How Michigan high schools are addressing problem of low football numbers

CHEBOYGAN — It’s a nice fall Wednesday at Mike Grisdale’s home.  

The longtime Cheboygan WCBY sportscaster shares a friendly chat while ESPN displays on his television in an area of his house he calls the “man cave.”  

It’s been a strange couple of months for Grisdale, who was supposed to be calling Cheboygan football on WCBY Radio during what would have been his 43rd season this fall.  

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Unfortunately, with the Chiefs cancelling their 2026 varsity campaign due to lack of players and concerns for student safety, Friday nights have been different for Grisdale, who has called some non-Cheboygan games.

But really, nothing beats those fall nights at Western Avenue Field for Grisdale.  

So, it’s been an adjusting period.  

“We didn’t find out (that the season was being cancelled) until fall camp, so I was planning on doing it, but I always thought some of those early games were too early, and all of a sudden, here we are where you’ve got summer and you’ve got football,” Grisdale said. “In the first couple of weeks, I was busy with summer stuff, and it didn’t really affect me, but after Labor Day it’s like where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do?”  

No football on Friday nights has been devastating for Grisdale and a passionate Cheboygan football community, which prides itself on football and treats those nights as something truly unique — which they are — whether the team is thriving or struggling.  

But when you ask Grisdale, he’s just like everybody else.  

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He’s crushed to see cancelation eat at the identity of a town that lives and breathes football.  

“I just feel bad for the kids and the community because it’s been a tradition,” Grisdale said. “We don’t always have super successful seasons, but everybody enjoys following it, whether they go to the game or listen or read about it, and you’ve got the band and all the things that go with it. It’s a hard time knowing it really happened. 

“I don’t know how to explain it.” 

The idea of no football in Cheboygan is hard to fathom, but the scary part is it’s happening in other places in Michigan as well, and whether there’s a solution to solving the problem of lower numbers and interest remains to be seen.  

Where it’s happening  

While Cheboygan is a town that saw its varsity football program having to pull the plug on an 11-player football campaign, it’s also occurred at places like Beaverton, Richard Gull Lake, West Iron County, Roscommon and most recently White Pigeon, which transitioned from a varsity football schedule to a junior varsity slate for the remainder of the season after only suiting up 18 varsity players before ending its campaign.

“This decision allows us to continue providing our students with the opportunity to play football while placing an emphasis on safety, meaningful competition, and the overall development of our program,” White Pigeon athletic director Brooke Baechler said.

Prior to the campaign, White Pigeon had qualified for the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons. However, even though numbers looked solid in the summer, they slowly started to dwindle as a new season approached.  

With White Pigeon, also the Chiefs, competing in 11-player Division 8, the talk will only ramp up in terms of the Chiefs potentially turning to 8-player football if the numbers don’t improve.  

“We have also explored different options for the future of football, including the possibility of 8-man football,” Baechler said. “We believe it is important to finish our current season, evaluate where our program is, and then carefully consider the options that will best serve our students and our school moving forward."

Whether it’s schools with bigger enrollments like Cheboygan or smaller ones like White Pigeon, the problem with lack of participation doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.  

In 2025, the number of schools across the state of Michigan that sponsored football included 517 at the 11-player level and 129 in 8-player according to the MHSAA. Going back to before the COVID seasons, the 2019 numbers included 560 11-player teams and 93 8-player programs, an increase of 36 8-player programs in a seven-year span.

Going back a little further, participation numbers in football for the 2010 season included 43,418 players. In 2025, the number declined to 35,556 across 11- and 8-player teams. It's the largest decline in any sport, by wide margin, across the 15-year span.

The economic impact  

In August, Steve Klinge, Cheboygan’s athletic director, was getting his feet wet in his new job.

But what he probably didn’t imagine was the firestorm he walked into right as fall practice began. Following a few days for the Cheboygan varsity at a team camp, the Chiefs forfeited their season with only 13 players on their roster.

Klinge and those involved in Cheboygan athletics knew that without football, there would be some sort of economic impact, especially with no Friday nights.

With four or five home games with a $1,000 gate, that’s a significant amount, not to mention the band boosters losing out on several home games and concessions, a huge part of how revenue is generated. If there's a positive, Klinge said it’s that numbers won't affect other programs as the budget is set prior to.  

“I am anticipating that it won't affect much in terms of next year either,” Klinge said. “If it happened to become a long-term thing, then it would probably affect more than we think.” 

As for White Pigeon, while moving to a JV schedule does have some financial considerations, Baechler said the department has not seen a significant economic decline at home events.  

“We continue to host JV football games, with our bands and cheerleaders participating and our school community continuing to support our athletic events,” Baechler said.  

Meanwhile, the Cheboygan community has still made itself over to Western Avenue Field to check out the JV Chiefs, who have played multiple home games this fall. At least five of those players are juniors who were able to play after the varsity lost its season.

While those Thursday evenings have provided entertainment and excitement, at some point, Fridays will have to return for towns to maintain their football identities.  

Others feeling the pressure  

If you think athletic directors and coaches of programs that cancelled their seasons are feeling stressed out right now, that doesn’t tell the whole story.  

There’s also those in successful programs like Gaylord St. Mary, which has hammered almost all of its opponents in 2026. However, the Snowbirds have faced a major problem in multiple weeks of having to quickly schedule 8-player opponents after previous opponents forfeited the week of because of low numbers. That was the case recently for St. Mary, who lost out on a contest with Engadine, which forfeited after not having enough available players to compete. 

Then came last week for St. Mary athletic director Bob DeLong, who found out on Tuesday at 4:25 p.m. that Onaway was forfeiting after not having enough available bodies to take on the undefeated Snowbirds.  

Knowing how badly the Snowbirds didn’t want to miss out on two weeks of games, DeLong chose a unique way to find an opponent, using ChatGPT, a form of artificial intelligence (AI). Among the teams he looked at was Rock Mid-Peninsula, a school that forfeited to Calumet Copper Island Academy, the school the Snowbirds ended up calling.

“We just wanted to play,” DeLong said.  

Fortunately for the Snowbirds, they got their matchup against Copper Island, a program that doesn’t even have a practice facility. It worked out, but the frustration of scrambling to find an opponent doesn’t get lost on DeLong.  

“The players are frustrated and the coaches are frustrated because we’re coming within an inch of having to play a powderpuff game on our homecoming night,” DeLong said. 

What’s being done by schools  

Desperate for numbers, athletic programs might go in different directions in terms of generating interest, building numbers, and hoping they can survive.  

For Klinge and many others, ideas have been kicked around.  

But when it comes down to it, building a positive culture that kids want to be a part of is No. 1.

“I think a huge part of the success is hitting the hallways and recruiting our kids that aren’t playing to play,” Klinge said. “Sometimes kids need to be asked or want to be asked. That is a simple thing to do, and it probably won’t bring out 20 more kids, but it could get us seven or eight in the long run. Once some kids start playing again, I think others will follow. There are a lot of other factors that need to be dealt with as well, but there are things being addressed that I believe will definitely help.” 

At a traditional Class B school like Cheboygan, the thought of moving to 8-player football would be considered absurd, but there’s no telling what the future might hold. Klinge confirmed that the department will attempt to avoid 8-player at all costs, with a main reason being that the program wouldn’t qualify for the playoffs.

“I don’t see that as a solution,” Klinge said. “While we do want to provide a great experience for our students, I believe that making the playoffs should be the goal every year, and 8-man takes that out of our hands. If things don’t improve in the next couple of years, then we will look at all options, of course. 

“The fear is that if we go to 8-man — even for a year — we won’t go back to 11-man.”