soccer – also could be a factor, Kelly said.
At a recent game with George Washington, North fell behind by 41 points. The opponent is a high-achieving team, whose success coach Steve Finesilver attributes to his steady presence at the helm since 1982 and a football culture at the school.
It’s not uncommon, coaches say, for suburban teams to bring 60, 70 or even 80 students suited up to play. They use “platooning,” which means the coaches send in fresh kids for new plays, to tire out the DPS students.
North finished the season last week with one win and seven losses. West, too, had only one win.
Marcellus Bell, who helps out at the Denver Prep League and had two sons play for DPS, shook his head when asked about Denver’s high-school football programs.
“The good kids are moving out. … We’re losing them to private schools,” he said.
Parents move their students to suburban schools with bigger-name coaches and stocked, wealthy teams, said Al Love, a field supervisor for the Denver Prep League.
“They want to play where they can go to college and play,” he said. “CU and CSU don’t even come out here anymore to watch these kids.”
