Leading up to the start of Fairview’s fall sports season, many students in the school choose to play a wide variety of the various sports Fairview has to offer. This year, some sports have had especially fluctuating numbers as we kickoff the competitive season.
For the Varsity football coach, Tom McCartney, this means lower enrollment for his football program than in any previous year. According to McCartney, since he got to Fairview around the year 1990, the peak number of kids on the football team had been around 140 kids near the year 2000. Going forward to the year 2024, McCartney talks about the decline in enrollment for football since the previous era.
“Right now we’re in the 80s, but since then, it’s just been slowly going down,” McCartney said. Additionally, this year’s senior class is comparatively smaller than years before, resulting in less veteran presence and more reliance on upcoming stars and youth on the team. This low number of students for football not only leads to some players playing both offense and defense, but also negates the ability to play full defenses, and having the most efficient practices.
Conversely, Nic Kosovich, athletic director, says that Fairview has nothing to worry about when it comes to athletic enrollment.
“[The enrollment] is pretty consistent,” says Kosovich. “I think there’s always some fluctuation in numbers and a big part of those numbers isn’t necessarily high school, it’s what’s around us,” meaning that the number of kids enrolled has to do with the feeder club teams in middle school in the area.
With a focus on all sports at Fairview, the fluctuation in the numbers of athletes is not the result of year by year, but rather the way that the student body reacts to sports. So it may be that some sports gain athletes, and some sports will lose some, while total enrollment stays level.
Though there are lower numbers on the football team this year, it’s not at all because of what’s going on at Fairview, but the lack of kids playing in youth football in Boulder, like the Boulder Bears, year by year. With fewer middle school age players interested in playing football, and feeding onto the team, before high school, the size of the team slowly drops.
While the brief trend seems like the clear answer to the changes in team numbers, both Kosovich and McCartney agree that it’s simply the immense amount of opportunities that Fairview students have. While many upcoming and current high school students are less interested in football, sports like mountain biking or cross country might draw the Boulder demographic more.
Even though Fairview Football, known for its outstanding record and performance, has a lower enrollment this year, the team will likely continue to dominate under Coach McCartney for years to come.
