 Eight
Man Football Uniform
Nothing brings together a small town like a Friday
night football game. Many Kansas high schools carry on this fall tradition
by sending only eight players onto the field instead of the traditional
eleven.
This football equipment was used by Waverly High School
(WHS) football players from the mid-1990s until being replaced by newer
gear. WHS played 11-man football until 2002, when the school decided
to switch to 8-man. The equipment pictured here may have been used by
both Waverly's 11-man and 8-man teams.
There are many reasons why schools decide to play with fewer men. In
many rural communities, there simply aren't enough students
to fill out the roster. Eleven-man teams sometimes have to travel too
far to play other schools of comparable size. Eight-man also requires
less equipment, which means scarce resources can be allocated elsewhere.
The decision to switch to 8-man was very difficult for WHS. The community
of Waverly has been slowly loosing population since
1980. Many other Kansas towns are facing the same reality since the
majority of the state's population now resides in urban areas. Some
communities are so small that two neighboring schools must cooperate
to form one football team.
Even though Waverly High School has enough football players to field
an 11-man team, by 2002 most nearby schools of similar size were playing
8-man. So the Waverly Bulldogs switched too. While some residents disliked
the idea, this town of about 600 people has increasingly supported the
team. The Bulldogs kicked off the fall of 2006 with a pre-season scrimmage
attended by over 150 people. The team rewarded this faith by winning
back-to-back State championships in 2005 and 2006.
Eight-man is not the first set of football rules to require fewer players
than the traditional eleven. Six-man teams appeared in Kansas as early
as 1935, and many smaller schools chose to play this version of football.
The rules were different enough, though, that when 8-man was introduced
with rules more similar to 11-man, 6-man schools added two players to
their starting line-ups. Today about 100 schools across the state play
8-man.
The Waverly Bulldogs after winning the 2006 8-Man State
Championship. |
There aren't big differences between 8-man and 11-man football. Generally,
the three positions absent in the 8-man offense are
two tackles and a wide receiver. The defense plays with two fewer backs
and one less lineman. Eight-man teams also play on a smaller
field--measuring 80 by 40 yards--as opposed to an 11-man field
of 100 by 53 1/3 yards. Other than that, the rules and equipment are
basically the same.
Windom High School was the first Kansas team to try 8-man in 1956.
They convinced Kanopolis High School to assemble a team and the two
schools played an exhibition game following the regular season. Windom
lost, but they started a tradition that has continued every fall since.
This uniform is in the collections of the Kansas
Museum of History.
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