When the Sedona-Oak Creek School District Governing Board voted to cancel the football program at Sedona Red Rock High School for the 2020-21 school year, it was done with a unanimous 5-0 vote. The feeling regarding that decision in the community, however, is far more mixed.

One who supports the decision is Craig Williamson, who used to teach Spanish and served as an assistant basketball coach at the high school.

“The school board was in a tough spot and made a reasonable decision,” Williamson said, citing the shortage of players, cost and the lack of a youth feeder program in Sedona. “My hat is off to Coach [Bob] Young for trying to do a daunting task. I’m not sure the school board had any other choice in the matter.”

Some players who were set to return to the gridiron felt differently.

“It’s just really upsetting to hear about it — I’m not really happy about it,” said Nate Smith, an incoming sophomore at SRRHS who played lineman for the Scorpions as a freshman. “We were really close to having enough people and we weren’t able to talk about how we feel about it to the board.”

In the official presentation given to the school board via a Zoom meeting May 5, Young, who resigned as head football coach in April, and SRRHS Athletic Director Don Burton made the point that no fewer than 25 to 30 players would be needed for a 2A varsity program. Burton did note that Xavier Stimple — who would have likely been Sedona’s top player in 2020 — had presented him with a list of 20 players who wanted to sign on for the fall. He said that four players on the list were incoming freshmen, two of which said they’d only play for a junior varsity team — a level SRRHS was no longer offering for football.

The list that Stimple showed the Sedona Red Rock News had 19 players. Of that group, only two were freshmen. Stimple said that his younger brother, who will be an eighth-grader next year, knew of 15 additional freshmen who wanted to play. Smith, meanwhile, said that he was one of 23 SRRHS students in a group chat that said they were all eager to play.

Given the current quarantine situation, most of Stimple’s recruiting was done via social media, limiting his range to upperclassmen
that he already knew.

“I’m not in contact with the others as much so it’s hard for me to find their social media and ask them,” Stimple said. “If this whole quarantine thing wasn’t happening and school was still going on, it would be a lot easier for me to go up to the sophomores and freshmen and say, ‘Hey, you guys should come and play. You guys should come out and come to the preseason stuff and start getting better.’”

Stimple added that while injury concerns were a big part of the presentation, he wasn’t as worried about them. He noted that the team’s helmets are among the best in the market for preventing concussions and that dentist Kirk Westervelt had fitted the team with custom mouthguards, designed to prevent concussions.

He also called SRRHS sports medicine teacher Andrea Bagnall [who did not speak at the meeting] an “amazing athletic trainer” who can help prevent injuries and help players recover from them.

“I played football before she was there and injuries were more of a concern then,” Stimple recalled. “A lot of the times you’d get hurt and they didn’t even know what it was. I probably got hit in the head a few times and it wasn’t addressed. Whenever anyone gets hit in the head now, because of concussions,
it’s worrisome to everyone. [Bagnall] makes sure that they’re OK. She’s gone through 30 years of athletic training and knows if you’re OK.”

Another issue in the presentation that both Smith and Stimple took issue with was the number of freshmen that would have to play. Burton and Young said that upperclassmen are almost always bigger, stronger and faster than even the best freshmen.

Smith, however, refuted the notion that too many freshmen would need to play. He said that of the 23 players in his group chat, roughly 15 either played with the Scorpions in 2019 or were at least a part of the summer offseason program. Stimple added that freshmen playing is common at smaller schools and noted that he played as a freshman, playing on the line despite only weighing 140 pounds.

An issue that was downplayed during the official presentation was how the decision to move soccer from the winter back to the fall would cut into the football team’s numbers. It was noted that only one student from 2019 played both sports and that far more players that were forced to choose between basketball and soccer can now play both sports.

Stimple said while that was correct, a number of the potential incoming freshmen were both soccer and football players who chose to play soccer.
Smith and Stimple added that perhaps their biggest frustration regarding the decision is that the Scorpion players felt they were kept in the dark. Smith said that he didn’t know the meeting was taking place. Stimple found out days before and was told to recruit players if he didn’t want to see the team disappear. He also said that through most of the offseason, he had assumed the recruiting duties would be handled by coach Young.

Stimple did note that immediately following the season, Young said that he’d resign if he couldn’t recruit enough players for football.

But in the following months, the players weren’t given any warning. And when Young did resign in April, they were not told personally, but found out about when it was reported in the NEWS.

“He didn’t warn us — I didn’t know until the newspaper article about it,” Stimple said. “Someone sent that article to the group chat we had from the previous football season. That was the first time I heard about it.”

“We were kept in the dark,” Smith added. “I was kind of surprised.”

Given that the program was dropped, SRRHS players who wish to continue playing are able to transfer to Mingus and begin playing immediately. Under most normal circumstances, transfers have to sit out for the first half of the season.

Despite that, both Stimple and Smith said that they’d like to stay at SRRHS. Smith stated that he’d like to play again for the Scorpions if the program returns in the fall of 2021 or 2022. Stimple, meanwhile, wants to pursue a career in sports medicine and said that continuing to work with Bagnall is the best way to do that.

“Also, I want to be able to play with the same people I’ve been playing with for years and play for the same people, the same school,” Stimple said. “I feel it’d be hard to keep the same school spirit if I moved to a different school.

“A lot of my really good friends don’t play football, which I hate. I’ve tried to get them to play my whole life. But if I moved to Mingus to play football, I wouldn’t be in contact with them nearly as much. And I’ve known them since second grade.”

Stimple added that while there aren’t many student athletes in the program, the loss of the program will be felt by more than just football players.
“There were numerous people who told me that they would be hurt or affected if we didn’t play football,” he said.