Bonny Eagle football players wait on the sideline for the coin toss before an Aug. 30 scrimmage against Massabesic. Both teams enter the fall season with deep rosters. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

STANDISH — For years, people tried to convince Ben Noe to play football.

“People were telling me since I was growing up I should play football, but I just kept on denying,” said Noe, a reserve sophomore wide receiver/defensive back pressing for varsity time at Bonny Eagle High. “I gave it a try (last year) and I started liking it, and now I love the game. I try to spread my love of football to other people to see if they can join as well.”

Noe, who transferred to Bonny Eagle from South Portland High as a freshman, is not alone.

As teams and fans head to gridirons across the state for season-opening games this week, football is the lone fall high school sport in Maine experiencing a large rise in participation over the last five seasons.

In the 2018 season, 3,213 athletes played football on Maine varsity, junior varsity or freshmen teams. Last season, the number rose to 3,391 – the highest it has been since 3,450 students played in 2017.

Research by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram shows that just about every other sport has seen a decline in participation over the last 12 seasons.

But not football, which had 3.5% participation growth in 2022 and 5.8% in 2023. Based on rosters provided by 11- and eight-man football coaches across the state, a small increase seems likely in 2024, too.

Participation data is collected by the Maine Principals’ Association and then submitted to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

According to 2023 data from the NFHS, football participation is up 6.4% compared with 2019, the final season before COVID derailed all high school sports.

By comparison, boys’ soccer participation is down 12.4% over the same time period, and girls’ soccer and field hockey have declined 14% and 25.1%, respectively. Overall participation in MPA-sponsored sports is down 8.1% since 2018-19.

So why has Maine high school football seen a rise in numbers?

Coaches around the state point to two primary factors: The introduction of eight-man football in 2019, which allowed struggling programs an opportunity to compete with small rosters; and increased safety awareness and measures that have eased concussion fears.

“Obviously, football is the most popular sport in America to watch. We never had a numbers issue at Wells, but I was scared where we were, going across the state and even across the nation,” said Wells coach Tim Roche. “I was nervous that football was really in danger.”

ROOT OF THE CONCERNS

In 2013, few parents or high school-age players knew of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the then-Boston University researcher whose ground-breaking study linked concussions in NFL players and evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, a progressive disease that affects people who’ve suffered repeated concussions.

Omalu’s widely reported study came out in 2012. In 2015, the movie “Concussion,” with Will Smith portraying Omalu, was released, bringing to light the dangers of CTE. A year later, the NFL finally acknowledged a link between football and brain injuries.

Massabesic and Bonny Eagle football players walk through a handshake line after Bonny Eagle won an Aug. 30 scrimmage in Standish. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

As concussion concerns heightened in the mid-2010s, Maine’s overall high school enrollment was shrinking, leaving programs at smaller schools particularly vulnerable.

Football participation in Maine’s high schools dropped by over 15% from 2013 to 2019. Youth programs also reported steep declines in participation, with many turning to flag football as a safer alternative. Then in the 2020-21 school year, Maine was one of just four states where tackle football wasn’t allowed in high school because of COVID-19.

Not surprisingly, in the first year out of the pandemic, Maine high school football participation dropped again, to 3,105 players – an all-time low since Maine began reporting participation statistics to the NFHS in 1971.

More high school football coaches in Maine are addressing concussion concerns directly, instead of ignoring them, Windham coach Matt Perkins said. He noted that he encourages players to connect him with their parents so he can explain how practices are conducted and how athletic trainers make the concussion calls.

“I want to meet with them and answer all the questions and show them all the things we do to try to prevent concussions and how we handle it when we have any fears or signs of a concussion,” Perkins said. “We can’t guarantee prevention, but we can guarantee we’re going to be safe and if there’s harm, or fear of harm, we’re going to deal with that right away.”

For the last eight to 10 seasons, coaches have greatly reduced the amount of full-contact drills during practice. That includes championship-winning teams like Class A power Thornton Academy and small-school titan Wells.

“Helmet quality has gotten better. We’ve done a better job of teaching tackling and getting the head out of the game,” Roche said. “And I think that’s relaxed some moms.”

More recently, several Maine high schools have adopted using Guardian Caps, a lightweight, spongy protective layer that straps onto the helmet, for practices. This year, the NFL is allowing league-specific Guardian Caps to be worn in games. Following the lead of the NFHS, the MPA has told schools that high school players can wear Guardian Caps in games, said Mike Burnham, the MPA’s executive director. Massabesic had its full team wearing the helmet padding during its exhibition game at Bonny Eagle.

In addressing declining numbers, the MPA made the decision to introduce eight-man football for the 2019 season. Ten teams switched to eight-man football the first season. In 2023, there were 28 eight-man teams in Maine.

“It took a number of years for us to have the interest to be able to introduce eight-man,” Burnham said, “but since then, the notion that it’s not real football has disappeared, and it has provided opportunities.”

Burnham added that he believes eight-man has helped the sport grow.

