Ever work a game with a team like this?

[ODJ]

AVELLA, Pa. — They have shared proud football moments at the high school here in the copper-leaved, coal-mined hills of southwestern Pennsylvania. The tales of old-timers and the championship trophies in the school hallway can attest to those days, even if teenagers in the area were not alive for any of them.

This season looked to be the lowest point for the Avella High Eagles, a team that has been dying of malaise and lack of interest.

At practice earlier this week, only 10 boys and a girl were willing and able to put on pads. Against the powerhouse Clairton last week, Avella dressed 11 players, leaving not a single substitute on the sideline. One player was hurt in the second quarter, and the Eagles played the rest of the game with 10. They lost, 56-0. It was Avella’s 26th defeat in a row and the 50th in 51 games dating to 2003.

People around town are rather embarrassed by how far the program has fallen. They bemoan a teenage culture in which playing for the high school team has lost its allure in western Pennsylvania, of all places, where football and coal long represented toughness and resilience, where names like Joe Namath and Joe Montana were forged. But slowly this season, the remaining Eagles have come to represent something completely different from losing. They are being appreciated simply for showing up.

“We will never quit. Never,” said Head Coach Gray, “We’re going to play football, because that is what we do. And because to not play football, we would be losers.”
“I have never seen such courage in young kids. Ever,” he said.
“Well, I should have 12 on Friday,” He smiled. “I’m loaded.”

Avella has received attention this fall from news-media outlets in Pittsburgh, about 30 miles of curvy roads away, and accolades from opponents. Before a game against Bentworth on Oct. 10, opposing players visited the Avella locker room and presented the Eagles with T-shirts featuring the logos of both schools and “determination” written across the back. Captains from one of the top big-school teams in western Pennsylvania, Canon-McMillan, traveled here to invite the Eagles to a weekly dinner with the team and into the locker room before its first game in the coming playoffs.

“Some of the other students think it’s ridiculous that we’re getting attention,” the junior quarterback Jesse Noble said. “But the adults think that we’re the best thing ever.”

Avella graduates about 55 students each spring. The football team plays in Pennsylvania’s Class A, for the smallest schools. The program has spiraled down for most of the 25 years that Gray has taught language arts. No one quite remembers the last winning season, or the names of all the coaches who have come and gone.

When another opening came last spring, Gray went after it.

“He was tired of seeing the boys let down,” said Tim Beck, the school’s principal.

The first team meeting attracted 35 players. Almost immediately, some parents complained that Gray worked their children too hard or was too strict. The school backed the coach.

Gray required conditioning sessions three times a week. Several players never showed up. Others gradually fell away during the summer workouts. Preseason camp in August began with 24 players. Three likely starters were soon lost to injuries. A couple of other players quit. Gray had 19 players for the first game. Three others left the team. By midseason, Gray’s roster held 14 names. There were increasing fears that Avella would not complete its schedule, leaving opponents empty-handed, affecting their gate receipts or homecoming games.

School administrators called the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League, which oversees high school sports in the area, including 124 football teams. A rule states that a team unable or unwilling to honor its schedule can be forced to sit out the next season.

Tim O’Malley, the organization’s executive director, said Tuesday that Avella’s was the first case he had heard in which a school was unsure it could field a football team. But the rule probably would not have been invoked against Avella, he said, because of its good-faith attempts to field a team and rebuild the program.

Still, it was enough to stir Anastasia Barr into action. She is the captain of the cheerleading squad, a junior worried about a senior year without football. What would happen to homecoming? Who would the cheerleaders cheer? When would the band perform?

“We’d lose so much if we lost our football team,” Barr said. So she joined. She has played safety in a few games but has yet to make a tackle.

Avella sees its bare-minimum roster as a one-year problem. A junior high football program was resurrected this season to bridge the broken gap between youth football and high school. It attracted 24 players. With only two seniors on the varsity team (they will be honored Friday at Senior Night), Avella said he expected at least 20 players next year.

On Tuesday, the Eagles were on the field that sits on the hill behind the school. The 11 able-bodied players in blue uniforms wore full pads, because that is what Gray demands. They ran sprints up a hill, then laps around the field. They practiced offensive plays against an invisible defense. When it was time to practice defense, the junior high team served as a miniature version of Friday’s opponent.

The sun was sinking, the wind blowing. Avella was preparing for a game it would surely lose, in a town that has come to expect nothing else. The 11 players did not complain. If there were places that they would rather be, none of them said so out loud.

“These are the people that are going to be winners all their lives,” Gray said. “Because all the quitters are gone.”

New York Times today. Edited for space.

[Welpe]

Do they have 6 or 8 man football in PA? It sounds like this team would be a better fit for one of those if its available.

[Bad Mood Risin]

until I started reading these boards I had never heard of 6, 8, or 9 man football. I knew there was a page in the back of the rules book about it, but I thought there might only be a handful of places that play.

I doubt PA has anything but 11-man. Virginia has only 11-man, although I know plenty of small schools that would do well to play 8- or 9-man.

I'd be interested to know if any eastern states have anything but 11-man but I haven't heard of them.

[kdf5]

Originally Posted by Bad Mood Risin

until I started reading these boards I had never heard of 6, 8, or 9 man football. I knew there was a page in the back of the rules book about it, but I thought there might only be a handful of places that play.

