PORT ANGELES — High school football players are held to a higher standard in regard to minimum practice requirements than nearly every other high school sport overseen by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.
Football players start practice three days earlier than other fall sports (Aug. 16 this year for football and Aug. 21 for volleyball, girls soccer, cross country, boys tennis and girls swimming) and are required to participate in 12 practices, up to nine of which could include padded hitting drills, before playing in games.
The other fall sports require athletes to complete 10 practices before beginning interscholastic competition.
Other minimum-practice outliers include wrestling, which requires 12 practices, and gymnastics, which has a 15-practice minimum.
Combined with lower turnout, the 12-practice rule did little to help North Olympic Peninsula football teams field full squads for the first week of games last weekend.
Including Saturdays as practice days, area teams had little wiggle room in making sure their players attained the required number of practices. Teams had just 14 days to achieve the required 12 practices this season.
Port Townsend, with turnout hovering around 30 players, was forced to forfeit its first game of the season against Sequim when hit by a double whammy of practice and academic ineligibility.
Neah Bay coach Tony McCaulley said the 12-practice rule hurts smaller teams and prevents his Red Devils from participating in some annual Makah Days activities on the final weekend of August each year due to practices.
“We always have a practice during Makah Days now,” McCaulley said. “We have to or we wouldn’t get enough kids eligible to play.”
That’s not cool. Athletes shouldn’t have to choose between celebrating their cultural traditions and fitting in that extra football practice.
A search of WIAA rules changes couldn’t pinpoint when football moved from a minimum of 10 preseason practices to 12 or the reason for the switch, but the move occurred sometime in the past decade — when information on the prevalence of concussions and the impacts those brain injuries can have came to light in the form of overwhelming research data.
WIAA Assistant Executive Director John Miller, who oversees football, did not know when football switched from 10 to 12 practices.
He did have information on why the WIAA requires football, wrestling and gymnastics athletes to participate in more practices.
“For those three sports, our WIAA Sports Medicine Advisor Committe develops the criteria and the committe devised those rules years ago to require additional acclimatization because of the potential for injury.”
The NCAA has moved in a different direction, limiting the amount of padded practice time for players.
This past August, an NCAA Division I rule debuted prohibiting multiple contact practices within the same day, a change that was generally well-received at the Pac-12 Conference media days in late July.
“It’s not just some nice, generous, benevolence,” Washington State coach Mike Leach said. “If you over-train, it’s counterproductive.”
The NCAA’s Division I Council adopted the legislation last spring, citing research that showed athletes are more likely to suffer concussions during full-contact practices.
Fewer practices with tackling should translate into fewer opportunities for head injuries, officials said.
Miller said the WIAA Sports Medicine Advisor Committe has looked at this issue but has yet to consider any changes.
“Up until this point in time, there’s been discussion but no movement to either increase or decrease the number of required practices,” Miller said.
As always, the best interests of the players should be paramount. Players shouldn’t be made to play without proper practice experience (and ask any coach: it does take a good day or two just to figure out what pad goes where in a pair of football pants and girdle), but the 12-practice rule could potentially do more harm than good.
Trust me, 10 preseason practices coupled with weight lifting and conditioning sessions, were plenty back in the good old days.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
