The evolution of high school footballs in small-town Kansas.

Abstract

Small-town high schools in Kansas, as well as those across the plains, had difficulty sustaining conventional eleven-man football programs, although the contests o~the local team were an important aspect of community life. As the small towns depopulated, due to the economic situation of the 1920s and 1930s, football programs were yet harder to maintain. Thus with the aid of local businessmen, who wanted to revitalize community life, many school administrators had lights installed on their football fields, so more people could attend the games. This raised additional revenues, not only for school budgets, but also for the local businessmen as well. Smaller-town schools, which could not safely play eleven-man football due to a lack of mature boys, needed further innovations in the form of six-man and later eight-man football. These adaptations were reminiscent of the historiography of Walter P. Webb, who believed that people on the plains often had to make innovations in practices that came from the east, in this case football, to fit them to the conditions of the plains. Only massive school consolidation would have produced enrollments comparable to those in the eastern United ,. States, and this massive consolidation would have produced prohibitive costs, not only to school budgets but also to the quality of life of the students involved. These conditions resembled those described by Carl F. Kraenzel in what he termed "yonland" communities. Kraenzel called on educators in the plains to explore other possibilities besides massive consolidation to solve their problems. Six-man and eight-man football were examples of such possibilities.