More Rest Approved For CT's High School Football Players

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

High school football players from eight different schools across the state will play for state championship titles this Saturday with the benefit of much more rest than Connecticut football players used to get – all in an effort to ensure their safety.

There are four state championship games this Saturday – Greenwich versus Darien; St. Joseph versus Ansonia; Hand versus Masuk; and Joel Barlow versus Killingly.

Old timers will remember that semi-final state football games were played on Tuesdays and the state championship games were played four days later – on the same Saturday of the week.

In most cases, the high school players were playing their third game in a 9-or-10-day span, because many also played Thanksgiving Day rivalry games on the previous Wednesday night of Thursday morning before the state championship games began the next Tuesday.

But the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), which governs the state’s athletic programs, made changes to the playoff system years back, as concerns about player safety increased, amidst reports of the dangers of concussions and other such debilitating injuries.

Now the players playing in this Saturday’s championship game have had much more rest – they last played last Sunday – in their semi-final contests.

CIAC media spokesperson Joel Cookson Wednesday said while there isn’t “any concrete medical evidence” available to show the extra added days off between games has slowed down the players’ injuries, the belief is the changes are for the better.

“When we really looked into the whole issue a few years back when the issue of concussions and sports injuries were getting a lot of attention there was just a general feeling that playing so many games in a short period of time wasn’t healthy,” said Cookson.

Cookson said there are some other changes that the CIAC has made, besides lengthening the playoff season to ensure the safety of the players.

He said those changes include: a mandatory bye week for every team during the season; that no team play more than 10 games in any individual season; and, that teams who qualify for the postseason aren’t allowed to have “contact” practice seasons as they practice for their playoff games.

Photo credit: Tim Jensen