Sports

Former college standout and pro hockey player Steve MacSwain and colleague Eric Troisi visited Treadwell Ice Arena from the Anchorage area to hold a two-day hockey camp. MacSwain also donated a piece of Olympic memorabilia from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Gold Medal hockey team.

All photos by Steve Quinn.

Juneau high school football teams suffered major losses this weekend.

In a home game marked by penalties, interceptions and fumbles, the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears fell to the Henry Foss High School Falcons on a score of 41 to 22.  It was the Bears’ first loss of the season. One consolation: it was a non-conference game.

The Thunder Mountain Falcons were overwhelmed by the North Pole Patriots, who won on a score of 64 to 0.  Both teams are part of the Southeast Conference and the loss does count toward the season. The game was played in North Pole.

Foss, from Tacoma, Wash., traveled to Juneau for the game.

JDHS has four wins and one loss for the season. Two were Southeast Conference  games.

TMHS has one win and one loss in conference games and two non-conference losses.

It’s football season in Alaska.

The sport continues to gain popularity in the 49th state, where the first official high school football championship game was played less than 25 years ago.

But in Alaska and nationally concerns over football’s safety have grown, and more and more parents are refusing to let their children play youth football because of the risk of injury. Football officials at all levels have responded by trying to make the game safer.

KTOO’s Casey Kelly recently talked to coaches and players with the Juneau Youth Football League to find out how they are approaching the problem.

Juneau’s Dimond Park Field House is swarming with nearly 150 six- to 14-year-old football players wearing their brightly colored team jerseys. They run around on the turf, tossing footballs, and, of course, trying to tackle each other. That is, until a coach summons them to the middle of the field, where he introduces former NFL Quarterback Jake “The Snake” Plummer.

“You guys like to play football, right?” Plummer asks.

“Yes!” the kids yell back.

Plummer: “You want to play for a long time?”

Kids: “Yes.”

“All right,” says Plummer. “Then the key tonight is to listen up and to pay attention when your coaches go through these drills.”

At 6’2″ and 215 pounds, Plummer still looks fit enough to play, even though he took his last snap for the Denver Broncos in 2006. After he became a coach, he says he realized young players today are not being taught proper techniques. Specifically, too many players are learning the wrong way to tackle.

“Don’t use that helmet as a weapon,” Plummer says. “That thing is there to protect you. That’s like a shield, that’s not your sword. That’s a shield that will protect your head from getting injured.”

Plummer is now an ambassador for USA Football, the official youth development organization of the NFL and its players association. Juneau Youth Football League Director of Coaching Brandon Mahle says JYFL became a full-fledged member of USA Football this year to take advantage of its certified training programs.

“You get online, usafootball.com, and they have certifications from tackling to flag football,” Mahle says. “They complete their certifications, give them to me, and then they’re eligible to coach for the season.”

During his visit to Juneau, Plummer led a clinic on Heads Up tackling, which teaches players to keep the crown of the helmet up and their eyes on the player they’re trying to take down. The idea is to limit injuries, like concussions or stingers, which is basically a pinched nerve in the neck.

Mahle says JYFL coaches have also gone to a limited tackling policy in practices. He says many NFL and college teams have similar policies.

“They have found that you can go what’s called ‘thud level,’ which is hit to contact without taking kids to the ground,” Mahle says. “That you can achieve the same level at practice as you could hitting to take kids to the ground. And you have much less injuries in the process.”

Juneau youth football coach Krag Campbell says some parents are skeptical of limited or Heads Up tackling practices. But overall he thinks it’s a positive step.

“You see some people going against it, because they were always taught hit low, hit low, this diving tackle,” says Campbell. “So, it’s trying to change that perception. And it just takes time. And I really see the biggest benefit we’re going to see is the younger kids growing up.”

Mike Carriker’s son Noah plays for the Seahawks of the Cubs Division. As a parent, he applauds the new emphasis on safety.

“I was really hesitant – didn’t want him involved, worried about injuries,” Carriker says. “But he was persistent. And that last month it was every day: ‘Daddy can I play? Daddy can I play?’ So we gave in. But knowing that they were doing a lot to prepare kids and have them do things right to try and prevent injury was kind of one of the things that helped us make a decision.”

Heads Up tackling is on full display at a recent game between the Senior Division Hawkeyes and Red Raiders. Hawkeyes quarterback/running back Liam Van Sickle says he’s never had a concussion, and he hopes Heads Up tackling means he never will.

