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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Drew Johnson, 12, works on tackling drills with coach Jeff Ash during the Mountain Brook Athletics youth football combine at Mountain Brook High School in August.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Children ages 10-12 warm up at the start of the youth football combine in August at Mountain Brook High School.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Sam Meriweather, 10, catches a pass during the youth football combine.
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Photo by Erin Nelson.
Parker Whitten, 11, runs tackling drills during the youth football combine.
Things were different then.
Before the proliferation of spread offenses and the rise of concussion awareness, back in the 1990s, the sport of football featured more running than passing, produced meaner hits and paid far less attention to player safety than it does today.
That was the brand of football Andrew Houser grew up playing in Texas, where he ascended from high school standout to Baylor University linebacker. But it’s not the brand of football he signed his twin boys up for two decades later.
As Houser sat in the bleachers at Mountain Brook High School in mid-August, on the first day of the Mountain Brook Athletics youth football combine, he expressed no hesitation about letting his sixth-grade sons play the game he loved — despite the physical toll it took on him.
Houser said he persevered through a rash of injuries, including a concussion, during his playing career. But he knows Jack and Luke are in good hands.
“I don’t see how you can be any safer than what Mountain Brook has done,” Houser said.
That’s the conclusion MBA wants all parents to reach. In recent years, the organization has taken steps to quell parental concerns and improve player safety in its recreational tackle football league.
They’ve been steps of survival.
The intercommunity league, open in the fall to boys in grades three to six, saw a considerable participation decline in the past half-decade. According to data provided by MBA Executive Director Brad Hart, the number of boys who registered to play fell from 277 in 2015 to 187 in 2018 — a 31% drop.
But a broader look at the data paints a bleaker picture. When factoring second-grade flag football into the equation and backtracking to 2010, a year in which 488 Mountain Brook boys signed up for the sport, the participation decline leaps to nearly 48%. In 2018, MBA registered 255 players between flag and tackle.
And with only about 20% of total annual participation attributed to flag, the numbers convey a clear message: Youth tackle football has been dying.
“About a year ago, we really felt like we may even lose the football program as it exists right now,” Mountain Brook High School head coach Chris Yeager said.
The local drop in youth tackle football participation is on par with other communities across the state and country. A recent analysis of registration data conducted by the Hoover Sun, Village Living’s sister publication, found that Hoover’s youth tackle football program experienced a similar 47% participation decline from 2011-18.
But hope abides in Mountain Brook. Although MBA registered one less boy to play football this year than it did in 2018, tackle football saw a slight uptick in participation for the first time in about a decade, from 187 to 194 players.
MBA Football Commissioner Dave Wood compared the league’s subtle shift to a battleship changing course.
“Something that big, when you start to turn it, a little bit of a turn has a big impact,” he said.
Wood played football growing up in Mountain Brook and accrued 12 years of coaching experience before becoming league commissioner a couple of years ago.
He remembers the days when each grade had seven or eight teams with 11 to 12 players. That was about 20 years ago, he said. Today, each grade tends to have four or five teams.
Wood attributes the downward trajectory to more than just concussion awareness. He also said kids today have more sports to choose from than they used to, such as lacrosse.
“There’s so many other things out there for kids to do,” Wood said, “and you can’t do them all.”
Ahead of the 2019 season, Wood said MBA made a concerted effort to publicize youth football registration and highlight safety improvements. Few, if any, will be as impactful as the implementation of Guardian helmet covers.
In essence, they are pads worn over football helmets that reduce both impact and injury risk.
This is the first year MBA will require players to wear them, and their presence is mandatory in both practices and games. Wood said MBA recorded five concussions league-wide in 2017 and 2018. The hope is that the helmet covers pull those numbers down.
“We treat it just like a mouthpiece,” Wood said. “Mouthpieces come off helmets all the time, and the unfortunate part of that is, if you don’t have a mouthpiece, you don’t practice, you don’t play.”
Hart said the idea to mandate helmet covers came from Yeager, who has used them in practice for the last few seasons. Yeager said the covers absorb 25% of the energy that’s transferred upon impact.
“It’s like having a pillow on the outside of your helmet,” he said. “Since we’ve been wearing them — knock on wood — we have never had any kind of head trauma injury.”
Yeager said he was first exposed to Guardian covers while visiting a spring practice at the University of South Alabama. He told himself that if it made the players in his program safer by even 1%, they were worth the investment.
It’s one that Sarah Brumfield appreciates. Her two boys, Bodi and Dagan, are both youth football players. A couple of years ago when the family lived in Mississippi, Brumfield said one of her sons failed a sideline concussion screening after getting hit in the head at practice. He then went to the hospital, where a brain scan came back negative.
The close call still lingers in Brumfield’s mind, and she said the sound of clashing helmets is disconcerting. But she’s heartened by MBA’s emphasis on player safety, particularly its requirement for helmet covers.
“It seems like they really do take precautions,” she said.
The introduction of Guardian technology is only the latest step MBA has taken to make the sport safer. The organization also has athletic trainers from UAB Sports Medicine at every league game and requires coaches to undergo extensive training through USA Football.
Coaches become versed in everything from proper tackling technique and equipment fitting to concussion recognition and heat preparedness. Wood said head coaches must obtain their USA Football coaching certification by the season’s first practice, while assistants must obtain theirs by the first game.
“USA Football has got a phenomenal training platform,” Wood said. “It’s techniques. It’s drills. It’s safety.”
MBA coaches are volunteers, and fathers are not permitted to coach their own sons’ team. Wood said that facilitates a more objective approach to position placement, which is another facet of the game MBA tailors for safety. The league enforces weight restrictions that ensure players match up against others of similar size.
In its rulebook, MBA also outlines weekly time limits for contact during practices.
“Our job ... is to create the safest environment possible for these kids to learn lessons and have fun,” Wood said, “and if we get to win a game or two, that’s gravy.”
In addition to athletic trainers and coaches, MBA has commissioners at the team, grade and league levels who monitor player safety and operations. Josh Mandell is the sixthgrade commissioner whose two sons, Ham and Mac, both play tackle football.
A few years ago, he confronted the question many parents of young boys do: Should he let them play? Mandell examined the pros and cons and performed his due diligence in researching MBA’s league. He also recalled the invaluable lessons he learned playing football when he was growing up in Montgomery.
“Once I saw how the program operated, I was so impressed,” he said. “It’s really become a big part of our lives.”
Mandell said football has received fair scrutiny that has ultimately served to improve it. But he also said football has received unfair scrutiny, and it’s up to football organizations like MBA to clear any misconceptions.
“I think Mountain Brook community football, so to speak, should succeed. I think it’s set up to succeed,” Mandell said, “but I think leadership has to be proactive about making it safe.”
Yeager voiced his confidence in MBA’s leaders to chart a path forward, in addition to his desire to be a part of the solution.
As the high school head coach, he sees himself as the overseer of football in the community.
He believes it’s worth fighting for.
“Our youth program,” Yeager said, “is the absolute crown jewel of all youth programs.”
