da Mules
09-27-2005, 09:31 PM
Claude 1a cannot field a team due to injuries and ineligible players. We are seeing more and more of this as the population dwindles in rural West Texas towns. This is hard for the kids, man.
Football season canceled
Claude can't field 11 healthy student athletes
By Roger Clarkson
Dwindling numbers have forced Claude to cancel the balance of its 2005 football season, Claude superintendent Bill Wood said Monday.
The program will forfeit its District 2-1A schedule with hopes of returning to the field next year.
Claude (0-3) started the season with 18 players, 11 of which were either freshmen or sophomores. The Mustangs played their first game of the season with 14 healthy bodies. On Monday three players were determined physically unable to play and three others were ruled academically ineligible.
To date, Claude has lost five to injury and three to grades and would have to play Sunray on Friday with 10 players, mostly freshmen and sophomores. Instead of risking further injury, the school decided to forfeit the rest of the season.
"I hate to do this. I'm a hometown boy and I know how much this hurts," Wood said. "But you've got to think of the safety of the kids. It would be different if we had 13 or 14 juniors and seniors. But we've got almost all freshmen and sophomores. We've got four linemen left. When you play that many young kids who probably aren't physically ready to play, you're going to get more hurt."
Kress forfeited the last three games of the 2002 season and played an outlaw six-man schedule in 2003.
Wood said Claude's high school enrollment sits at about 109, so its prospects of dropping to six-man are slender. The upper end of the University Interscholastic League enrollment cutoff for six-man was 100 in 2004.
The UIL will redraw its districts this winter in preparation for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years.
Claude likely will have three senior and four junior football players next season. Two of those future seniors suffered season-ending injuries this year.
"It's ultimately about the safety of the kids," Claude head football coach James Henton said. "When you're not very experienced or don't have the size, all you're going to do is either get yourself hurt or get somebody else hurt. We had to weigh the options. I wish we didn't have to do this. But it's for the best."
Claude plans to continue to play 11-man football next year and beyond. However, the low numbers among upper classmen might force the Mustangs to limit its games to subvarsity next year. Claude has 25 football players in its combined seventh- and eighth-grade classes. It also has seven current freshmen.
"We're going to build for the future," Henton said. "When you get thrown out there to play on Friday night as freshmen, it's tough to make that transition. A lot of times it ends up a meat grinder because you've got kids who aren't ready playing in survival mode.
"It's disheartening to get beat up every down by players who are bigger and stronger and more mature. We need to prepare for the future. We've got strong junior high classes coming up and we're concentrating on getting them ready."
Sunray, which was scheduled to play Claude for homecoming this week, picked up a game against Seagraves and will play at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Dimmitt. Sunray will move its homecoming to Oct. 14 when the Bobcats play White Deer.
Football season canceled
Claude can't field 11 healthy student athletes
By Roger Clarkson
Dwindling numbers have forced Claude to cancel the balance of its 2005 football season, Claude superintendent Bill Wood said Monday.
The program will forfeit its District 2-1A schedule with hopes of returning to the field next year.
Claude (0-3) started the season with 18 players, 11 of which were either freshmen or sophomores. The Mustangs played their first game of the season with 14 healthy bodies. On Monday three players were determined physically unable to play and three others were ruled academically ineligible.
To date, Claude has lost five to injury and three to grades and would have to play Sunray on Friday with 10 players, mostly freshmen and sophomores. Instead of risking further injury, the school decided to forfeit the rest of the season.
"I hate to do this. I'm a hometown boy and I know how much this hurts," Wood said. "But you've got to think of the safety of the kids. It would be different if we had 13 or 14 juniors and seniors. But we've got almost all freshmen and sophomores. We've got four linemen left. When you play that many young kids who probably aren't physically ready to play, you're going to get more hurt."
Kress forfeited the last three games of the 2002 season and played an outlaw six-man schedule in 2003.
Wood said Claude's high school enrollment sits at about 109, so its prospects of dropping to six-man are slender. The upper end of the University Interscholastic League enrollment cutoff for six-man was 100 in 2004.
The UIL will redraw its districts this winter in preparation for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years.
Claude likely will have three senior and four junior football players next season. Two of those future seniors suffered season-ending injuries this year.
"It's ultimately about the safety of the kids," Claude head football coach James Henton said. "When you're not very experienced or don't have the size, all you're going to do is either get yourself hurt or get somebody else hurt. We had to weigh the options. I wish we didn't have to do this. But it's for the best."
Claude plans to continue to play 11-man football next year and beyond. However, the low numbers among upper classmen might force the Mustangs to limit its games to subvarsity next year. Claude has 25 football players in its combined seventh- and eighth-grade classes. It also has seven current freshmen.
"We're going to build for the future," Henton said. "When you get thrown out there to play on Friday night as freshmen, it's tough to make that transition. A lot of times it ends up a meat grinder because you've got kids who aren't ready playing in survival mode.
"It's disheartening to get beat up every down by players who are bigger and stronger and more mature. We need to prepare for the future. We've got strong junior high classes coming up and we're concentrating on getting them ready."
Sunray, which was scheduled to play Claude for homecoming this week, picked up a game against Seagraves and will play at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Dimmitt. Sunray will move its homecoming to Oct. 14 when the Bobcats play White Deer.