Letter: Cubs football in long slide

Newport has gone soft. How else to account for the dismaying fact that the once proud Newport Cubs football team has totaled seven wins over the past five years?

The town’s historical basis of big-hearted, strong, tough-minded fishermen and loggers seems to have given way to a critical mass of non-football friendly professional people. With respect, they are the good liberals who work at places such as NOAA, Oregon Coast Aquarium, OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center, and own businesses including Rogue Brewery, Agate Beach Best Western Hotel, and Local Ocean Seafood, all fine local companies.

Yes, playing tackle football carries significant risk to players of all ages. But what’s also risky is young people immersing themselves for seven hours a day goofing around on TikTok and playing shoot ‘em up video games.

Recent football rule changes, mostly involving tackling techniques, have made the game significantly less hazardous than when me and my friends played it at Newport High School in the late 1970s. For the record, I am not in favor of pre-high school age kids playing tackle football.

American high school football is more than a game, it is a way of life. Suiting up in the navy blue and white of the Cubs gridders is to participate in an exciting and honorable tradition that has enriched the lives of thousands of young men in Newport.

Each family decides together what they believe is best for them. I hope that they don’t rule out the experience of Friday night lights on the coast.

Matthew Sproul

Portland