Despite rumors, Maplewood Richmond Heights has not dropped its football program. A St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter stated on Twitter early Friday afternoon — “One-time small school powerhouse Maplewood-RH has dropped its football program. More to to come as it develops.”
MRH director of communications, Brian Adkisson said Friday he has no idea where that’s coming from. “If it has been dropped, trust me, I would know,” he said.
“The only thing I can say, is thus far, we have low numbers again—kids showing interest, but that’s down the road. It looks similar to last year,” Adkisson said.
He said there have been discussions, and there was the one forfeited game last season because several players were injured, but he said he can say with 100 percent certainty that football has not been dropped.
Update: MRH released a statement on the football program Friday afternoon:
The MRH Board of Education and administration have not cut the football program for the 2015-16 school year. There are many ongoing conversations, prompted by the High School administrative team and athletic director, about the continued low number of students going out for the team. At this time, only eight players have expressed interest in playing next year. There have been, and continue to be, ongoing recruitment efforts to enlist players for the team. Missouri recommends a minimum of 23 players on the roster.
The concern of the administration and Board of Education continues to be player safety. The 2014-15 football team, which also experienced low numbers, endured multiple injuries throughout the season resulting in one forfeiture against St. Francis Borgia on September 5 due to a lack of healthy players.
The District has always been, and will remain, fully committed to its entire athletics program and players, and will continue to closely monitor the football team to ensure the safety of its players and viability of the overall program.
I think it’s more sad that American football is even still a high school sport, let alone a college and professional sport. Study after study has shown that playing can cause brain damage, decreased life expectancy, and decreased quality of life (from the brain damage). It’s a pretty barbaric sport, and we’re the only country crazy enough to play it.
Nat that I disagree with your comments, but actually versions of football are played in Canada, throughout Europe and even in Japan. The Canadian Grey Cup has been around longer than the Super Bowl. So there are other countries crazy enough to play it too…and don’t get me started on rugby, talk about barbaric…
“NOT that I disagree…” nat…lol
Sad that they booted the Jr Devils pop warner out. That was the pipeline that fed a lot of talent to the district. Now the Jr devils have been playing out of Florissant and basically stopped recruiting MRH kids. I also think if the coaches taught Heads Up football that tte injuries would be much less a concern.
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