The decision to cancel this football season was not based on talent or skill, but based on the safety of the students. Athletic director and Head Football Coach Chuck Sennett clarified that  “football is a sport where you can’t just the day before walk out and start playing, there’s a level of conditioning and a level of skill that has to be developed. It really takes 2 to 3 weeks to get kids ready to play a football game or at some level they are gonna get hurt.”

Sennett adds, “I really anticipated that we would’ve had a fantastic season…We started practice on August 7th… unfortunately we only had 16 people in camp ready to play, and out of the 16, 13 were eligible to play for our first game. Other players chose to wait until the first week of school to show up, or chose to not play at all. So we were forced [to cancel the season] with only 16 players.”

Coach Anthony Haderer agrees: “we anticipated the numbers, but the kids just didn’t come out… there was just a lack of commitment.”

When asked about the future of the program Sennett admitted, “…it’s gonna be very difficult for us to have a program after what happened this past week… I see this as being the possibility of shutting the program down. Out of our 16 that were committed, 9 of those were seniors…and there seems to be a level of apathy for some reason with underclassman.”

Miami Country Day’s Middle School team is also lacking players, with only 10 signed up as of right now and their first game scheduled for September 7th. “Unfortunately, if we don’t have additional people join the team, we will have to cancel the season.”

“The kids who were out there working hard were the ones that were ultimately punished because we just didn’t have enough people to play,” Sennett lamented. “It’s just a shame we’ve had a football program since 1978 – we’ve had bumps and bruises along the way but this is the first time that we won’t have an entire season – the program is clearly in jeopardy of continuing and it’s just unfortunate. I’ve been around football since I’ve been here in 91 and I have an empty feeling in my stomach knowing that we’re not gonna have varsity football this year.”