HEALDSBURG (KPIX 5) – After a pair of lopsided losses to start off the year, the Healdsburg High School football team has decided to turn in its uniforms and cancel the rest of the season.
The stands at Recreation Park will be a little lonelier this fall after the football players on the struggling Healdsburg High School Greyhounds quit for the remainder of the year.
“It’s gonna be missed in town,” said Healdsburg High Principal Bill Halliday.
The decision stemmed partly from the lack of participating students.
The team started the season with 18 players. After losing its first game 41-0 and then being shut out 61-0 in its second game, two players quit.
Then two more dropped off the team, followed by the team’s quarterback on Monday.
That was when Head Coach and Healdsburg HS Athletic Director Dave Stine had the kids make a decision.
“We decided to do a blind vote and seven of the thirteen said no, they didn’t want to move forward,” said Stine. “So we went ahead and disbanded the varsity team at that point.”
School officials said the coaches, community and student body are disappointed about the abrupt end to the football season. But when contacting future opponents to cancel upcoming games, Principal Halliday discovered their struggle isn’t unique.
“We’re not alone. The number of kids across the board in California, and certainly in Northern California, of students signing up is down,” said Halliday.
The principal said the team has gotten some blowback on social media for quitting the season, though some seem to understand.
With a new school sprit initiative and investment in the young athletes, Healdsburg High plans on having a varsity team back next year.
“I’m excited about JV team now. There’s 30 kids on that team and they really want to play and are working hard. So the future looks bright,” said Stine.
The field at Recreation Park won’t be totally empty this fall. The junior varsity games will be played and the school is looking at pushing the start time of games back so the community and the student body can come together and experience the usual Friday night lights feel.
Emily Turner
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Hey Greyhounds, don’t quit. So what if you lose every game 50-0. What will you gain by quitting? Protect your feelings and ego? That’s nonsense. Life is about battles and just so you know, you don’t always win. In fact, sometimes you may keep losing only to learn how to win. there is a way Greyhounds. Keep fighting and see what happens.
losers, with a BIG L.
Participate in Wrestling instead – compete against opponent of equal weight – much
safer and much much more fun to do and watch. IMO U No Hooo
Wrestling is certainly not any safer than football. My son participates in both and I photograph sports for various news outlets in our area…. I have seen fewer overall injuries in wrestling, but the wrestling injuries tend to be way more serious than what I have witnessed in football. First hand football injuries with my son the odd pulled muscle, in wrestling lots of pulled muscles and broken nose.
Not to worry guys the Cleveland Browns are far worse
Cleveland Browns haven’t quit. BROWNS will Shock the NFL in 2018!! GO BROWNS!
Ok, so you lost 2 games 102-0. What does quitting teach the students? Instead do your jobs as educators and adults. Show them there’s no wimp’s way out. You’re going to fail. And when you fail, you learn to pick yourself up and try again! Success comes from effort. Success comes from learning from your failures. Success comes from discipline. Success comes from improvement. You can’t learn therefore you can’t improve if you quit. COME ON COACHES! Get back on the field and coach some reality, fundamentals and FOOTBALL!
Pretty obvious you never read the article. The coaches can’t coach players that don’t exist.
I went to a trade school of about 750 or so. We never fielded a team worth a damn at anything. But the guys who wanted to do it, sure as hell wouldn’t have quit.
They lost more than a couple of games.
ahhhh…….snowflake kids doing what they do best….. retreat to their SAFE PLACE in mommy’s basement ………… gotta hide from LIFE
aw this on Drudge, then went to http://www.PressCalifornia.com for more real California news.
Of course, why would anyone want to play sports in this stupid state.
My HS in Schaumberg, IL was brand new in 1964. We had only 600 or so students. We lost every game for 2 years until we grew in students. We never even contemplated quitting. Shame on those students. More concerned about wine, I guess.
Buncha Transgenders and future male “cheerleaders” apparently.
Yes, weak transgenders like Bruce Jenner, a.k.a. Caitlyn Jenner, one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Bruce Jenner is weak. Couldn’t hack it as a man and took the easy way out by becoming a tranny.
Sadly, this is what we teach kids now, its ok to quit at any sign of adversity, you do not get a participation trophy in life, but this is California, very sad.
poor babies, missed a great chance to learn.
That is why we are heading for a cliff. When the going gets tough……give up. Our kids are adults now, but when they were young, we allowed them to join whatever they wanted with one condition: they fulfill their obligation to the end. My daughter played soccer from age 6 through 4 years of college, all by her choice. She still plays to this day. Our son wasn’t into sports, but played hockey for a few years and completed every season. He signed up for a German language school, not knowing it was TEN YEARS long and guess what? He completed it. He could’ve taken German in High School and got a very, very easy A, but chose Latin. He’s now a Captain in the US Marines and flies F/A-18 Hornets. Any idea why? Not a quitter.
Great idea for the Snowflakes. Better than kneeling for the National Anthem. Sung to a British Drinking tune, “To Anacreon in Heaven.”
