On this installment of HeadCase, I speak with Mr. Patrick Pizzarelli, the executive director of Section VIII. Section VIII is the governing board of all high school sports across Long Island. We go in-depth, on how the declining numbers are affecting the schools and how demographics are playing a role in this decline.
Welcome back to HeadCase everyone! I’m your host Cameron and I hope everyone enjoyed the first installment with Dr. Stephen Honor! Today, we are going to take a look at another person who is very knowledgeable on the declining football participation numbers. On Long Island, the numbers have dropped nearly 20% since 2015. The man we will speak to is Patrick Pizzarelli, and he is the executive director of Section 8, the governing body of high school sports in Nassau County. With around 57 high schools in As the overseer of high school sports, Pat gives his thoughts into the matter.
I first asked Pat about why he thinks the football participation numbers are declining.
PAT: Well, I think a lot of reasons. I think Long Island itself, the population has changed drastically in the last few years. So, let’s just talk about Lawrence which I know really well since I spent 25 years there. You know that community has changed so much. Football was probably the biggest thing they did at Lawrence, but the community itself changed as far as the makeup community and there was a large Hispanic population there that moved into the community and so soccer has gotten important there. And the football program, which was one of the original midget football programs on Long Island, is no longer in existence. So, there is no more midget football there. So, of course that is going to trickle down to the high school eventually So, you know enrollment is going down and the other thing I think that’s hurting high school football is the whole concussion situation. You know the news plays that up and they play it up for football more than any other sport.
I wanted to know what could be the biggest factor in this decline. Nearly 20% is a huge dropoff. Whether it’s the demographics of the head injuries? Pat gives his opinion on what he thinks it is.
PAT: Probably the concussion. You know, one of the things that we need to do is really research more and compare athletes and nonathletes for concussions and you know there is no research on that. So, since it’s a big splash and you read about professional players that you know have bad situations with the suicide or die younger, you know, they play that whole up so parents take a second desciding maybe I shouldn’t have let my kids play football.
Head Injuries and concussions obviously are playing a big role in the participation numbers declining. I asked Pat why they are playing such a big role.
PAT: Well you know, like I said the media plays that up and so parents get very concerned and of course, they don’t want their children to be injured playing a sport. You know, USA football has come out with a whole new process of teaching football and techniques of tackling and blocking where your head is not involved. When I played, they actually taught you to block and tackle with your face and your head. Now they don’t teach that anymore. You teach everything with you shoulder and they go through the whole thing and all of our coaches in high schools today in Nassau County have to take the USA football techniques to coach high school football. So I do believe we are trying to make football a safer game.
Pat talked a little bit about when he played actually football as a youth. That got me thinking. Did they have the same concern about head injuries back then that we have today?
PAT: Yeah you know, you talk about concussions. I’m sure that I had concussions when I played. Midget football and highschool football. I was fairly small when I played and I remember many times seeing stars, you know, getting a little wobbly and yeah you took me out and soon when I was ok, I went back into the game. Now if there’s suspected head trauma, that player is out and he has to go to a doctor before he’s allowed to step foot on the field again. Then there’s a process to get back into practice. So, we are more concerned about it and making the game safer.
I remembered what Pat had said about Lawrence and it’s Hispanic community and wondered how much of the demographics of Long Island are playing a role.
PAT: You know like I said about Lawrence and the Latino community and Hispanic community, Football is not a sport that Latinos really have been brought up with. You know if they came from Central or South America, soccer or football as they call it, that’s their sport and baseball too. Those are the 2 sports in Central America and Latin America countries that kids are exposed to. So, more and more of those kids are coming to Long Island so that is the sport they are looking to play. That’s why you know, it’s going to be taking off and I think it has.
This got me curious. Is there a way for schools and districts on Long Island to get the Latino or Hispanic communities interested in American football? Pat thinks that there is a way.
PAT: Well, I think that goes to a program. My big thing and I was a physical educator, you know even as a director of athletics, is to expose kids to a lot of different things and then the kids make a choice. Let them in your phys ed classes. Play soccer, play football, play softball and if a kid likes it, they’ll play that sport. You know, I think even in the small schools, they should have choices and kids should have choices and they shouldn’t be pigeonholed into doing certain things just because of where they came from.
Then I was curious to see if there were any other towns with large demographics like Lawrence, that are struggling with participation numbers.
