Opinion: Area football teams must do more to protect players

E ast Chapel Hill High School’s varsity football team has never produced a winning season.

Mike Holderman, who was brought in more or less at the last minute as the program’s third head coach in as many years, said before the season that he was “looking forward to the challenge.”

It’s likely his players were, too — but some challenges just aren’t worth accepting.

On Oct. 17, the Wildcats were forced to forfeit a regular season game against Northern Durham. Two weeks later, the school announced the team’s season was over. It would forfeit its final two contests, ending a season that saw multiple shutout losses by as many as 65 points.

Injuries had depleted an undersized team full of undersized players.

At the high school level, the difference between a rebuilding team and a perennial powerhouse isn’t just daunting. It’s downright dangerous. What danger lurks in having smaller underclassmen knock heads with future Division I players is magnified by players’ lack of skill.

College and professional teams seem far less likely to experience such variance in average roster weights and skill levels.

In October, a New York Times feature provided a national context for the Wildcats’ plight. Forfeiture has become an increasingly common option for high school teams cut down by injury. Whether this is because football is becoming more violent or teams are becoming more adept at identifying injury is unclear, but the growth of forfeiting has nevertheless sparked broader conversations about the ethics of allowing and encouraging boys as young as 14 to place their particularly vulnerable brains in harm’s way.

There are many decisions of similar or lesser consequence that boys of high school age are not yet permitted to make. If we are not yet willing to allow these boys to operate a motor vehicle, ought we condone and celebrate their presence on a field where they are likely to experience impacts similar to those suffered in a minor car crash?

This is not the first time area high schools’ ability to look out for player safety has come under fire.

Atlas Fraley, a Chapel Hill High School offensive lineman, died in 2008 after a strenuous practice in hot weather — a year after collapsing under similar conditions. His family has sued, claiming his death was the direct result of the coaching staff’s insufficient attention to hydration and Fraley’s medical history.

East Chapel Hill made the right call by ending its season prematurely, but it is still troubling that the school didn’t see the writing on the wall before a significant number of its players were injured. Two weeks before the season began, The Chapel Hill News reported that only 30 players were available. The Tuesday before its game against Northern Durham, that number had dwindled to just 16.

Would the plug have been pulled had Wildcats been blessed with the good fortune of having more bodies to throw at opposing teams until the season’s end? It’s impossible to say. But all area high schools should take a more active role next season in ensuring student safety, even if that means abandoning a season at the varsity level.

Forfeiture should occur before the point of attrition rather than as a response to passing it.