[Bird]

We will just have to agree to disagree on the issue of the importance of the elementary program SP. I think it is highly important that 8-10 year olds learn the game and hoprfully find a love for the game. If we have 25 eight graders, I say why dont we have 30 then? One reason we dont keep these fine athletes once they get into high school is we have never placed a great value on our underclassmen. (or so it seems). Why are we not competing in a conference or league every year? Why do we feel the need to to use our underclassmen as practice targets? We need a staff to make certain that our underclassmen are playing every week and practicing daily as a group. We need to promote these kids and we need to ask those who are not playing why arent you playing. Once again if its a transportation issue lets get that resolved. A big issue in the past has been that we seldom have our coaches at the high school level. I think it would be a high priority to have a couple coaches at both the middle school and high school level so we can keep in constant contact with these kids and we leave no stone unturned and have these good kids fall thru the cracks.

I agree with most of this post except the practice target question. Football is a contact sport, and like with any sport a player will only get better playing older, better players. Hitting/getting hit is just part of it. I would like to see some sort of transportation system developed. Looking back at the past 5 years, Burning Springs has won 4 championships I think and has very few high school players on the roster. I would say 80%, or close to that, of the roster comes from Manchester, Hacker, and Paces Creek students.