01 • Overview
Two different stories
Oregon has experienced a real decline in traditional high school football participation. Centennial’s enrollment-adjusted participation rate has also fallen substantially. The statewide figures below are raw boys’ 11-player counts over a different period; the nearby-school comparisons use annual program participation divided by total school enrollment.
“From 2010-11 to 2025-26, Centennial’s football participation rate fell 55%, compared with 36% for the nearby-school median.
Check the evidence
Enrollment fell modestly. Football participation fell much further.
From 2010-11 to 2025-26, Centennial’s enrollment went from 1,867 to 1,657, while annual football participation went from 110 to 44. The enrollment-adjusted rate also fell: the decline is larger than the enrollment change alone. The ending Centennial enrollment is the district's September 2025 count, not ODE Fall Membership.
Football participation rates: Centennial versus nearby schools
Centennial's 2025–26 endpoint uses September 2025 district enrollment; the other enrollment values use ODE. Enrollment-adjusted rates, each indexed to 100 in 2010-11. A value of 50 means half the original participation rate remains.
Each school’s football participation rate is its player count divided by its grades 9–12 enrollment. Each rate is indexed to its own 2010-11 value, then the median of Barlow, David Douglas, Gresham, and Reynolds is calculated. Centennial is excluded. This compares relative rate changes, not actual player counts. The peer line ends near 79 (about a 21% decline). The headline’s 36% decline instead compares the median actual participation rate at each endpoint, before indexing.
Supporting context: enrollment and football player counts
This chart compares changes in football player counts with school enrollment, not enrollment-adjusted participation rates. All three series start at 100 in 2010-11; an index of 40 means 40% of the starting count remains.
The gray dashed line takes the median of Barlow, David Douglas, Gresham, and Reynolds after each school’s football player count is indexed to its own 2010-11 count. All four schools are required each year. This compares changes in player counts, not enrollment-adjusted rates.
Sources: OSAA annual participation and ODE Fall Membership, grades 9–12. Source review: October 14, 2026. Centennial 2025–26 enrollment: district September 2025 student count (1,657; April 2026 report, page 2), rather than ODE Fall Membership. Other school-year enrollment values use ODE. Annual program totals include more than varsity.
The same comparison, school by school
2010-11 → 2025-26. Rates are football participants per 100 enrolled students.
| School | Players | Enrollment | Rate | Relative rate change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Centennial | 110 → 44 | 1,867 → 1,657 | 5.89% → 2.66% | -54.9% |
| Barlow | 110 → 94 | 1,805 → 1,606 | 6.09% → 5.85% | -4.0% |
| David Douglas | 109 → 83 | 3,254 → 2,700 | 3.35% → 3.07% | -8.2% |
| Gresham | 116 → 56 | 1,754 → 1,602 | 6.61% → 3.50% | -47.1% |
| Reynolds | 110 → 66 | 2,617 → 2,361 | 4.20% → 2.80% | -33.5% |
Sources: OSAA annual participation and ODE Fall Membership, grades 9–12. Source review: October 14, 2026. Centennial 2025–26 enrollment: district September 2025 student count (1,657; April 2026 report, page 2), rather than ODE Fall Membership. Other school-year enrollment values use ODE. Annual program totals include more than varsity. Calculations use unrounded rates; displayed rates are rounded.
Does the conclusion depend on the starting year?
Keeping 2025-26 as the endpoint, Centennial’s rate declined more than the four-school median in 13 of 14 comparable non-COVID starting seasons. Every available start from 2010-11 through 2024-25 is included below, with COVID-affected starts marked separately.
Inspect every starting year (15 comparisons)
| Starting season | Centennial | Peer median | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | -54.9% | -36.2% | Centennial declined more |
| 2011-12 | -52.9% | -41.4% | Centennial declined more |
| 2012-13 | -47.8% | -39.7% | Centennial declined more |
| 2013-14 | -62.1% | -38.4% | Centennial declined more |
| 2014-15 | -44.2% | -37.5% | Centennial declined more |
| 2015-16 | -53.1% | -42.1% | Centennial declined more |
| 2016-17 | -41.8% | -32.0% | Centennial declined more |
| 2017-18 | -39.3% | -25.8% | Centennial declined more |
| 2018-19 | -41.1% | -19.3% | Centennial declined more |
| 2019-20 | -35.5% | -21.0% | Centennial declined more |
| 2020-21 (COVID-affected) | +24.7% | +6.0% | Pattern does not hold |
| 2021-22 | -34.6% | -16.3% | Centennial declined more |
| 2022-23 | -28.3% | -24.0% | Centennial declined more |
| 2023-24 | +2.1% | -24.9% | Pattern does not hold |
| 2024-25 | -28.2% | -18.7% | Centennial declined more |
The peer median is calculated from Barlow, David Douglas, Gresham, and Reynolds at each endpoint, requiring all four schools. It is not the median of their individual changes. Rate changes here are relative percentages, not percentage-point differences.
