When I was in school in the 80's, the largest schools were Butler, Penn Hills, Gateway, Norwin, NA, North Hills, Mt Lebo. The Woodland Hills happened. But those eastern suburbs grayed over and decayed. Butler, not sure what happened, meth capital of Western Pa. Schools like Mars, Pine Richland, South Fayette were cow schools, A and AA schools.
are we correlating pittsburgh population with the whole
In 1980, Pittsburgh metro (broader than Allegheny County) was like 1.2% of US population. Now it's like 0.7% of US population. Pittsburgh metro as a portion of all of US is down like 40%. And given that we are old, it's possible school aged kids in Pittsburgh metro in comparison to kids in the nation as a whole is down 75%.
I'm trying find some numbers on the internet to see if the number is close to 75%. I cannot find numbers, but I did find an article saying that Pittsburgh has the smallest percentage of school age children out of all large metro areas in the United States: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ighest-and-lowest-shares-of-children-under-18
Some here will mock you but you aren’t wrong
I would think it is if you are comparing Pittsburgh metro versus the whole US where, as noted above, we are down 40% when looking at overall population.
They would be huge. The Steelers are also growing the girls flag football program this year and it would also start as an early feeder program. I could see that being a big sport in the next decade as well.
I don't think kids under 12 should play tackle football. Especially linemen. You cannot prevent helmet to helmet contact in both practice and games and that repetitive contact can't be good for long term neurological health.
I have been a coach, official, have sons who played, and played when I was younger. There are more positives than negatives. The schools that have good youth programs usually also have good high school programs. Most youth leagues have age and weight limits. There is a big transition for most kids playing tackle football the first year. A kid playing football for the first time in middle school is behind the 8-ball when it comes to the proper blocking and tackling techniques and other fundamentals. It’s just like any other sport. There are good and bad youth coaches in every sport and they can make a world of difference both positive and negative.
I agree with this 100%. I was certainly no division 1 athlete but I was pretty good at sports relative to the kids I grew up with. I played on the all star baseball teams, the travel basketball and soccer teams, was the second best tennis player on my high school team, etc. Despite my constant pleading, my mom wouldn't let me play football until Jr. High (which was abnormal in the early 90s) and when I started playing football in 7th grade I was way behind the 8 ball competing against guys who had been playing since they were six. As a result I didn't enjoy football because I wasn't that good at it. I firmly believe if I grew up playing football as a kid I would have been better in Jr. High and continued playing into high school. But since I was just average and the team was bad I decided that was enough for me.
You could pretty much play a full football game in just uppers ... the lower body padding is next to nothing nowadays.
There are weight limits through pop Warner when I was growing up so far kids couldn’t play or make weight
That actually happens a lot where there is a schism in the youth football program in a lot of these districts and by the time these kids get the high school they find out that they don’t know how to play their school system and then they get benched and never play because the coach things are not good. I see this happen every year. Too many districts have two different peewee teams and it messes up the growth and development of the players because you have too many guys playing out of position or worse not having enough people on the team and getting injured with concussions early so that their parents make them quit football
What area are you referring to? There are no charter schools with a football team in the WPIAL that are worth a lick.
I routinely see kids who are from the city league, Penn Hills, Woodland Hills, McKeesport, catch buses and ride shares to charter schools who often don’t have football teams or only have a few people playing so they suck. The city of Pittsburgh is a pretty big area for a kid to not go to Perry but choose to go to a random charter school but he wants to play football but he hast to go through this arduous process to play football most kids are just gonna say forget it. Not to mention when you talk about coaching staffs and them having success very few of these coaching staffs in the WPI AL know how to develop kids from scratch. They rely on what The peewee coaches have said about former players and they wouldn’t know how to develop raw athletically gifted kids nor do they want to and they don’t want to take the time.
[/QUOTE]
Which charter schools in the WPIAL play football?
That’s the problem charter school don’t have football teams but a lot of kids transfer to them and strictly become an academic only high school student. There’s some loopholes in some places where you can play in the district that you’re from but that requires a lot of Bending over backwards
Why is it considered a bad thing for a kid to want to receive a good education? Only 1-2% of all HS football players end up getting a football scholarship.
You really should just keep quiet on topics that you don’t understand. Propel Charter Schools in Pittsburgh are sometimes more desirable for families in and around the city. They are typical brick and mortar schools. The average teacher salary is almost 50k. The new trend for high level athletes is to attend a Cyber School, so they can get their education but have more time to train and travel if need be. This already applies to high level gymnasts, hockey, baseball, and basketball players. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it creep into football. Kids can attend a cyber school and still play for their local district.
