With Joe Paterno and Dave Wannstedt in the same room for the purpose of holding a news conference, there would figure to be only one announcement forthcoming:
Pitt and Penn State are resuming their football series.
Wrong!
Paterno and Wannstedt spoke recently to voice their support for high school spring football practice in Pennsylvania, an idea that is being pushed by the Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association. The coaches group is lobbying for a two-week period of football practice in late May and early June, so as not to conflict with spring sports.
Except such a time schedule would not avoid some spring sports that are concluding their playoffs after Memorial Day. But no matter. Too bad for the other sports.
A casual observer might think the football coaches don’t get to see their players from the end of the season until August. Nothing could be further from the truth. Football players are lifting weights throughout the off-season and rules currently allow coaches to practice their players without full pads.
That’s not enough for the coaches who want full-pad practice in the spring.
Wannstedt said last week that he has coached in three other states where spring football is allowed (Texas, Florida and Oklahoma), and those states are ahead of Pennsylvania in producing Division I college players, especially at the skill positions. But according to maxpreps.com, Pennsylvania was ninth in the country in Division I college signees this year with 75. Pennsylvania had almost twice as many Division I recruits as Oklahoma, which had 42.
The top five states in Division I recruits for 2010 were Texas (408), Florida (355), California (323), Georgia (182) and Ohio (172). With the exception of Ohio, all of the states ahead of Pennsylvania are in warm-weather climates. Ohio, by the way, does not have spring football, but had more than double the number of Division I recruits as Pennsylvania.
Brad Cashman, the executive director of the PIAA, almost immediately spoke out against spring practice.
“Instituting spring football in Pennsylvania would be contrary to PIAA bylaws, which provide no sport would be allowed to operate at a detriment of any other sport,’’ he said.
Interesting. The PIAA doesn’t seem to mind overlapping seasons in December when the state football playoffs run smack into basketball, wrestling and other winter sports. How are the football playoffs, which include some of the best basketball players in many if not most high schools, not a detriment to the basketball season?
This is a bad idea that deserves no support and should be quashed by the PIAA as quickly as possible.
From the Express Times
On this page I will have all information on sports events from Nazareth High School and all other sports events in the country. I will also have news about myself and other people.
No comments:
Post a Comment