“When you have low numbers, you’re having to play younger, smaller, less developed kids against bigger, stronger kids,” Burnham said. “To hang on to a football program with 20, 21 kids and go out and play week in and week out (against) teams with many more kids, I do think that injuries played a factor. Kids didn’t want to play and get beat up.”

This season, Washington Academy brought back its dormant program and joined the eight-man ranks, while five programs (Brunswick, Dirigo, Maranacook, Mattanawcook Academy, Mountain Valley) have returned to the traditional 11-man game.

“A school like Maranacook, eight-man gave an opportunity to play football and not lose that program,” coach Skip Bessey said. “For some schools, with small enrollments, they just have to be eight-man. For others like Maranacook, it gave us a chance to rebuild the program.”

Patrick Mooney faced a difficult situation when he returned to his alma mater, Mountain Valley, in 2022 for a second stint as head football coach. A program known for its fervent community support that had won four Class B titles from 2004-10 had switched to eight-man and finished the previous year with 22 players.

“We had a successful 2022 season. We were in eight-man small and we had an undefeated regular season. We scored a lot of points and we had a lot of those players returning,” Mooney said.

Mooney also met with players and parents.

“I was blunt with them. ‘If you want things to change, the community has to follow through and we need players out,’ and here we are 20-21 months later and we’ve more than doubled our numbers.”

The Falcons have 49 players this fall in their return to 11-man in Class D South.

OTHER REASONS FOR GROWTH

Sometimes a leadership change can make a difference.

Falmouth’s new head coach, Spencer Emerson, reported having 47 players on this year’s roster. A year ago, with longtime coach John Fitzsimmons being pressured to resign, the Navigators had a 30-player roster competing in Class B. Injuries forced the team to forfeit one game.

Westbrook, with sagging participation, recently dropped from Class B to C. Third-year head coach Sam Johnson has the team back in Class B, and the Blue Blazes’ roster grew from the mid-30s to 46 players in 2023.

Caleb King, another third-year coach, led Greely back to its own standalone eight-man team after the 11-man program was shelved following the 2018 season. Greely has 43 players this season after graduating 11 seniors.

“We’ve developed some really good young coaches that have taken over some programs,” said Skip Capone, 69, a mentor to many coaches and the new head coach at Cheverus.

Massabesic had 50 players in 2018, its last year in Class A. This season, fourth-year head coach Lucas Labbe has 76 players.

“I feel like a lot of people are talking about it in school and recruiting. We’ve grown,” said Coleman Pennington, a senior captain at Massabesic. “My freshman year, we had like 40 kids, now we have 76. The head coach has done a lot. Every day, he’s recruiting people. The coaches help a lot. Our coaches are huge. They’re just great coaches.”

Some coaches suggest that football’s limited season can help attract new players. Unlike virtually every other sport, there is not a sprawling, year-round travel circuit for tackle football.

So-called “elite” players aren’t identified at age 10. Someone who doesn’t start playing until high school can become a varsity starter.

“Our youth programs are broken and you’re seeing kids get cut at 9-10 years old, and in football we don’t cut kids,” Capone said. “There’s a place for everyone. … In every place I’ve coached, kids come out as freshmen and sophomores, and if they’re willing to work, you can make them into football players.”

New Cheverus football coach Skip Capone works with players during a practice Wednesday. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Wells is one of the state’s most successful programs, but it keeps its summer training in check, partly because Roche knows many of his players are working jobs during the summer tourist season.

“One of the things I love about football is you don’t have to play year-round,” Roche said. “Yeah, we want the kids to be working out and doing some lifting, but you can show up in August and still be a good football player.”

Other tweaks to Maine’s football landscape also may be helping grow the game.

Coaches say a new approach to scheduling – allowing teams to schedule non-league games against well-matched opponents – is making a difference. A favorable schedule probably doesn’t convince a young student to join the team. But an unfair schedule can drive players away.

“Scheduling has certainly helped,” Capone said. “It used to be in Class A, if you played the wrong three, four teams at the beginning of the year, your season was basically over.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Today’s participation in Maine high school football still lags from the peak years of 2005-10, when Maine averaged over 4,000 football players a season. But 2023 marked the first time in which there were consecutive years of growth since a three-year period from 2011-2013, when the sport added about 25 players per season.

Many programs are reporting small increases in participation. Gorham is up about 10 players to 55, and fourth-year head coach Sam Morrison reported that the youth program has 50 players on the seventh/eighth-grade team.

There are still trouble spots. Cape Elizabeth, with less than 30 players, could be heading toward a stint at the eight-man level. Portland High reported 72 players in the 2023 participation survey, its largest turnout in years, but has 50 players this year.

Still, the outlook for football sustainability is much brighter than it was just five years ago. That’s a good thing, said Pennington, the senior captain at Massabesic.

“One, it builds character. You mature. You learn,” he said. “The sport and the culture around it definitely teaches you brotherhood, how to work together, how to trust those guys next to you. Football is fun, but it also builds you as a person a lot.”