In 1963 the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) established divisional football championships. Since that time, 350-plus high school football teams around Florida have been crowned a division. Of those 350-plus state champions, zero…yes you read that correctly, zero, have come from a school here in Lee County! How is it possible for a county that produced talents such as Deion Sanders, Jevon Kearse, and Sammy Watkins be ringless when it comes to an FHSAA football championship?
In addition to zero state championships, only three teams from Lee County have ever made it to a championship game (Bishop Verot in 1991 and 1994, Estero in 1998). Instead of being a Monday Morning Quarterback, I will speak as someone who has covered high school football in Lee County for seven years in stating that the three biggest reasons Lee County has failed to produce a football state champion are: (1) too many high schools, (2) too little student-athlete preparation, and (3) not enough coaching loyalty.
Too Many High Schools
The Problem
When Estero appeared in the 5A FHSAA Final in 1998, Lee County had eight public and two private high schools. Today there are sixteen public high schools and five private and/or charter schools within the county. Although twenty-one high schools may not seem a lot compared to Orange or Dade County, only two of our high schools (Lehigh Senior and Gateway) have a population greater than 2,000 students.
Why is this a problem? With each new high school being built it requires a new football program, new equipment, new athletic facilities, new coaches, and of course new athletes. Furthermore, the need to compete for playing time or even a roster spot is lessened because a player can transfer easily to another school, therefore, it is not impossible to believe a decrease in competitive urgency amongst our high school athletes could be attributed to this phenomenon.
The Solution
At some point the school district will need to consider school consolidation, not just for athletics, but also for: transportation, staffing, and building maintenance purposes. Instead of building more community schools, it is time for the district to consider bigger facilities to house larger populations of students. School consolidation athletically is beneficial because it narrows campus focus for resources, improves competition amongst the student athlete population within the school, and it helps to keep quality position coaches from taking unsuitable head coaching positions at other schools.
Lack of Middle School Football
(Student-Athlete Preparation in Middle School)
The Problem
I first moved to southwest Florida in 2015, and I quickly realized how imperative Pop Warner football was for the development of our future high school football players. The Fire Cats, Raiders, Sting Rays, and Knights just to name a few, have been instrumental in developing our high school talent here in Lee County. However, two of the biggest challenges that I continue to see for our incoming freshmen are (1) understanding the importance of eligibility and (2) being coached differently.
Eligibility: I would argue that a fifth of all football players who enter high school here in Lee County are either ineligible or face risk of ineligibility after their first semester. High school athletes, in general, enter their freshman year without any real understanding of what it means to be accountable, athletically and academically. According to the FHSAA students are ineligible to participate in high school athletics if their GPA is below a 2.0, which means if a freshman bombs his or her first semester in high school that freshman cannot participate in spring football.
The Solution
Coachability: To no fault of Pop Warner coaches in our area, unfortunately many of their players entering high school struggle to adjust to the expectations put forth by their head coach. In many ways, this could be a factor in players opting to transfer more frequently in search of a better coach, instead of a better education, which the latter being the sole intent of school choice.
It is past time for Lee County to form a middle school athletic association. Creating a middle school association here in Lee County will help middle school athletes prepare for the demands of being grade-eligible upon entering high school. Another benefit of establishing a middle school association will be certifying qualified coaches to potentially elevate into vacant high school positions. Lastly, promoting middle school pride will foster the necessity in strengthening rivalries between schools in Lee County.
Lack of Coaching Loyalty within the Brotherhood
When Fort Myers High School head football coach Sam Sirianni Jr. recently retired, it unfortunately brought a reminder of coaching mortality for the greats that we all admired over the years. Apart from Sammy Brown at Dunbar and Darren Nelson at Estero, no current football coach for Lee County Public Schools has served in their role for more than five years. With the new responsibility of being a head coach in such a large county, two errors I have seen novice coaches make in the area are: (1) non-credible reporting against other coaches, and (2) not investing long-term for championship success.
Unfairly Reporting Other Coaches
I wrote a past article on Teddy Bridgewater being unfairly dismissed as the head football coach for Miami-Northwestern because he reportedly violated an FHSAA policy on permissible gifts. Instead of supporting the reality that Bridgewater was guilty of feeding his players and ensuring his players had a ride to school, I received some reaction on my article from coaches justifying his dismissal. As if any of us, who coached a sport in high school, never fed a hungry player or provided a ride home to a stranded player? Any coach that is worth his or her whistle has surely gone above and beyond to help a player with a physiological need.
Unfortunately, it’s all about “who we like” when it comes to this kind of jaded reporting, and this trend will only get worse as the old guards like Sammy et al are fading into the sunset. Coaches are fallible, violations do occur, and programs should be held accountable. However, if a coach reports one school for violating and not another school who commits worse crimes, then that ‘whistle blowing’ coach is nothing more than a hypocrite to the profession.
Closing Point
Zero for 350-plus championships in an area that has so much rich football history is unacceptable in my opinion and view. Resolving the conflict of having so many schools diluting our talent pool, creating a sustainable feeder system in middle school, and building better coalitions within the coaching community are the first steps in securing our first FHSAA football championship in the history of our county.
