District explains why they cut Central's varsity football season

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - After announcing the varsity football team at Central High School will be cut this year, several students and parents are speaking out on social media.

"I sacrificed so much for football just to get it taken away at it, out of the blue, out of nowhere and without warning," said Central football team captain David Bitok.

Springfield Public Schools made the announcement on Friday, just days before the start of the school year.

"If they wanted to take our season away from us, it could have happened maybe a month ago, two weeks ago," said senior Julian Baker. "Did it have to happen three days before school?"

The district says they made the decision when they did because they felt it couldn't be made at the start of the summer.

"The intent of this is protecting our kids," said SPS District Athletic Activities Director Joshua Scott.

The district cites a lack of upperclassmen and player safety in their decision.

"They didn't believe in us," Bitok said. "And that is your own school that didn't believe in you."

Scott clarified this was a district decision, not a MSHSAA decision.

"We hate it. We are sorry," Scott said. "This is not a decision that we wanted to make, but we are bound by making the best decision that we can."

He says every year Central has had at least 40 football players. This year, they had 25.

"That's not enough to play varsity football, especially with your makeup the way it is," Scott said.

Of the 25 players, there are only four seniors and seven juniors, and nine freshmen.

"Is it reasonable to go into a varsity football season where over 33% of your roster is 14-year-old freshmen that would be playing in a football contest on a Friday night against 17-year-old seniors?" Scott said. "That is not the best thing or the safest thing that we should do."

Bitok disagrees.

"It would've been a lot better to at least lose a couple of games than your own administrators not even giving you a chance," Bitok said.

Scott says that with a team this small, they would have to play all facets of the ball.

"Not only that, but then we're going to have to rely on our underclassmen to take key roles and key positions," Scott said.

Baker said the team went into the season knowing they would have to play more.

"We already knew that we were going to have to all play both sides," Baker said. "So we were preparing ourselves mentally, physically."

For the senior football players, this could impact their college football careers.

"I want to play college ball and not really anybody is going to look at J.V. film," Baker said.

Scott says this decision will help build the program back up while keeping players safe.

"I know every time my son steps on the field, there's a chance that he's going to be injured," Scott said. "However, we have ways to mitigate those injury risks by making sure that we are matching like athletes."

Scott mentioned all of the other high schools in SPS are too big to merge with Central's team to Co-op.

"If kids don't have fun and they don't have some success, they're not going to continue to come out for a program," Scott said. "So if we put freshmen against seniors, I don't know how that's going to build an enjoyment and a love."