Is It Time for Replays at the High School Level?

[ajmc]

Woah, it's not about the cost nor about the level of available technology, or at least shouln't be. This is a GAME that is over 125 years old and is still growing in popularity. It ain't broke, and doesn't need fixing.

Nintendo and Playstation are addressing the needs of those who want to participate in the action from the comfort of their favorite easy chair. There is NO perfection in (real) football.

Strategies are only effective until someone smarter figures out a way to defend against them, plays are successful only when multiple players execute properly close enough to each other to add to each other's performance. The ball, itself, is designed to bounce inconsistently. Players rise, or fall, to levels of performance that surprise even themselves. Much of the game's allure and popularity is a direct result of it's inconsistency and unpredictability. It's about rising to challenge knowing someone has to fail.

Enjoy the game, with all it's twists and turns, which only add to the excitement. Football is a "game of inches" and not a game of inches at the same time. Every succeeding spot is nothing more than the best guess of a human being trained to recognize and determine best guesses. There are no lasers, no gps designations no precision technologies used to insure absolute accuracy. Isn't every 1st down that's made, or missed by an inch just as dependent on where the previous spot was as where the ball was marked down?

The idiots and loudmouths everpresent at all football games need to be better ignored and shunned, not encouraged and celebrated which is exactly what IR would bring to the HS game.

Just think for a moment about all the Cecil B. DeMills with cameras at the average youth football games, imagine what accepting video replays would do to that environment.