Download and reproduce the comparisons
These downloads contain the annual values and calculations displayed here. No current roster listings or parent observations enter these comparisons. Rate = participants ÷ enrollment × 100. Relative change = (end ÷ start − 1) × 100.
02 • The Oregon story
The statewide decline is real — and it has more than one cause.
Oregon is part of a broader national change in traditional tackle football. Participation began falling after the late-2000s peak, and several overlapping forces likely contributed. None of these factors, by itself, tells the whole story.
Concussion and brain-injury concerns
A 2018 JAMA Pediatrics study examined brain-injury news coverage and high school tackle participation. It provides national context, rather than evidence that concussion concerns caused Centennial’s decline.
A smaller youth tackle pipeline
Project Play reports that regular tackle participation among U.S. children ages 6–12 fell 7% from 2019 to 2024, while flag participation rose 14%. These national figures do not measure Centennial’s incoming players.
More competing athletic pathways
Club sports, year-round training, specialization and other extracurricular options compete for the same students — especially the multisport athletes football programs depend on.
Some football moved to smaller formats
A decline in 11-player football is not the same thing as a disappearance of football. In 2024–25, Oregon also reported 979 players in 9-player football and 351 in 6-player football.
COVID disrupted participation — but does not explain the long trend
The pandemic disrupted teams and pipelines, but the decline began years earlier. National 11-player participation has also partially rebounded in recent seasons.
03 • The Centennial exception
Centennial's decline is much larger than the decline around it.
The most useful comparison is not Centennial against a hypothetical ideal. It is Centennial against nearby public high schools operating in the same metropolitan area and in the same football era: Barlow, David Douglas, Gresham and Reynolds.
From 2010 through 2025, Centennial's football participation rate has fallen from 5.9% to 2.7%. Over the same period, the median rate among the nearby comparison schools moved from 5.1% to 3.3%.
Enrollment differences matter, which is why the portal compares football players as a share of total enrollment rather than relying only on raw roster size.
Centennial is roughly 10 players below the nearby-school participation benchmark.
At Centennial's 2025 enrollment, the nearby-school median participation rate would imply about 54 players. Centennial reported 44.
Centennial’s rate differs from nearby schools facing some of the same regional conditions. This descriptive comparison does not establish which factors caused the difference.
The current season • October 14, 2026
The immediate challenge: enough players to compete safely.
Two varsity games canceled over safety concerns.
In its October 13 message to football families, the school announced the cancellation of the October 23 and October 30 varsity games, citing injuries, roster limitations, and the risk of putting younger, inexperienced players into high-impact roles against older, more physically developed opponents. The October 16 Senior Night game and remaining JV games were still scheduled.
Rudie Watzig reports that fewer than 30 players have actively participated throughout the 2026 season. This firsthand account describes active participation; it is separate from OSAA’s annual participation totals and published roster listings.
Centennial reported 44 football participants for 2025, but that annual figure does not necessarily represent the number of players active throughout a season. If the observation of fewer than 30 active players in 2026 is accurate, the current share of students actively playing football is lower than the published historical participation rates might suggest. The counts are from different years and use different measures, so they do not establish an exact year-over-year change.
Sources: school communication to football families, October 13, 2026; parent observation reported October 14, 2026. The observation has not been independently verified and is not used to calculate the historical comparisons.
04 • Recruitment is not the whole problem
Initial interest is not enough. Retention matters.
Centennial's challenge appears to involve both getting students into the pipeline and keeping them there. Former head coach Butch Self described several of those pressures publicly when he stepped aside after the 2023 season.
