Football players in Grades 11 and 12 hadn't been able to suit up for a local team outside of high school but that is changing this year.
After a three year hiatus, the Chatham-Kent Cougars are bringing back the varsity football team and have high hopes for success this year. President of the Cougars, Selwyn Jordan said there wasn't enough interest over the last few years but after the junior varsity team finished second in the province last season, the players moving on wanted to continue the momentum.
"This is the right group of players to bring [varsity football] back with and our signups have gone extremely well," Jordan said. "We have over 50 players registered with another 15 coming in."
Jordan said last year they only had 30 players interested and needed at least 50 to roster a legitimate team. He added the Cougars are not just recruiting locally from Chatham, Blenheim, and Wallaceburg but they are reaching out to Sarnia, London, and Windsor for talent.
The varsity team will be just one of four age groups suiting up in 2019 for the Cougars. Jordan said they will be running a junior varsity squad for players in Grades 9 and 10, a Bantam team for Grades 7 and 8 and then a Peewee group for Grades 4, 5, and 6.
Jordan understood concussions may have played a part in lower interest levels as parents choose to put their kids into safer sports. He said youth football has come such a long way in the past few years so concussions aren't nearly as prevalent.
"You see a lot of changes in the NFL and that has filtered down to the grassroots level," Jordan said. "There are certain blocks we aren't allowed to do. We aren't allowed to make contact with the kickers or centers either."
Jordan said perhaps the biggest change in concussion prevention is the technique used to tackle. Instead of teaching players to make the biggest impact, they are being taught to protect themselves first.
"We use the rugby tackle or it's also known as the Seahawks Tackle," Jordan said. "We put our heads to the side, keep it up and wrap around the legs like a wrestling move. That keeps your head out of contact so we have been very successful with that."
Jordan added most of the concussion talks have been at the NFL level and younger players simply don't have the power to make hard enough contact to cause concussions.
He said proper form tackling is the emphasis of indoor practices which are throughout February, March and April. He added the team is still open for new players who are interested and can fill out the registration form on their website. Next practice is February 24.
