From week to week, Granite High football coach Tom Larson doesn't know what he's going to have.
Fifteen players showed up for summer workouts. When school started in August it jumped to 20, and since Labor Day his numbers are at 30, and that's for the entire football program. Typically, schools this size will have between 70-100 players.
There are no freshman, sophomore or junior-varsity teams — just varsity.
In the Farmers' first game against Juan Diego, seven players on both sides of the ball had never played in an organized football game.
Instead of teaching the same type of offense and defense that brought him a state title at Kearns High in 1989, Larson is teaching the fundamentals.
Generally, those fundamentals are taught at the Little League level, but in Granite's area there is no Little League program. Kids don't grow up wanting to play for the Farmers.
That, coupled with the state's open-enrollment policy that allows students to attend the high school of their choice, has been devastating to the Granite program.
Granite (located at 3300 S. 500 East) has had 2,000-plus students but now is down to 950.
Most student athletes choose to attend Olympus, Cottonwood, Skyline, Highland and Taylorsville because of their football programs, Larson said.
"We know there are kids at those schools that live in our boundaries," he said. "I don't blame the kids. They play football in the seventh and eighth grade with their friends and they want to keep playing with them."
Granite High principal Stephen Hess agrees.
"When those kids get into those programs they develop a kinship with the school," he said. "They dress in the same colors as the school. They look like their high school uniforms. We don't have that and we haven't for four years, and I think we're feeling the effects of that."
Although it's not his ultimate responsibility, Hess is working to change that.
He's talking with the Ute Conference organizations and the Salt Lake County Recreation Department to get Granite involved again because of the stability these youth programs can bring to his school.
"We may not see the effects of a program like this for a few more years, but if we're going to compete, we need to have that allegiance from the kids," he said.
The problem, in whatever form — lack of growth, boundary changes or open enrollment — has faced the oldest Granite School District school for years.
Former BYU coach LaVell Edwards faced some of the same situations when he coached the Farmers in the 1960s. He said Olympus, Granger and Skyline all opened during his tenure, and each time they took student-athletes from his program.
Hunter High assistant coach Scott Henderson, who coached the Farmers from 1995 to 1999, said close to a dozen players on East's 1996 4A championship team lived in his boundaries, and some of those were starters. He also said he lost 10 to 15 sophomores to Cottonwood each year.
In its 95-year history the Farmers have captured 24 state titles, with nine of them coming in the 1930s when they won back-to-back boys' swimming titles in 1932 and 1933 and another in 1939.
That same decade the Farmers won four state basketball championships with back-to-back titles in 1933 and 1934, and two football crowns in 1930 and 1932 — its last football championship. Just last week the Farmers played their 800th game in school history (94 seasons).
Overall, Granite won six titles in the 1940s, four in the '50s, two in the '60s and two in the '70s. Its last athletic championship came when Steve Nelke was the top medalist and the Farmers captured the golf title in 1972. Its last track championship was in 1969, baseball 1970 and swimming 1955.
The Farmers last made the football playoffs in 1999 when they won three games. It was also that year they snapped a 34-game losing streak. In 1967, the Farmers went 8-1 but failed to make the playoffs because of a league loss to Skyline.
"There have been some outstanding athletes in this school and a great tradition of athletes," sad Hess. "I want Granite High School to get back to the tradition it has been."
Most notably, former BYU and Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Golden Richards attended Granite, as did University of Utah All-American and Detroit Lions and Seattle Seahawks offensive lineman Gordon Jolley, who is an assistant coach for the No. 1-ranked Dixie State College Rebels.
"I had a good time, and we had a great bunch of kids. We had a good coaching staff and we were successful, and usually when you're successful you have a good time," Jolley said. "I follow it a little bit, and it's disappointing to see they've fallen so bad."
BYU assistant coach Lance Reynolds also played there, as did Doug Richards and Jay Linford, Jolley said.
"There's been quite a few, and I'm sure I'm missing some, but in a stretch of 10 years there were a number of kids that played Division I and some pro ball," he said.
So the fight goes on, said Larson.
"We haven't given up and we prepare each week," he said. "Some weeks we feel like if we play to the best of our potential the whole game we have a chance to win."
So far that hasn't happened for the 0-5 Farmers, who hold the state's longest losing streak of 17 games.
"We make a lot of mistakes playing against juniors and seniors that have been playing for three years," he said.
E-mail: jhinton@desnews.com