TEMPLE – Temple’s high school football season ended before it ever started. The 2019 season was canceled recently due to low participation.
TEMPLE – Temple’s high school football season ended before it ever started. The 2019 season was canceled recently due to low participation.
“We had nine kids committed to play,” High School Principal Brad Spurlock said. “They had their physicals and showed up to play.”
However, one team member was deemed to be academically ineligible for the first three games, which left just eight boys on an eight-man squad.
“And there were safety issues,” Spurlock noted.
The eight remaining team members would have had to play both offense and defense throughout all the first three games. And even if no one were injured in the seven remaining games, substitutions would have been severely limited.
“We felt like we needed to protect our kids, for our football future,” Spurlock said.
Temple High School has approximately 55 students in grades 9-12, and 19 of those are boys, he said. Girls outnumber the boys “by about 2-to-1.”
participation rate” among the high school boys, Spurlock said.
Several of them either had no desire to play football or their parents, like many others across the nation, wouldn’t allow them to go out for the team for fear of concussions or other injuries and concerns about Oklahoma’s scorching temperatures in August when practices are held.
The boys who did sign up for football, their first-year coach, fans and local merchants, all “are disappointed, but they understand the situation,” said Spurlock.
Barry Giles transferred to Temple from Empire school district in Stephens County this year to coach the high school football team. Instead, Giles teaches U.S. and world history, powerlifting, and is the track coach.
According to SoonerStats, Giles played on the Oklahoma Sooners offensive line in 1993-97 under three head coaches: Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger, and John Blake.
Temple notified the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) of its decision and informed the coaches of its Class C
Also, “We didn’t have high opponents that it was forfeiting its 10 previously scheduled football games.
Besides Temple, other teams in District C-2 are Maysville, Corn Bible Academy, Fox, Thackerville, Grandfield, Mountain View- Gotebo, and Tipton.
Van Shea Iven, the OSSAA’s media relations director, said any of those schools that can schedule another opponent in place of Temple won’t have to declare a forfeit.
The Cotton County school encountered similar circumstances last year.
“We started with 10 players,” but after two were dismissed and the starting quarterback suffered a broken collarbone, the season was called following the fifth game, related Spurlock, the former football coach.
Temple expects to field a high school football team next year, he said. Enrollment “is up 15 or 16 students this year,” and the junior high squad “has good numbers: about 14 boys,” he said.
Temple school officials simply “pressed the pause button,” Spurlock said.
“Our schools offer a lot overall, academically and athletically,” he said.
The school conducts an academic bowl, participates in agriculture programs and events, sponsors volleyball, softball, baseball, basketball, golf, cross-country track in the fall, “and we play football all the way down to first grade,” Spurlock said. High school football “is just that one thing...”
Temple High School had an average daily membership (ADM) of 41.97 students in grades 9-12 last year, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Education. This year the ADM is recorded as 50.04 by the OSSAA.