Red Rider Nation;1280659 wrote:Too many other things this day in age to distract the youth. Ipods, xbox, cell phones and all the other non sense that keeps kids from even sitting down and watching a football game. If they never see it how would they ever wanna do it? I have seen 8 year old kids with cell phones. Unreal!

Agreed with all the video games they play now they don't go out back and even play football in the yard anymore.

Red Rider Nation;1280671 wrote:Great point. If they win another state title this year is it fair to say their tradition is better than ours? We would have more playoff appearances but only won the thing 1 time. What do you think? If so they will have surpassed our "great" tradition in only 2 years!

I don't think they will surpass our tradition because that is built over many years. However they will have bragging rights as to who the best program in the county is as well as the state, if they win it all again this year.

Troll King;1280677 wrote:I don't think they will surpass our tradition because that is built over many years. However they will have bragging rights as to who the best program in the county is as well as the state, if they win it all again this year.

I agree

interesting points brought up in the last 2 pages....

One I don't think peewee football has anything to do with the decline in the numbers we have at the high school. The same thing happened when we had flag football here, so I don't think you can relate the issue to the peewee program. I played peewee in Rittman for 3 years and I can tell you that half of the kids that played were not from Rittman, most were from Orrville because we didn't have a peewee program.

I agree with the amount of sports we do offer, it does limit numbers in your bigger sports. Although I think it is good for schools to offer as many extra-curricular activities as they can, at some point I think the school has to look at participation/enrollment and try to see what activities they should offer. With our overall enrollment declining the way it is, I think this is something that needs addressed as well as the league we are in..which I know we have been trying to leave the OCC for a while now.


Great points about the blue collar community Orrville once was, and I believe the loss of manufacturing jobs in Orrville has a direct relation to the lack of that "Grittier, nastier, tougher" mentality we used to have. Back then, kids didn't care what they looked like, they just wanted to go out and hit somebody...Louis Lastic in Remember the Titans said it best: "If I have to be in school, I might as well hit some poeple while I'm at it" Now kids are more worried about what type of uniforms they are going to have, how many arm bands can they wear, what color spat tape they are going to use for the game etc....which is not just Orrville, colleges are using the uniform thing as a recruiting tool.

I just think the game has changed and the violence/hard nosed/smashmouth attitude isn't there anymore from peewee football all the way to the NFL.

Finally about Norwayne, I think they are building the foundation of a solid football program...but to say if they win another state title they would have a better tradition than ours. I say that because tradition is built over time, not in 2 years. Is 2 state titles impressive...absolutely! I just think you need more than a 2-3 year winning period to build the tradition that equals or surpasses Orrville's. Also, I could see Harbaugh leaving for a big school if the opportunity came.

Troll King;1280673 wrote:Agreed with all the video games they play now they don't go out back and even play football in the yard anymore.

I see high school kids who don't even know how to throw a football!

The common excuses I hear are "mom's worried about injuries", "I'm playing basketball/baseball, that's enough", "I don't want to play for a losing team", etc.

The ultimate reason, though, is that it's hard. Most kids don't like hard. And worse yet, they get away with it. There's very little parental or peer pressure to play. That might be construed as "bullying", and that's a no no. I'm hearing more and more reports of football players not being allowed to sit together at lunch. That's "exclusionary", and that's bad, too. Mind you, they don't tell others they can't sit with them - it's just that they gravitate together because of all the hours they practice. But that's still bad. The good kids are almost punished for playing football, it seems.

Troll King;1280677 wrote:I don't think they will surpass our tradition because that is built over many years. However they will have bragging rights as to who the best program in the county is as well as the state, if they win it all again this year.

They might get out of the region...because it's weak....but there's some real good teams over in 14 (Hartley, Ready, O-G) and down in 15 (Ironton/St. Clairsville)..just to name a few.

If they win it all again....yeah. Simple math. 2 > 1.

Norwayne has not won the title this year yet. If they do they will have earned it again...tradition is being built there now they have to maintain it.

I wouldn't confuse a couple good years with "tradition." Orrville football has a tradition. Smithville, Waynedale and Dalton have tradition. Norwayne needs about 25 more league titles to catch up with any of those guys.

If they can sustain this for the next two decades, then I'll call it "tradition" rather than an aberation. And I'm not bashing them. They've done something no other WCAL team has done, which is amazing. But one great year and a couple good years out of 45 doesn't yet make a winning tradition.

Found this is my archives...1963 team that went 10-0. If you count the guys in the red jerseys (assuming it was red), there were 36 guys....that's less than we have on this year's team.

Plenty more distractions now than there were 50 years ago...but numbers are similar.

Everything goes in cycles. Nice picture redrider1. Numbers will go up and down and so does talent at a public school.

