By Mike Turner, Guest Columnist
I am a parent of a player in the Smoky Mountain Youth Football League and have some major concerns about some of the changes they have made in the recent years.
Last year, the league voted on changing the age limit of the midget league (the oldest league) to be 11-13 rather than 11-12, which meant that during the season a player could turn 14 and still be playing against kids who are 11. Parents were not told about this until the season started.
During the season, there was a noticeable difference in size, speed, weight of players who where 14 years old compared to the 11 – or in other words, an eighth-grader and a fifth-sixth-grader. This resulted in some 11-year-olds electing not to play due to the discrepancy in size and fear of getting hurt, with others who decided to play getting injured or not wanting to play anymore due to getting dominated by the older players. There were numerous parents who voiced concerns that the age range was too much and needed to be changed.
So what did the league do to fix the problem this year? They moved the 11-year-olds down a league to play in the mites. So now the mites league will consist of ages 9-11 rather than ages 9-10. This means that a player can turn 12 during the season and hit 9-year-olds. This is the same problem.
Have you seen what a 12-year-old looks and moves like compared to a 9? This will cause even more players to not want to play, and even more safety concerns for the athletes.
I have tried to talk to different league representatives about this decision without much success or much response at all. They cannot and have not given me a reason why the change other than the players just need to suck it up and play.
I am emailing you in hopes that you can help get the information out to other parents that if they do not want their 9-year-old child (third-fourth-grader) to get hit by middle-schoolers (sixth-graders) they need to talk with their league representatives. I do not want other parents, like we were last year, blindsided by the age change.
My hopes is that you as a newspaper may have a better chance of getting to the bottom of why these decisions were made and allow parents an opportunity to voice their concerns before the season starts. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
The league representative for Murphy is Jeff Stiles, the league representative for Andrews is Alyson Hamby and the league president is Max Powell.
The writer is a resident of Swain County.