“they just never returned”
Self said a group of students who participated in spring football did not return in the fall; he also pointed to student movement and population shift.Butch Self, quoted by Jerry Ulmer, OSAAtoday, Dec. 7, 2023 ↗“kids who really should be JV kids”
Self described younger players being pushed upward early because the program lacked enough players to maintain the normal developmental structure.Butch Self, quoted by Jerry Ulmer, OSAAtoday, Dec. 7, 2023 ↗“pricing kids out here”
Self said the prior youth-football cost was too high for many local families. Self helped start the lower-cost Mt. Hood Youth Football League in response.Butch Self, quoted by Jerry Ulmer, OSAAtoday, Dec. 7, 2023 ↗The historical numbers establish the size of the decline. Self's comments provide contemporary evidence that turnout, retention, youth cost and player movement were real program concerns — without proving that any single factor caused the decline.
OSAAtoday reported that Self finished 10–40 over six seasons, with Centennial finishing 0–9 and 1–8 in his final two seasons. Losing does not by itself explain participation, but repeated competitive mismatch can make retention and recruiting harder at the margins.
OSAAtoday, Dec. 7, 2023 ↗05 • The vicious cycle
Why low numbers can produce even lower numbers.
Football roster size affects more than depth. It determines whether a program can provide a healthy developmental ladder from freshman football to JV to varsity. Once that ladder weakens, the effects can compound.
That does not mean a small roster inevitably stays small. It means rebuilding has to address retention and the player experience, not only initial recruitment.
06 • What likely explains the gap
Local factors deserve investigation; the numbers cannot establish the cause.
The participation record does not prove causation. But the size of Centennial's gap, the nearby-school comparisons and the program's own documented turnout concerns point toward local mechanisms that can reinforce one another.
Factors consistent with the Centennial pattern
- Youth pipeline: A 2023 OSAAtoday report described efforts to rebuild Centennial’s feeder system. Keeping that pipeline strong is essential: a healthy youth program gives future high-school players years to learn fundamentals, build relationships with teammates and coaches, and begin identifying with Centennial football before ninth grade. Sustaining access and participation can help more experienced players reach the high school.Former head coach Butch Self told OSAAtoday in 2023 that the previous youth-football cost was “pricing kids out,” and that he helped start a lower-cost youth league and saw some growth. Centennial Youth Football now explicitly describes its program as one that feeds into Centennial High School football. OSAAtoday ↗ Centennial Youth Football ↗
- Retention: interest that does not consistently convert into fall participation and multi-year commitment.
- Low roster numbers: less depth and fewer age-appropriate developmental opportunities.
- Competitive mismatch: younger players asked to compete earlier than they otherwise would.
- Sustained losing: a weaker value proposition for students who have other sports, jobs and activities available.
- Program continuity: leadership and day-to-day school presence are plausible influences, but are not directly measured by the participation data.
Important headwinds — but incomplete explanations
Concussion concerns, enrollment change, demographic change, COVID disruption and the broader statewide decline can all matter.
But nearby schools have operated through many of the same broad conditions while maintaining substantially higher participation rates. The comparisons identify a gap worth investigating; they do not isolate the effect of each factor.
Why the youth pipeline matters
A stronger feeder system is part of the solution — and it has to be sustained.
The independent youth program is outside district control. In 2023, former head coach Butch Self told OSAAtoday that the move to the Mt. Hood Youth Football League cut youth participation fees to about $170 — roughly half the prior level — and that the program had made some growth. That historical account does not verify the program’s current health. Centennial Youth Football’s website describes its mission as feeding into Centennial High School football.
That pipeline matters because high school roster health is built years before ninth grade. A strong youth program gives future Eagles time to learn fundamentals, develop confidence, form relationships with teammates and coaches, and arrive at CHS already seeing football as part of their school identity. Recruitment at the high school level is still necessary, but a healthy feeder system makes retention and long-term program stability much more achievable.
Program stability is worth watching — without overstating it.
Chris Knudsen coached Centennial for 32 seasons before stepping down in 2018. Butch Self then led the program for six seasons. A coach who works in the school building can plausibly help with recruiting, follow-up and retention, but the public participation record cannot measure that effect directly.
OSAAtoday: Centennial football transitions after Knudsen's 32-year tenure ↗07 • Explore the data
The story is the introduction. The full record is below.
The interactive portal keeps the evidence visible: participation rates, raw player counts, school-by-school comparisons, statewide benchmarks, current roster snapshots and methodology. Move through the charts year by year and inspect the same data used in this analysis.
Open the interactive data ↓