My high school junior son does not play. He is 5'9" 120 pounds. He is quite fast, and they wanted him to play (we are in class C Montana 8 man football. 90 kids in the entire hs, and not unusual for small kids to play varsity football). He just doesn't enjoy it. I honestly don't really enjoy watching my kids play football as much as I do when my kids aren't playing because I'm worried about injury.

My 8th grade son is about 5'3", 95 pounds, hasn't hit puberty yet. He is the starting qb on the undefeated middle school team (also 8 man fb). He plays both ways, returns punts and kick offs, and is far and away the best player on the team. He doesn't enjoy it, and says that he doesn't plan on playing in hs.

There is a lot of pressure to play in the small town. This is traditionally a football town, and the quality of the team has been down for a lot of years, up until this year, and we are 5-2. 80% of the team is freshman and sophomores. The future is looking bright, so hopefully they won't pressure my son too much to play if he doesn't want to. I'm going to support him in whatever he does, like I did with his older brother.

My boys love basketball, and are also really good at track. We have pushed for a cross country team here, but the admin and school board refuse, because they don't want to lose any kids from the fb team.

FB participation is down nationwide, and I think that CTE worries play a significant part of that. I really don't think that my boys think about it as much as I do. They just don't enjoy it much. My 8th grader will come home after throwing for or running for 6 tds, and I'll congratulate him on a great game, and he'll be like "meh. I don't think football is my thing." In fact, this last week they beat the last other undefeated team in the district 47-12 (my son didn't even play in the second half, had a huge lead), and while taking a photo of the 8th grade boys, he yelled "Time for basketball!"