Kansas high school forfeits its entire 2024 varsity football season

A lack of returning upperclassmen caused safety concerns at Osawatomie High School
The Osawatomie (Kansas) high school football team has forfeited its entire 2024 football season due to safety concerns related to a lack of returning upperclassmen.
The Osawatomie (Kansas) high school football team has forfeited its entire 2024 football season due to safety concerns related to a lack of returning upperclassmen. / Osawatomie High Instagram

Osawatomie High, a Kansas school located just south of metropolitan Kansas City, Missouri, has made the difficult decision to forfeit its entire 2024 varsity football season, the school announced via a message on Facebook late last week.

The school determined it did not have enough players to field both a varsity and junior varsity team and since it lacked upperclassmen, it decided it was best to forfeit the varsity season. After ongoing consultation with district officials, the school decided it would play only a JV/C schedule. The Trojans were scheduled to play their first varsity game this coming Friday a Prairie View.

“Our players’ and students’ safety is our priority over everything else. Due to our numbers, we had to forfeit a Varsity or JV schedule. We could not do both,” wrote Osawatomie Superintendent Greg Clark in the post.

Clark said the school will look at alternative ways to continue long-standing traditions, such as homecoming, without putting young players at risk by forcing them to play against athletes who are older, bigger and stronger.

“We received multiple emails and phone calls from parents sharing the same concern, which helped lead us to this decision," added Clark. "We will take this opportunity to build these young players’ skills and focus on strength and physical safety."

According to Clark, the Trojans currently have five JV games scheduled.

“We know that this is not a popular decision,” he concluded. “Please know that this decision was not made lightly and that hours of discussion went into it. If we had seen a greater turnout in upperclassmen, we likely would not be in this situation. However, we respect our students, and their decisions are their own.”

Osawatomie went 0-9 in each of the last two seasons and has not won a varsity football game since a 30-14 win over Baldwin on Oct. 22, 2021, a span of 19 straight games. The Trojans went 7-3 in 2015, but have gone just 8-65 since with three winless seasons.


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Gary Adornato
GARY ADORNATO

Gary Adornato began covering high school sports with the Baltimore Sun in 1982, while still a mass communications major at Towson University, and in 2003 became one of the first journalists to cover high school sports online while operating MIAASports.com, the official website of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association. Later, Adornato pioneered market-wide coverage of high school sports with DigitalSports.com, introducing video highlights and player interviews while assembling an award-winning editorial staff. In 2010, he launched VarsitySportsNetwork.com which became the premier source of high school media coverage in the state of Maryland. In 2022, he sold VSN to The Baltimore Banner and joined SBLive Sports as the company's East Coast Managing Editor.