Middle school football teams throw a flag at tackling

The Vermont Principals Association is phasing out tackle football at the middle school level.

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Middle School Football Teams Throw a Flag at Tackling By Jared Pendak Valley News Staff Writer Wednesday, February 22, 2017 HARTFORD VT WOODSTOCK VT WINDSOR VT BRADFORD VT The Vermont Principals Association is phasing out tackle football at the middle school level. Citing safety concerns and efforts to maintain participation, the VPA Middle School Football Committee is mandating a transition from tackle football to a “padded flag” version of the game. In padded flag, players continue to don helmets and pads, and there is contact at the line of scrimmage. However, every player also wears flags around their waist, and any ball carrier — be it a primary running back or a lineman who recovers a fumble — may be tackled only by pulling off one of the flags. Kickoffs and punt returns are also being eliminated. The rules would affect any VPA member school-sponsored fifth- and sixth-grade programs beginning this fall, though there are no known programs of that kind, according to VPA associate executive director Bob Johnson. Many of the fifth- and sixth-grade teams in Vermont are either independent or sponsored by municipal recreation departments. The biggest changes will come in 2018, when padded flag becomes mandatory for all VPA seventh- and eighth-grade teams. That comprises about 40 percent of such programs in Vermont, Johnson estimated, including the junior high teams of Springfield, Windsor and Woodstock in the Upper Valley and Otter Valley, Mill River and Mount Anthony in western Vermont. U-32, in East Montpelier, also will be affected, among other programs. To eliminate kickoffs, teams will begin possessions at their own 25-yard line whenever their opponent scores. Punts will be downed automatically wherever they land. The format is modeled after a system that Middlebury’s youth football programs have employed since the 1970s. Unlike in that town, which commonly shrinks parameters to 7-on-7 or 8-on-8 play on an 80-yard surface, VPA will maintain 11-on-11 play on a 100-yard field. “This is not a T-shirt and shorts version of the game,” said committee chairman Bob Hingston, the executive secretary for the Vermont Interscholastic Football League, which governs the state’s high school programs. “Players are fully padded, the positions are the same and there is still blocking. The only difference is that there is no tackling to the ground.” Hingston, the former longtime Windsor High athletic director, said the measure is necessary to adjust to a changing youth football landscape. National statistics point to downward trends in participation as scientific studies emerge linking head trauma suffered during play to long-term health conditions. At the professional level, the NFL has faced a bevy of lawsuits in recent years filed by veteran players and their families, alleging the sport caused chronic traumatic encephalopathy — a progressive degenerative disease affecting sufferers of severe or repeated blows to the head — among other long-term conditions. Youth level participation has remained steady at many Upper Valley programs, while it has declined in others. Hanover canceled its seventh- and eighth-grade season in 2015 and drew from sixth-graders to help become viable again last year, while Woodstock hasn’t fielded programs younger than seventh and eighth grade in years. Even that program has struggled with numbers, topping at about 15 players the last several seasons, according to Woodstock Union High and Middle School athletic director Justin Wardwell. “It’s not a big secret that in our country, from the NFL all the way down, that there are many concerns about the number of head injuries in football,” Hingston said. “Concussions and so forth are a big issue, and lower-body injuries are also a concern for a lot of parents of young children. We’re being proactive here.” Middlebury Union High AD Sean Farrell feels the physicality of tackle football is not a deterrent exclusive to parents. Some players are liable to be turned off from the game if there’s too much hitting before their bodies are more maturely developed, he noted. “If you’ve got a 140-pound running back coming full steam at a 110-pound defensive back that’s supposed to tackle him, safety is a concern at their age,” Farrell said. “In our program, if a running back lowers his shoulder into the defender and initiates contact, it’s a penalty. We try to teach to evade contact rather than initiate, which also improves the players’ hip movement and quickness.” Non-VPA middle school programs, including those in Hartford and Bradford, will not be required to adopt the padded flag rules unless their respective leagues vote to follow suit. That’s unlikely for Hartford, which plays in the New Hampshire-based Granite State League. (GSL committee member Carl Schaefer said the league has not discussed the measure.) Bradford is a member of the Northern Vermont Youth Football League, whose committee will vote next month on whether to adopt padded flag for its fifth- and sixth-grade programs beginning this year, even though most, if not all, of the league’s members are not school-sponsored and thus are exempt from the mandatory rule change. The padded flag rule beginning next year for seventh- and eighth grade teams could affect scheduling for Windsor and Springfield, both of which belong to the Snowbelt League, which includes New Hampshire teams. Woodstock’s independent middle school team also routinely schedules New Hampshire-based opponents. “I know we’ve played teams like Lebanon and Fall Mountain recently, but we might have to start going to the other side of the mountain,” Wardwell said. Even though Hartford plans to stay in the full-contact Granite State League, seventh- and eighth-grade Hurricanes coach Steve Landon has been taking steps to mitigate injury risks for years. His practices don’t include any tackle drills. “It’s all technique,” Landon said. “To me, it makes sense not to be tackling each other to the ground in practice. I feel like all parents should have a sense that their kids are safe playing a game.” Under the direction of head coach Buddy Teevens, the Dartmouth College football team has been scaling back full-contact practices since 2010, inspiring an Ivy League-wide ban on live-tackle practices during the regular season beginning last year. Those kinds of developments don’t go unnoticed by those governing youth and high school play. “Football has been under attack, and it’s an issue of safety,” the VPA’s Johnson said. “When a program like Dartmouth starts doing away with tackling at practice, that’s huge because of the precedent it sets. I think we’re going to continue to see changes.”