(Photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group)

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest, wrote poet William Blake. He wasn’t talking about football, but administrator Roger Blake very much is when he says the game is at a critical juncture: Someday, without changes, it could run out of receivers.

This Blake is executive director of the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees athletics at 1,576 high schools. He raised eyebrows recently when he told reporters on a conference call that the next two to three years will be crucial for the future of the nation’s most popular sport.

Eight high school football players have died since this season began, five from head or neck injuries. Three more died during preseason practice from heat-related causes or sickle cell tied to exertion. And concussion concerns continue apace, as they have for several seasons.

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“I believe parents are seeing the same stories and the same data and taking a step back,” Blake tells USA TODAY Sports. “What parent wouldn’t be asking, ‘Do I want my child out there?’ ”

If so, it’s hard to tell by the numbers. Roughly 1.1 million high school students play 11-man football in grades 9-12, more than any other sport. That’s down slightly — about 10,000 — for 2014, the most recent season for which a count is available from the National Federation of State High School Associations. There was a small rise in 2013 after several seasons of small declines.

Roger Blake, executive director of California Interscholastic Federation, said he believes football is at a critical juncture and action must be taken to make the game safer. (Photo: Heston Quan, MaxPreps)

Blake notes California saw a slight rise recently “but — and I say this with a big, bold but — we are hearing anecdotally from our schools across the state that this year they have seen some significant reductions.”

Four Los Angeles area high schools forfeited games in one week last month because their small rosters were depleted by injury. Cathedral Catholic, a traditional power in San Diego, used to get about 120 to come out for freshman football each year, enough for two teams. This school year Cathedral found around 60 freshmen who wanted to play, part of a steady erosion over the last several years, according to athletics director Dave Smolla.

He says he has long suggested football to parents of Cathedral freshmen as a way for their kids to find ready-made friends as they kick off their high school lives. But these days he often finds openly skeptical parents. “They say, ‘I don’t think so,’ or ‘We’ll find another sport,’ ” Smolla says. “We’re seeing numbers drop across our county.”

They are dropping nationally in youth football, too, but that comes with a caveat: Youth sports overall are down more than youth football.

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports 1.88 million kids aged 6 to 14 played organized tackle football in 2014, down 4% since 2009, when reports linking football to brain disease began finding wider audiences. Organized youth sports overall are down more than 9% since then, with soccer (down 8%) and basketball (down 7%) taking bigger hits than football.

“It’s a violent sport, it’s a difficult sport, but it can be really, really safe,” says Justin Alumbaugh, coach of national power De La Salle High School of Concord, Calif. “Last year we had one concussion, this year we have two total. There’s been changes to tackling, changes to contact rules, there’s been a lot of steps in the right direction.”

Among them are USA Football’s Heads Up Football program, which teaches tackling and blocking techniques designed to reduce helmet contact, among other safety considerations. This month the Louisiana High School Athletics Association became the 11th state association to endorse the program.

Blake points to recent rules in California that limit high school football practice to no more than 18 hours a week while allowing live hitting no more than two days a week. The limit on hours has resulted in about 18% fewer injuries, he says, while data is not in yet on the newer rule that limits contact.

“We continue to make changes,” Blake says. “The game is a lot better today and a lot safer today based on if we look back at the data from 30 years ago and the number of deaths and catastrophic injuries.”
But, he says, it’s not yet as safe as it can be. That’s why he thinks the next two to three seasons are so important. “I think it’s critical that we listen” to the experts, he says. “What else should we be doing?”