My crew did a game with two of the top rated teams in the largest classification in the state a few weeks ago and today we do a 6 man game so our season has games that are polar opposites of each other. We do maybe one or two 8 man games a season but we decided to do the 6 man game because the school couldn't find officials so we're taking a day of vacation to help them out. We are doing a game this evening and the 6 man game this afternoon as it's on the way.

6 man games are no longer sanctioned by my state assoc. but those 12 or so teams left organize themselves and travel hundreds of miles to play and I say more power to them and to Avella and to the others who have taken them under their wings.

[HLin NC]

The root of the problem is here-

Almost immediately, some parents complained that Gray worked their children too hard or was too strict.

American society is becoming such namby-pamby group of whiners- the Chinese will eventually take us over with out a whimper.

Does ping-pong have officials?

[bluezebra]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

The root of the problem is here-



American society is becoming such namby-pamby group of whiners- the Chinese will eventually take us over with out a whimper.

Does ping-pong have officials?

This complaint about the youth of America has been going on for generations. Go to Parris Island and/or San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depots, and see thousands of young Americans training to become Marines. Or to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard recruit bases. Or the local law enforcement and fire fighter training areas. Maybe you'll be surprised about the young men and women of this nation.

Bob

[Reffing Rev.]

Two years ago the crew I was with worked an 8-man game at a school whose team had 14 kids try out in August. At the county fair all 3 seniors, one of which was all state broke bones in the rodeo, game 1 of the season their running back who as a sophomore had set the school rushing TD record broke his collar bone, and in practice the week before our game (week 7) one kid severely sprained his ankle. Pregame they had 9 players. Opening kickoff the ambulance took one of them off with a possible neck injury. Midway through the 2nd quarter with the score 40-0 another kid got hurt. During the opening series of the 3rd quarter they had the ball and another kid got hurt, and the coach came out rather than going to the injured player he came towards me and asked if we could just call the game as official at that point.

The oppossing coach wanted to get his JV kids in for a series so he refused.

[Bad Mood Risin]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

The root of the problem is here-



American society is becoming such namby-pamby group of whiners- the Chinese will eventually take us over with out a whimper.

Does ping-pong have officials?

Some years ago I was working as an editor of a small-town weekly paper and I liked to take news items from years past and see how far the town had come. In one of these older issues there was a letter to the editor complaining that the youth of the day were whiners. They did not know the meaning of work, were afraid to commit themselves and were being coddled by over-protective parents who didn't want their kids to have to break a sweat over anything. the letter writer was afraid for the future, given the condition of the youth at the time.

The letter was written in 1938. I think the youth of the time acquitted themselves well over the next 7 years.

[FTVMartin]

I'm working a game tonight where one of the teams dressed 16 earlier in the year and I've heard that they called last week's game at halftime when they only had 10 players left.

[Warrenkicker]

Originally Posted by Reffing Rev.

...During the opening series of the 3rd quarter they had the ball and another kid got hurt, and the coach came out rather than going to the injured player he came towards me and asked if we could just call the game as official at that point.

The oppossing coach wanted to get his JV kids in for a series so he refused.

Well it really isn't the opposing coach's choice is it. Now there might be some other issues to worry about for the school's administration but if a team, especially the losing team, wants to stop the game then they don't have to come out. They can say that they are done and the score will stand.

[bisonlj]

Originally Posted by FTVMartin

I'm working a game tonight where one of the teams dressed 16 earlier in the year and I've heard that they called last week's game at halftime when they only had 10 players left.

We had a game last year and one team only had 18 players. Rather than count 11 players on the field, our HL just turned around and made sure they had 7 on the bench. The QB left at halftime with an injury so his count went down to 6. God bless those teams for continuing to play! That is commitment.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by kdf5

6 man games are no longer sanctioned by my state assoc. but those 12 or so teams left organize themselves

Which is the way it started (although without the long distance travel). 6-man football was going on between schools for many years before the major associations got into it. Like the way NCAA absorbed women's intercollegiate basketball that'd been AIAW's for years.

Actually come to think of it, that was the case with the other major sports we associate with the NCAA too. The NCAA was the establishment's response to football. Might've been interesting to see what would've happened if even a few of the prominent teams had told NCAA at the time to go suck an egg.

Robert

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Reffing Rev.

Two years ago the crew I was with worked an 8-man game at a school whose team had 14 kids try out in August. At the county fair all 3 seniors, one of which was all state broke bones in the rodeo, game 1 of the season their running back who as a sophomore had set the school rushing TD record broke his collar bone, and in practice the week before our game (week 7) one kid severely sprained his ankle. Pregame they had 9 players. Opening kickoff the ambulance took one of them off with a possible neck injury. Midway through the 2nd quarter with the score 40-0 another kid got hurt. During the opening series of the 3rd quarter they had the ball and another kid got hurt, and the coach came out rather than going to the injured player he came towards me and asked if we could just call the game as official at that point.

The oppossing coach wanted to get his JV kids in for a series so he refused.

Okay, by my count, the winning coach wanted his jv squad to get a series against 6 players. Or did the injured players continue to play?