“I think it’s just as effective and it’s a lot safer,” Van Sickle says. “I’ve had people on my team get like stingers and stuff. I think this is a good way to help prevent that.”

Most importantly, Van Sickle says the new focus on safety won’t change the way he plays:

“I like to lower my shoulder and stuff and this way I won’t lower it into their helmet. It will be a nice clean hit.”

Jeremy Hsieh contributed to this report.

Sailing is thriving in the capital city through a club called Southeast Alaska Sailing, also known as SEAS.

The mission of the group is to promote an appreciation of sailing. That’s done through organized races in the spring and summer as well as a weekly event called Get Out The Boat.

Lisa Phu was on board the sailboat Surprise for the 3-day Labor Day Regatta to Taku Harbor.

The Juneau Adult Hockey Association kicked off its fall season Sunday with a slate of 5 games. A couple hundred players participate in the league. Games are played almost nightly through the end of November at the Treadwell Ice Arena.

All photos by Steve Quinn

The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears and North Pole Patriots football teams are playing in the medium schools football division this year.

Both schools have played in the Cook Inlet and Railbelt leagues for large schools; now they compete in the Southeast Conference against Ketchikan, Sitka and Juneau’s Thunder Mountain.

“There’s not many conferences left, so we’re kind of making the rounds through all of them.”

Head coach Rich Sjoross has seen JDHS enrollment fall from a high school with nearly 1,800 students to less than 700.

North Pole High School near Fairbanks also has a dwindling enrollment. Head coach Richard Henert says it’s down to about 740 students this fall.

“Ultimately it came down to the fact that ASAA has a cut off and we’re below that cutoff. “

In 2011, the Alaska School Activities Association added a third football division for schools with enrollments of 326 to 800 students.

ASAA is the sanctioning organization for athletics and other activities.

State Championships Director Isaiah Freeman says three divisions help small schools compete, like Barrow, Eielson, Valdez, or Seward.

“A lot of the smaller schools could never, ever beat the medium schools.  Just like the medium schools have a harder time beating like the Bartlett, Chugiak and Dimond’s. That was kind of the reasoning behind the division,” Freeman says.  

For years, Juneau and North Pole competed at the top of the large schools division. They made the state playoffs several times; JDHS won the championship twice in the last decade.

Both schools opted to stay in the Railbelt for the first two seasons after their size shrunk.   Now it’s hard for JDHS and North Pole to compete with the large schools from Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the MatSu.

Where once there were 70 to 80 Crimson Bears, 47 boys signed up this season, says coach Sjoross.   There’s little depth.

It was predictable, Sjoross says, when TMHS was built and started its own football program.  “You knew the numbers were going to decrease and something was going to have to happen, and money was going to get tighter and that kind of stuff,” Sjoross says.  “So I think we’re making the most of it.”

Thunder Mountain also has about 47 players.  The Falcons have been in the Southeast Conference since the team formed five years ago.

While North Pole still has a lot of kids going out for football, Coach Henert calls the move to the SEC realistic.

“Pretty much one out of every three boys that go to North Pole High School plays football.  We get a lot of bodies out.   Whereas West Anchorage, they have so many kids it’s probably one out of every 10 to 15 boys that plays of football, but it’s the biggest boys in school that play football,” Henert says.

He says making the move was a tough issue for coaches and players.

“You never want to play down, so to speak.  Those that are competitive want to step up to challenges.” 

But coaches Sjoross and Henert believe Juneau and North Pole can help make the small Southeast Conference stronger.

“We’d like to see programs like Sitka and Ketchikan grow and we hopefully can advocates in the conference there, and maybe help them out and find ways to make football better in Alaska,” Henert says.

Crimson Bears’ Coach Sjoross says the medium schools division, which includes the Northern Lights and Southeast conferences, may be the one to watch this season.

In the Southeast, however, Sitka will not to play JDHS and North Pole.  That leaves only four SEC teams and eight weeks in the regular season, so the two stronger teams have scheduled games against some of Alaska’s tougher squads from other conferences.

JDHS players say they’re comfortable in the SEC, especially since the schedule does offer them more competition.  The motto this year, says running back Demetrius Campos, is the same as when they played the bigger schools:

“State conference.  That’s the ultimate goal.”