RedRider1;1280983 wrote:Found this is my archives...1963 team that went 10-0. If you count the guys in the red jerseys (assuming it was red), there were 36 guys....that's less than we have on this year's team.

Plenty more distractions now than there were 50 years ago...but numbers are similar.

there is also probably 5000 more people in Orrville now then there was back then. The numbers back then we're probably more appropriate to the size of the town then they are now.

Norwayne is a long way from being a State Championship caliber team yet. I'm not saying they cant get there but they have a lot of work to do before that. It is exciting to think about though and our region is definitely weaker then all of the others.

Troll,
In 1950 there was just over 5000...and in 1970 it was up to 7400. So lets guess that in 1960 there were 6000-ish. That's about 2/3 of what it is today.

So we should be 1/3 bigger in terms of kids in the school & teams...so we should be around 50 kids if all those percentages hold.

Nice pic RR. The best part of that pic is looking at our schedule. 50 yrs later and we are still playing schools much much bigger than us. All those wins and all those playoff appearances playing the schedule we have for the life of our program is simply awesome! Tradition!

RedRider1;1281037 wrote:Troll,
In 1950 there was just over 5000...and in 1970 it was up to 7400. So lets guess that in 1960 there were 6000-ish. That's about 2/3 of what it is today.

So we should be 1/3 bigger in terms of kids in the school & teams...so we should be around 50 kids if all those percentages hold.

I was just guessing at the number of people back then , I don't really know how many there were. However I imagine there are considerably more now. Therefore that should translate into more kids on the team today , hence the whole distraction thing.

The majority of our population is out of school according to the census report.

http://censusviewer.com/city/OH/Orrville

Thanks for setting somebody straight, fellas.

Back in the day, half the town's adults had school age children. Today, it is around 20%.

My graduating class of 1971 had 170 students. Recent years graduating classes are around 120 to 130.

How about we go out and beat WH this Friday?

Go Riders!

Troll King;1281018 wrote:there is also probably 5000 more people in Orrville now then there was back then. The numbers back then we're probably more appropriate to the size of the town then they are now.

The only thing in this picture that stands out to me is the 47 points they allowed that year. That is impressive. If we dont do something different on offense Friday and keep WH scoring attack off the field we will give up more than that in one game!

This was told to our kids today at practice.

Goal #1 for West Holmes this Friday...shut out Orrville.
Goal #2 for West Holmes this Friday...score 50.
Goal #3 for Weat Holmes this Friday...embarrass us on our turf.

I guess if 1 & 2 happen, #3 is achieved.

Time to play for pride Riders. If that doesn't motivate our kids to play with some passion, then nothing will.

Oh and also...we've played West Holmes and Triway most seasons since 1970. A few breaks here and there, but the majority of seasons since '70, we've played both.

...and we've NEVER lost to both in the same season.

Seniors...you're down to probably your last 5 games as a Red Rider...and your last 3 home games EVER. Time to start making it count.

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BRF;1281139 wrote:Thanks for setting somebody straight, fellas.

Back in the day, half the town's adults had school age children. Today, it is around 20%.

My graduating class of 1971 had 170 students. Recent years graduating classes are around 120 to 130.

How about we go out and beat WH this Friday?

Go Riders!

I wasn't set straight , I said I didn't know how many people there were back then. I was simply stating my opinion as to the distraction thing that was mentioned.

RedRider1;1281164 wrote:This was told to our kids today at practice.

Goal #1 for West Holmes this Friday...shut out Orrville.
Goal #2 for West Holmes this Friday...score 50.
Goal #3 for Weat Holmes this Friday...embarrass us on our turf.

I guess if 1 & 2 happen, #3 is achieved.

Time to play for pride Riders. If that doesn't motivate our kids to play with some passion, then nothing will.

Good stuff! That is motivating. If we dont come out with a solid gameplan and execute all 3 of these willl happen!

I just want to see us come out with a chip on our shoulder, play with a little swag, and quit playing not to get beat...just go play!

We have nothing to lose now and every game we can be a spoiler. Time to step it up seniors as your last season as a Red Rider is coming to an end.

Juniors and Sophs...don't want wait for someone else to make a play, go do it yourself.

Play with some enthusiasm and pride with a refuse to lose attitude!

RTR

Old Rider after reading that post I want to play again...wait I allways want to play just one more game.

RedRider1;1281164 wrote:This was told to our kids today at practice.

Goal #1 for West Holmes this Friday...shut out Orrville.
Goal #2 for West Holmes this Friday...score 50.
Goal #3 for Weat Holmes this Friday...embarrass us on our turf.

I guess if 1 & 2 happen, #3 is achieved.

Time to play for pride Riders. If that doesn't motivate our kids to play with some passion, then nothing will.

Thats not fair, making stuff up to motivate your team lol:rolleyes: