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Evolution is an amazing thing. I don’t mean Darwinian evolution, which is fascinating in its own right (Correct? Flawed? My great-great-great x 7 grandaddy was a chimp?).
Discovered spring football
I mean the way things, including thoughts and opinions, are subject to change. Heaven knows I’ve changed my POV on all kinds of things over the years. (Example: I once thought the greatest thing in the world would be being a father to teenage girls. Ha. Ha ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, funny … [wiping away tear].)
Things happen to change one’s mind. So it is with the subject du jour, spring football practice.
About 20 years ago, I was totally opposed to the idea of spring football in Pennsylvania for all of the boilerplate reasons. Unnecessary. Injuries. Affect other sports. Tyrannical football coaches. Blah, blah, blah.
There was no way the benefits could possibly outweigh the costs. And there was no changing my mind.
Two decades later, I am a full-blown supporter of spring football practice for Pennsylvania, the sooner implemented, the better.
This was not a lightning-bolt moment. It was purely evolutionary, one drip of water at a time.
Frankly, the reasons have done this particular 180 have more to do with the changing world than my own internals. Much of the football landscape, both scholastic and collegiate, has shifted. Not all of that is positive, IMHO. I’m not a fan of specialization at all, and the trend toward focusing on football (or any other sport, for that matter) is distressing.
But here we are. We live in a world when the pursuit of excellence runs parallel with the pursuit of college scholarship. Never mind that the chances of grabbing the whole bouquet of flowers is reserved for the cherished few, it’s full steam ahead for desperate parents.
But there are a lot of avenues to playing football in college that don’t involve the outright scholarship or taking the Rudy route by walking on and smashing into bigger people until bloody to prove your worth. What it takes for the vast majority of kids is marketing.
Sending out bushels of DVDs is one form of marketing and it evens works sometimes. Going through recruiting services is another, but that’s a crapshoot. Attending every expensive camp available is another.
But nothing beats the proper pair of eyes in the proper setting. In this case, nothing beats an actual coach watching an actual player practicing actual football; that can occur in spring football. Pennsylvania players do not have this opportunity right now. They should.
Recruiting is a significant reason I’ve changed my mind on this, but not the only one. The other big reason is that football is the only PIAA sport that is packed into a box once the season ends, not to be re-opened until the first day of practice in the ensuing August.
That’s wrong, and a spring practice period corrects that ill.
The severe restrictions placed on football have been done for one very good reason: To eliminate abuses, real or potential.
No one wants to see football – and out-of-control coaches – overwhelm their players. And yes, that’s always a possibility.
But the PIAA has plenty of models from other states available to it to find a format that will work and provide Pennsylvania football players with a good tool toward becoming better athletes. That is why I’ve switched spots. And why I’d like to see Pennsylvania do the same.
