Prep Football- New London’s football program was just one in a growing line of programs that either had to pause or fully cancel their seasons due to injuries, resulting in a lack of numbers. In fact, the Tigers had just secured their second victory of the season two weeks before shuttering up for the season after Highland’s head football coach Corey Quail opted to resign to ensure their season was forfeited.
Before the 2025 season began, KILJ’s local Eight-Player district housing WACO and Winfield-Mt. Union lost Lone Tree as an opponent after the Lions did not have enough players to field a team. Before New London, the state of Iowa had already seen seven schools pause or cancel their football season. Even last year’s Eight-Player state champion Remsen-St. Mary’s had paused their season for two weeks due to a roster size of 17 players. One of their wins this season was against a team, Siouxland Christian, who had to forfeit their entire season before it started.
In comparison, that outmans Class A’s Highland by four players and New London by one player. This was not the first time the Tigers were forced to forfeit a game due to mounting injuries. Two years ago, while still in Eight-Player, New London canceled a week four matchup against Central City to give their roster time to heal. The Iowa High School Athletic Association rules state that a program must present how they can finish a season safely before continuing play.
New London would go on to finish the season and not miss a game in the 2024 season. Nevertheless, the Tigers opted to hop back into Class A’s 11-man football during the offseason. The decision to make the move is more complicated than counting student-athletes who are eager to suit-up for the football season.
New London School District Superintendent Chad Wahls and coach Quail echoed the sentiment of “player safety” when declaring that the season will not continue. The rise in research regarding concussions and more importantly, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), has caused concern amongst parents in letting their children play tackle football.
Despite Iowa’s sport participation numbers being one of the highest in the country, overall, tackle football saw a 5% decline in participation from 2019 to 2023 according to Participation Trends – State of Play 2024. This follows a sharp decline that occurred in the early 2010s; consequences from the National Football League (NFL) ostensibly admitting to interfering in concussion research by pledging money to the Boston University CTE Center (Fainaru and Fainaru-Wada).
Paradoxically, with participation numbers seemingly decreasing, viewership and interest in NCAA Division I-A football and the NFL have been climbing. Additionally, with moves to make the game safer, fans and former players alike hark that violence is the name of the game, including Tom Brady’s stance that the game is “a little softer” than it used to be (Roscher).
To get a better grasp on the situation, I interviewed Trent Swords, who has been coaching high school football in Illinois since 1993, to see what trends he’s witnessed throughout his coaching years and his takeaways from a situation that is occurring all over the country.
Slaten: Has the perception of football changed from when you started coach to now?
Trent: I think people like football as much if not more than when I started coaching. I think parents are more aware of and more concerned about the possibility of injury, which has caused more parents to not encourage their sons to play football. So, I think football is still perceived as a very likeable sport to watch and cheer for but not pushed a much as it used to be.
Slaten: How have numbers fared throughout your high school coaching career?
Trent: It’s kind of interesting. In the fall on 1993 in Ottawa, when I started, there were 50 or so freshman, 13 sophomores, and mid-30s for juniors and seniors. We pulled about 10 freshmen to play sophomore football. Everywhere I ever knew or competed against at that time had at least a freshman team, a sophomore team, and a varsity team (Class 4A for Illinois football). From 1994 until possibly around 2015 we usually had around a total of 110 kids in the program. From that time on, it declined to about 75-80 kids in the program.
2015 was a seminal year for safety and tackle football. Columbia Pictures released the film Concussion a dramatic biopic about forensic pathologist Bennet Omalu navigating the NFL’s attempt to suppress his research about CTE in football players after studying former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster’s brain.
Jeanne Laskas details the trials and tribulations Dr. Omalu went through after receiving Webster’s brain in 2002 in her article Game Brain: Football Players and Concussion. The article will be cited below, it illustrates how far the NFL went to hide the effects of its game
Slaten: You’re now coaching at a smaller Catholic school and despite having stable numbers for your program, how has you season been impacted by other schools hurting for numbers?
Trent: Well, when I had the numbers, we had freshman A and B games, a sophomore game, and then a JV team that were juniors and seniors that did not play in the varsity game. First, we had to get rid of the JV games because of everyone’s numbers declining. Then freshman B games followed by the freshmen and sophomore games altogether, leading to those teams combining to form a JV team. So, a lot of schools now only have the two squads: varsity and JV. Now, some schools don’t have enough numbers to field a team. Schools have had to go to other states and play larger schools.