PAT: Yeah. Well I think Jerico is another town is fighting to hold their program and their community has changed drastically and Roslin is another community that is having difficulty keeping football as a varsity program. You know, they are working hard in both of those communities to try to keep foot viable and we will have to see how it goes. But again, I think it goes back to the people who are teaching your kids and coaching the program. They have to get out there and sell the program and explain to the community how they are making the game safer and it’s just another opportunity for their kids to participate if they so choose.
A lot of what HeadCase will show is people shying away from football and what is causing them to. But what about the kids that do want to play? I asked Pat how the declining numbers will affect the kids who do want to participate in football in towns like Jerico and Lawrence.
PAT: Well, one of the things I know this year for Jerico in particular, is that they have actually their older kids, they have a JV(junior varsity) team, but their older kids can actually play with Plainview. They have combined with Plainview so the few kids that still play football, are still playing. I think more and more schools may start combining because of low numbers. Wheatley and Carle Place have combined for forever. Wheatley lost their program probably about 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago and they decided to combine with Carle Place to play football for their, they only have a few kids, but they still want to participate. Their kids can play it. So, they do have that option to do. They can combine with another school if both schools agree.
Definitely an interesting solution in trying to save the programs but, how does combining the two schools affect how the kids are going to be taught?
PAT: Wherever they decide that team is going to be located, they have to get to those kids to the practices everyday, so they get there a little bit later. In other parts of the state, they do this a lot. On Long Island, not so much. Suffolk County has a few teams combined and I’m not even sure, out on the East End smaller schools. And for football we have a few teams and a few other sports like Malvern and East Rockaway combined for other sports. They combined think for lacrosse and maybe soccer. They have separate football teams right now. But it is an avenue you can do, but then, when you combine, you have to use both enrollments, so it places you in a higher place of classification by enrollment to play your games. So, that can affect things also.
We know why the numbers are declining. Now I asked Pat how many schools and programs in Nassau County are being affected.
Pat: I would think the majority of the programs. We have 57 high schools in Nassau County that play football in some form of another. Probably, most of them have declined somewhat. You know, it’s your smaller schools, like that are in the 20’s or 30’s, if they lose kids, they it can affect whether or not they can run a program.
Going back to safety, parents are the most concerned when deciding if they should let their kids play their football. So it is important to understand what schools and districts could do to ensure kids that their kids can play football safely.
PAT: Well, I think they have to educate the parents and show the parents what we are doing. You know, we talked about the USA football rules that we do, the techniques that we teach now. We talk about less contact during the week, you know for practices. The other thing, officials are now involved to and if an official sees a potential head trauma during the game, they go to the coach, they say “Coach, you know number 24 may have hurt his head you know, his head may have been involved in something. Pull him out and have a look at him.” And now most schools do have athletic trainers right on site, right at the games. So, the athletic trainer will put him through the process to check out if he did have a head injury and the trainer’s right there, will check them out and if he seems to be ok, he will be able to play. If they think there’s a possible head injury, he’s out for the rest of the game. He can’t go back in. So, I think we need to teach the parents and tell the parents that’s what we’re doing to make the game safer.
I did some research and found out that a lot of Long Island flag football leagues are popping up and teaching kids non-tackle football. I asked Pat, if changing to non-tackle could help these kids moving forward.
PAT: You know, I’m going to go out on a limb here and like you said I’m a football guy, but I could see at some point and I know the state legislators are looking at to start not to let kids play tackle football until they are a certain age, maybe highschool even. I think maybe modified, which is our Middle schools’ programs. At some point, maybe there won’t be tackle football in modified schools, in middle schools maybe it might just be flag football in middle schools. Then when you get to high school, you start tackle football. Whether or not I’ll see that in my lifetime, like I said I’m a little older so, probably not, but maybe down the road that could happen.
To finish off, I asked Pat about the future of football on Long Island. What’s next for Long Island?
PAT: I think if you had the right people running the programs and the right publicity, I don’t think it’s going anywhere because I think it’s a great sport. One of the things I used to tell parents,you know as an athletic director in charge of all the programs, Football is just different, you know it’s 11 guys and you can’t win with 1 or 2 people in football. You need to have 11 guys, either on offense or defense, working together to be successful. And you learn so much about in football. It’s working together, it’s sportsmanship, it’s corporation, it’s a whole lot of things and it’s just different than other sports.
That’s a wrap on the second episode of HeadCase! Thank you everyone for listening in and I hope you all enjoyed this episode. Want to thank Mr. Patrick Pizzarelli for taking time out of his day to talk to me about this important subject. Next time, we are going to talk to the commissioner of a Long Island youth flag football league. See you guys in the next installment.
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