OREM — Timpanogos, Payson and Cottonwood football teams will join Judge Memorial in playing independent football next season.
The three schools submitted written requests to the Utah High School Activities Association’s executive committee, the same group that initially denied Judge’s petition in November, which unanimously approved all three requests during its Wednesday meeting.
Judge appealed the committee’s denial to the board of trustees, which eventually granted the petition for independence in football.
In their letter to the executive committee, Cottonwood officials wrote that they have not had enough players to “field a sophomore and junior varsity team for the past three years. Despite our best efforts to get students in our building to play football, there are too many obstacles for our students. This past season we dressed less than 20 players for varsity games several times. Not only does this put our players in situations where they are more likely to be injured than have any success, but it also does not help our opponent.”
Timpanogos administrators said they currently have 12 students enrolled in the school’s football class.
“Previously we’ve had 40 to 60 kids in that class,” said Timpanogos athletic director Frank Bramall, listing off some of the challenges they’ve had just developing and sustaining any kind of feeder program. “We hope we don’t get to the point where we have to drop football.”
That was the overwhelming sentiment of all of the administrators making pitches to play independently next season.
“We’re just four schools, but I really believe that there are other schools in our situation that if they see there is this possibility, maybe they might (go independent),” Timpanogos athletic administrator Chas DeWitt. “The other thing is it might prompt the Utah High School Activities to look at how regions are aligned and maybe (align) by strength of team, rather than by (school population).”
Payson athletic director Brian Argyle and Principal RaShel Shepherd said the health and safety of their student-athletes was the driving force behind their decision.
“It’s not all about wins,” Argyle told the executive committee Wednesday morning. “Not even close. We want kids to feel success, and we want them to be safe and to be happy. When I met with parents, I pointed out, if we don’t do this, I think we might be one of the first schools to say we don’t have a football program.”
Cottonwood administrator Mike Miller echoed safety concerns, pointing out that when the Colts played eventual Region 6 champion Olympus, the Titans took a knee every play of their last two series just to run out the clock with some mercy.
“No team in the state got beat like us,” Miller said. “We have a new coach, and I don’t want him to be discouraged, but it’s very difficult when you have 30 players total and the opposing team has 90.”
All of the administrators said the low participation numbers led to playing younger, less experienced and less skilled players who were more susceptible to injury. In many cases, the teens were being asked to play two games a week, so schools could fulfill junior varsity and varsity schedules, and some of those young men played both offense and defense.
All the schools have difficult geographic issues. For Timpanogos, it has two similarly sized schools nearby — Orem and Mountain View — and they draw some of the athletes who live in Timpanogos’ boundaries.
Payson covers a massive geographic area, educating students who live 30 miles from the school and creating unique transportation issues. Cottonwood isn’t a neighborhood school and pulls students from five different communities, some from as far away as Taylorsville. Doing so requires bussing students from Granite District to keep the school at capacity.
“There are a lot of variables that impact whether or not a school can sustain a successful football program,” said Miller, who was a long-time coach at Riverton High. “We feel like if we can have some success, we can build enthusiasm around the program and build our numbers.”
Both Payson and Timpanogos will enter independence with new coaches, as Payson’s coach resigned a week ago and Timpanogos’ coach told his players he was stepping down Wednesday afternoon.
Several administrators admitted they were “scared” about going independent, but added they were more fearful of what would happen to their programs if they continued to try and compete against teams consisting of more experienced and physically mature players.
“Football is not a game you should be playing two games a week,” DeWitt said. “For the safety of our kids, we cancelled our sub-varsity season. But now you’ve got young, inexperienced, smaller kids playing teams like Timpview and Orem, and I mean, it’s a tough thing. We truly are making this decision solely for the betterment of our kids. ... We don’t want to lose football.”
All of them agreed that football needs to be saved because it is a uniquely unifying team activity for a school community. It also offers unique lessons to young athletes.
“Football is a great game,” Miller said. “I’m an advocate for it. The last thing you want to do is get rid of a program because once it’s gone, it’s gone.”