Independent Status for Charger Football

A message from Head of School Andrew Watson

If you have attended an Academy football game lately, you have probably noticed that participation in the program has decreased to numbers that raise concern, particularly now that all of our athletic teams have been placed in 5A by NMAA’s new classification model. We petitioned against the football portion of this model last year, but our petition was denied.

At the same time, and over many years, our talented and hard-working players, their dedicated coaches, and their supportive parents have shown that we can take the field and succeed against 5A (previously 4A before the number of classifications expanded) teams when we have enough players available throughout the season for the rigors of four quarters of play against larger programs.

In consultation with Coach Carroll and Athletic Director Bachis, and with the knowledge that we only have 17 players identified for possible varsity play next year, we decided to make an initial inquiry with NMAA about playing football as an independent team next year, and possibly into the future, unless our numbers rise. The response was impressively quick, and positive, about this possibility, so we are proceeding to enact this change for the coming football season. This means that we will construct a football schedule with the appropriate level of competition, though it also means that we will forego the possibility of competing in class 5A post-season play.

The Academy has played an independent schedule in the past, in three eras, most recently from 2002-04. The advantage of this model is that we can find worthy opponents matched to our size, thus offering our players the opportunity to play football throughout their time at the Academy. By the way, many of the teams you’ve seen at the Richard A. Harper Memorial Field in the past will still be on the schedule. With this move, however, we enable our program to continue and, possibly, grow back to district play in the future.

Coach Carroll reminds me that we’ve been playing football here since 1960, opening with an away game against the Judson School in Arizona. We lost that game 22-6, but we’ve gone on to establish a record of 293 wins, 218 loses, and 5 ties since then (Coach Carroll, by the way, is the coach responsible for 152 of these victories). I think a change to independent status will allow us to continue this storied tradition for many years to come, and I look forward to celebrating our 300th victory with many of you soon!

Go Chargers!