This is the fruit of “everyone gets an award,” they have a sense of entitlement and when they don’t win right away they quit and take their marbles and go home. Shame on the school and the coach for not impressing on the players to never give up and to keep on fighting. They will all be losers in life with that attitude!
The sport of football has been vilified at every turn so I’m not surprised they could only get 18 guys to sign up. Maybe they should take up stamp collecting instead. It’s totally safe except for the odd paper cut. But make sure you wear gloves, eye protection and a mask, just in case an old stamp has mildew on it.
No information on the population of the schools of their division. Bigger schools can recruit bigger players. As much as I like sports, there are some sports which gives the advantage to size and height not to the attained skills.
Someone has to lose. Don’t quit. What does that say to the kids?
They are smarter than Elon Musk! He keeps digging a hole and asking for more shovels. They simply said “we are understaffed, not that good at this. We will explore other paths in our careers.”
Why did they not vote to replace their coaches, who obviously can\t coach them to even score, let alone win?
Not just losers, quitters too.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Not…
You learn more by losing at this age… you just sent a horrible message to these kids. You should reverse this decision… and hire new coaches.
Great lesson coach. Kids Voting. smh
With only 13 players to field an 11 man team it would be almost impossible to not forfeit games do to lack of players. Some small schools in Arizona used to play with 9 man teams. California might have to go to something like that.
Football as we know it will be gone within 10 years anyway when lawsuits over concussions trickle down to the high school level. Like many fun things from years gone by the lawyers will kill it.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try to throw in the towel without missing.
Rickety rickety ree,
We sit down when we pee!
Go Gayhounds!!
Smart move! Maybe these kids will get an education this year. To all the negative commenters…are these kids actually crying in their rooms, or are they discovering there are much better uses of time than high school football?
Football is not the best exercise, not the only way to learn teamwork, a rather dangerous way to prove bravery and mental toughness, probably not worth the school district’s money, and most likely not worth these kids’ precious time. I also played football in a small-town high school.
The last time I drove by a high school football field there were more lacrosse players than football players. And lacrosse wasn’t even a sport when I was in high school.
I’m completely baffled. First two years of our little league team we lost ALL games. For TWO WHOLE YEARS. We lost ALL games. But we kept playing, and because our opponents were so good we improved faster and more than anything we could have every accomplished in training. The first year of our losses we had scores of 0-20, 0-17, 1-30. By the second years the losses were closer. We would lose 2-10 or 3-7… it was obvious we were improving in every area of the game. We became indifferent to the outcomes of the game and only focused on the process of improving ourselves. By the third season we were league champions.
The entire team making this decision should be fired and those boys should be marched back out to their next game, hold their heads high and play like champions. And lose like champions.
So, only winners should keep playing? Is this the life lesson you are trying to teach? Sports is about failure and dealing with it. It’s about the bounds between players and coaches. It’s about going beyond what you thought you could do.
One thing in life I have learned: quitters NEVER win. They can only lose.
SOY BOYS!
I guess they aren’t going to be able to get their participation trophies now.
I see the next bunch of gimmedat obama voters………losers/dems quit and get those freebies as paid by the WINNERS
Wow they just quit their balls fell off
Coach should be fired and stripped of his AD position on principle for even allowing the kids to quit! Disgusting!
Discretion is the better part of valor.
Why not promote all the JV players and finish the season with the team you have?
Madden Cornerback rating of 0
Maybe the coach should quit
Make them honorary Purto Rican who pack up and leave to Florida rather than rebuild and work harder. When the going gets tough, give up.
not in Texas teams get beat 84-0 and keep playing. and in 6-man teams get beat by 45 points all the time and keep on going.. no they should keep playing.. bad decision…
The bigger picture is parents steering their kids away from football because of the head injury issues. I see it in our area and they play other sports. This is going to be the thing that will do in football if a solution isn’t found.
If they’re not having fun, then no no one should say a thing. It’s not hurting the people whining about their quitting.
What ever happened to “It’s not weather you win or lose, but how you play the game?”
…weaklings.
Typical with this new generation don’t fight quit when the going gets tough sad this is why if we have a war with another country with a good standing order, this will happen
Great lesson for the kids. . the first thing that should be done is firing the AD/Coach.. . a real POS . . .
All the quitters should form their own loosers own league just for the F troopers.
It it obvious that the danger to the health of the players is immense when they are obviously playing much stronger teams.
It is California is it not????? That’s all you need to know.
That is really sad, handing those kids the greatest loss by quitting. I played on a bad team my last year, smaller than that one, and we saw some scores like that and no it doesn’t feel good. But quitting, no freaking way. And the last game with two subs on our sideline and an army across the field, that catch at the end that won the game, I wouldn’t trade that catch away. Every kid on that team was robbed of that chance, and it should never have been given to them to vote. Let a kid quit if he has to, and he can handle letting his teammates down, and if you can’t field a team THEN stop it. But voting? That’s ridiculous.
Parents raised a bunch of losers…Parent Fail….