[charlie22]

You mentioned a track program as an advantage. I think it is the opposite; I think a track program benefites from a football coach who pushes kids to participate in track and field. At Highlands the track team was embarrassing this year with only about 6 athletes. Their track program always challenged for the regional title until recently, when football players stoped running/throwing/jumping. I am not saying the coach discourages football players from track, but he is definietly not encouraging.

And from what I know, you would be totally wrong on your last sentence. One of the asst football coaches at Highlands is one of the track coaches. He obviously was encouraging the football players to run track. From what I know, the rest of the football coaching staff does indeed encourage the football players to run track (and play baseball too by the way). I know that since my son was one of the very few football players that participated on the track team and he was heavily encouraged do do so by the football coaches. He is also very good friends with the football players that didn't run last year but had done so in the past. He almost begged them to come out for track. Some were just very tired and worn out from the long football season and wanted to take some time off. A couple that were going on to play college football wanted to concentrate on lifting to get bigger for college. One very fast senior had a bad arm injury and wanted to concentrate on his rehab and getting ready for college football. Some of the younger ones wanted to concentrate on getting ready for the football team this year and they felt it would be better to not come out for track. I spoke with the fathers of the core group of kids that had ran track the prior year but were not going to run track last year. It had nothing to do with the football coaches not encouraging them to run track. It had everything to do with the kids themselves making the decision for various reasons not to do so.

I'm sorry to be offensive, but from my the experience of my son and what he's told me, I don't think you know what you are talking about on this point. Do not make the quantum leap in logic that just because the football players don't come out for track (or baseball), it's because the football coaches are either discouraging or not encouraging enough the football players to play other sports.