Coach Swords is currently working as an assistant coach at Marquette High School in Illinois. The Crusaders have had quite the successful decade and a half, posting 13 straight winning season. Unfortunately, scheduling has become a difficult matter.
Their week three matchup saw the Catholic school load up into a bus and travel nearly 300 miles north to play two-time defending District 7 state champion in Wisconsin, Edgar High School. The result was a narrow 9-6 loss to a Wildcat squad that is still undefeated.
Nevertheless, it does conjure up another factor into the decision-making process that is often left behind. The choice to play at a certain level or at all goes beyond just counting student athletes; instead, the forgotten factor that is highlighted by the example above is travel costs. Let’s look at how many miles New London traveled last year compared to their projected travel for this year and next.
While apart of Eight-Player football last year, the Tigers circumnavigated 409.7 miles for their eight-game season. Four of their five road trips measured over 70 miles.
This season, travel was nearly cut in half to 241 miles with just one of their four road trips consisting of a journey over 60 miles. Next year, their four-game road journey would shrink to 131.6 miles with their furthest trip consisting of a road showdown with Cardinal, a mere 51.9 miles away.
Slaten: What factors do you think play into their reduction of numbers?
Trent: Parents encouraging their kids to participate in extra-curricular activities in high school. Quite a few engage in youth sports thinking it will result in college scholarships or a professional career. As it becomes obvious that will not occur, parents see it as a waste of time and money for their child to continue playing sports in high school. In my experience, all sports have a decreased number of participations, so it’s not only football. Additionally, the game demands a certain amount of physicality, so kids and parents see it as a waste of time and money to participate if the kid is not starting, especially for how demanding the sport can be.
Slaten: Do you think this is part of the ebb and flow of high school sport participation or a trend that will continue?
Trent: I am hopeful that it’s just a low point and that parents and schools see the value of participating in sports in high school. There’s a lot to be gained by participating even if you’re not a starter or getting scholarships.
This is not the first time that football has seen a downturn in participation. In fact, 1904 and 1905 saw a combined 37 football-related fatalities, resulting in prominent universities such as Stanford, Northwestern, and Duke to drop football before President Theodore Roosevelt got involved and the rulebook was revised (Klein).
Staying within the 21st century and just down the road from New London, Danville reentered the football scene in 2023 after seven years of co-oping with other programs. The Bears just hosted their first postseason game in their third consecutive playoff berth.
The community mourns the loss of New London’s 2025 football season, but the game has a habit of finding its way back.
Works Cited
Fainaru, Steve, and Mark Fainaru-Wada. “Congressional Report Says NFL Waged Improper Campaign to Influence Government Study.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 24 May 2016, www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/15667689/congressional-report-finds-nfl-improperly-intervened-brain-research-cost-taxpayers-16-million.
Klein, Christopher. “How the Forward Pass Saved Football.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, 28 May 2025, www.history.com/articles/forward-pass-football-invented-origins.
Laskas, Jeanne Marie. “Game Brain: Football Players and Concussions.” GQ, 15 Sept. 2009, www.gq.com/story/nfl-players-brain-dementia-study-memory-concussions.
“The NFL Tried to Intimidate Scientists Studying the Link between Pro Football and Traumatic Brain Injury.” Union of Concerned Scientists, 11 Oct. 2017, www.ucs.org/resources/nfl-tried-intimidate-scientists-studying-link-between-pro-football-and-traumatic-brain.
“Participation Trends – State of Play 2024.” Project Play, 2024, projectplay.org/state-of-play-2024-participation-trends.
Roscher, Liz. “Tom Brady Says NFL Is ‘a Little Softer than It Used to Be.’” Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo!, 22 Sept. 2021, sports.yahoo.com/nfl-buccaneers-tom-brady-says-nfl-is-a-little-softer-than-it-used-to-be-160415290.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAN57wt1cAyWBtu8WvzScLq1MbSfbctEXRt6wknM3sdv8L84Yvk-wmV8z7KexTucX2B4-X7xjehGKGtM386mwB98PUXNNbznY1oSLw8_9waVmxpErQ5xpIsH74PcdB5y6UI0ci9PHINSpYUmCy1RA-S-56QSUgvfj06LLIE1sam18.