Dear McNary Youth Football Parents,
Monday night the Salem/Keizer area Association President’s (Sprague, South Salem, North Salem, McKay, West Salem & McNary met with Salem/Keizer School District officials, school board member, Danielle Bethel and McNary High School Athletic Director Scott Gragg.
The Area Youth Football President’s had a good conversation with the school district officials. Therefore there will not be a hearing on Thursday, January 9th. The school district has agreed to pause the effort to impose new rules on our youth football programs by withholding access to district fields. They will continue to gather additional information on safety and player participation, but as it stands now our youth football programs will:
- Continue to have access to district fields during the 2020 season.
- Will not have to adopt new rules during the 2020 season.
But the fight is not over. The Salem/Keizer School District still believes they have a right to limit youth football access to fields and impose new rules on youth tackle football. We must remain prepared to continue to provide parental input to the school district. We are working with school district officials to set up a time in the future, when they can come and hear from Keizer parents. We will keep you informed as things progress. Thank you for reaching out to school district officials, your efforts helped save youth tackle football in Salem-Keizer for at least one more year!
Warm regards,
McNary Youth Football Board
BACKGROUND
Just before Christmas we received word that the Salem/Keizer School District was considering adopting the OSAA’ s Ad Hoc Advisory committee’s: high school consensus youth football position statement as a conditional requirement for use/rental of Salem/Keizer public facilities (fields). The McNary Youth Football board is opposed to these rule changes and believes it is abusive and arbitrary.
Our board communicated with members of the school board, the Salem/Keizer School Superintendent, McNary Athletic Director, Scott Gragg, McNary High School Principal, Erik Jespersen and notified them all that the McNary Youth Football Program would not adopt the new changes to our program and we would not submit to coercion. The OSAA and the Salem/Keizer school district have no authority over youth football programs. No other sports are being required to accept rule changes as a condition of field use and no other school district in the state is subjecting youth football programs to the same arbitrary rule change.
These rule changes would include:
- Only allow flag football from kindergarten through 4th grade.
- Only allow 7-man rookie tackle in the 5th/6th grade.
- Ban 11-man tackle football until the 7th grade.
- No Playoffs and a shortened season.
We feel these changes will only make Salem/Keizer high school football programs less competitive than they already are today in comparison to schools outside of our area! These rule changes are only being mandated to the Salem/Keizer TVYFL teams, not the rest of TVYFL or the State of Oregon.
