The Ipswich High School Football Team hasn’t been looking so hot for the last couple of years. For the past four years, they have had a negative record each year. The last time they had a positive record was in 2020. This is due to a lack of players on the team. This year, the Ipswich Football Team has about 23 active players, with five of them being seniors and only two freshmen.
Many people believe that Ipswich won’t have a football team in future years. Vin Winter, the quarterback for the team, said, “I don’t think there will be a team. As of right now, we have about 23 active kids playing and only two freshmen. From what I know, there’s also not a lot of freshmen coming up to play, so I think our numbers will be even smaller than this year’s.” Massimo Pinsky also added, “Kids won’t play because they think the team will be bad every year, but a team can never get better if kids don’t play.” He is emphasizing that the team can’t improve if more students don’t come out to play.
There has also been talk about the football team combining with another team, but that’s a big commitment because, where would the home games take place? Luke Wile, one of the football captains, says, “I think it is possible the team could end up combining with another team. Again, though, it all depends on kids wanting to come out and play for the program.”
The football team this year has done better than in previous years. So far, their record is 3-7, and they have one more game left in the season. Luke Wile does think injuries play a big role in why some people don’t play, but injuries can also be prevented. He said, “I think injuries play a huge role in kids not playing, but a lot of people don’t realize that you can prevent an injury by simply going to the weight room. But a lot of kids are just too lazy and would rather do something stupid.” Massimo Pinsky, one of the other captains, spoke about injuries and said this: “I think kids are scared of injuries because they look at football as a very physical, contact sport and think they will get injured if they play, but more injuries have happened to the soccer team than to the football team this year.”
There’s also another problem contributing to the decline in Ipswich Football’s numbers over the past few years. It all starts with the youth program. The youth program is a co-op between Ipswich and Triton. The problem is that a lot of the kids in youth football right now are from Triton, meaning we aren’t getting a lot of Ipswich players. Kids need to start playing football young to have a good chance of continuing to play throughout their middle school and high school years. Luke Wile says, “Ipswich kids are not playing football when they are young because a lot of the Ipswich youth is more into soccer, golf, or something like esports.” Although the Tigers have had such a small team and low numbers, the Tigers were still able to do better than last year’s team, which had more players. If the football program can get more kids to play, the Ipswich Tigers could be a very strong team in the future.
