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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Leveling the playing field: Spokane Public Schools to offer tackle football to two middle schools this summer

Rogers running back Gavynn Bodman carries a West Valley tackler into the end zone last fall at ONE Spokane Stadium.  (Cheryl Nichols/For The Spokesman-Review)

Middle -schoolers, strap on your shoulder pads.

In August, two Spokane Public Schools middle schools will offer tackle football to students in a pilot program that may expand beyond the two schools yet to be determined.

The Spokane School Board signaled their support for offering and funding the pilot at a meeting earlier this month, concerned about children’s safety but intrigued by a presentation from high school coaches .

“This is not about improving our high school programs,” said Rogers High School Football Coach Ryan Cole. “Rather, it’s about individual student athlete growth, equal and equitable opportunities for our families and communities, player safety and community development.”

The board approved $50,000 for the pilot at both schools, mostly to pay for equipment. The district is planning to budget $600,000 to expand activities and athletics next year, not finalized until the budget is adopted in August. Other planned expansions are girls’ bowling, high school junior varsity cheerleading, elementary volleyball and unified sports.  

“One of our priority strategies for students’ success the last two years has been first evaluating our activities and athletics,” said board President Nikki Otero Lockwood. “One of our strategic planning principles is around belonging, and so trying to see where we were, at the same time, kind of build it or expand it.”

The district has long been searching for ways to make students feel they are included and connected to school, especially outside of academics. One strategy to do so is expanding activities like sports and clubs to get kids involved outside of the classroom. Around 40-60 seventh- and eighth- graders said they were interested in tackle football, said Stephanie Splater, activities and athletics director with the district.

“We have a million opportunities, more than ever, to be connected. Yet if you talk to young people, most feel disconnected,” said Kyle Snell, football head coach at Lewis and Clark. “So with football, it can provide a sense of belonging with kids that they may not have even interacted with.”

The coaches said expanding football would put them on a level playing field with other districts against which they compete in high school and that already offer tackle football to middle -schoolers, including Central Valley, Mead, Cheney and West Valley and East Valley.

In Spokane, it will only be available to seventh- and eighth- graders to keep the offering consistent with other districts and regulations from the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

Though ultimately supportive, many board members raised concerns around the safety of the young athletes.

Boys tackle football consistently has the most injuries compared to other high school athletics, according to the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study, which has tracked sports injuries since 2005. In the 2021-22 school year, there were over 13 injuries per 1,000 games of boys high school football nationally. The second-highest competition injury rate was girls’ soccer, at around five injuries per 1,000 games.

Head injuries are especially concerning to the board and substantiated by studies; tackle football players of all ages are at risk of traumatic brain injuries from repeated forceful blows to the head one incurs while playing the game.

Concussions occur much more frequently in football than other sports, the study found. In the 2021-22 school year, there were over 30 concussions reported per 10,000 games and three per 10,000 practices. Girls soccer, the second-highest for concussions, declared 15 concussions per 10,000 games, nearly one per 10,000 practices nationally.

Coaches said safety is their top priority for high school athletes, and the same will be true for middle -schoolers.

“Their safety is more important than them playing two more plays to see if we can win a game,” said Jim Mace, head coach at Shadle Park. “I think that that’s actually been a big focus of football, but it’s made for better experiences because kids know that ultimately, even if they don’t like it in the moment, that coaches have their back.”

At the high school level, athletic trainers are present during practices and games if a student is injured. Coaches, they said, often defer to them as trained experts and are cautious of their young players.

“We all kind of live by, ‘If in doubt, they sit out,’ ” Mace said.

The trainers are not at each middle school as they are in high school, Superintendent Adam Swinyard said at the meeting, though the district is still finalizing details on trainer access through an established partnership serving high schools.

Each school will hire at least three coaches for the program; although if there are more students interested in the sport, they’ll hire additional staff, Splater wrote in an email.

Introducing tackle football in a controlled setting at a younger age could improve safety for athletes moving forward with the sport, coaches said. They’d learn football safety basics while the game is “slower” and less “violent” than in high school, Cole said.

“You need the repetition. If you get the repetition when you’re younger, when the speed of the game is a lot slower, you have a lot more confidence,” Cole said. “There’s less thinking; you just react and you do it, rather than, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ and that’s when kids get hurt, is when they don’t have the experience and when they hesitate. Hesitation causes injury.”

In the middle -school pilot, coaches are looking forward to “creativity” in how they arrange grade levels.

Middle -school coaches can arrange teams by ability rather than age. By ninth grade, students vary in athletic ability and physical build but are on a team based on their grade level.

Coaches use new techniques and strategies, like teaching kids to tackle their opponents with their shoulders rather than their heads, as has been the football strategy in years past, Cole said.

The district is still deciding which two middle schools will offer the pilot, but coaches suggested selecting one school from the north and one from the south. It’s unclear if students will be able to join a team if they’re not enrolled at that school, per Washington Interscholastic Activities Association regulations.

The board’s funding decision won’t become official until they approve the whole district’s budget in August.

Editor’s note: This article has been amended to clarify who proposed one North Side school and one South Side school to pilot middle school tackle football. It has also been changed to clarify when the program will start.