Change isn’t always easy.
So when talk of the Weaver and Hartford Public high school football teams forming a co-op started a few years ago, the alumni of the long-time rivals weren’t exactly on board.
Advertisement
In so many words: Heaven forbid.
But for the athletes? They just want to play.
“That part of it was more with the alumni than it is with the kids. The kids were a lot more open to it,” said Heidi Schmidt, Hartford Public Schools Athletic Director. “They want to be able to play and they want to be able to participate, and they like the success that came with it. You want to be able to give them an opportunity to play and give them the best experience possible.”
Hartford is home to four co-ops among its schools: Weaver and Hartford Public were joined by Classical in one; with another three combining SMSA, Bulkeley, HMTCA, and University; Capital Prep and Achievement; and CREC, Aerospace, International and Innovation.
Advertisement
Across Connecticut, co-ops have become a fact of high school football life. Nine have been added in the past two years, giving the CIAC 26 co-ops, doubling the total of 13 in play in 2013.
Among the state’s cities, Hartford is unique in its adoption of co-ops, with overall participation numbers having increased, according to Schmidt. The co-op of Weaver, Public and Classical went 9-3 in 2025 and advanced to the CIAC Class L semifinals.
That’s a positive sign with overall participation numbers across Connecticut in decline.
In 2022, the CIAC’s participation in football numbered 9,465 kids. It’s dropped in each subsequent year to 8,045 in 2025. This year, CIAC Executive Director Glenn Lungarini said there were 7,733 players in 2026 as of late September, although that comes with an asterisk with several teams not having submitted rosters at that point.
Advertisement
Multiple reasons are cited for the decline, including losing players to private schools, parents worried about injuries such as concussions, and specialization in other sports, also noted as a decline in multi-sport athletes.
At city schools the numbers are varied, sometimes within the same city. In Norwalk, for example, Norwalk High’s roster has 55 players in the sophomore through senior classes listed on their roster, with another 33 freshman. That’s 88 in total for a Class L program.
McMahon, a Class LL school in the same city, has struggled with numbers this season. The Senators had only 12 of their 24 players in the senior and junior classes healthy enough to play in Week 8 and postponed their game with Trumbull to Nov. 18.
Meanwhile in Waterbury, a city with four public schools, Crosby has the highest number of players on its roster with 54. Wilby has 46, Kennedy has 32, and Waterbury Career Academy has just 23, only nine of whom are seniors and juniors.
Advertisement
Co-ops have helped in Hartford, so could they represent a wave of the future for city schools?
It’s not an easy answer, nor is it an easy equation.
“It depends on what town you’re talking about and what they’ve got for numbers,” said Schmidt, who oversees athletics in Hartford’s public schools. “You can’t just look at it for winning, you want to be able to give the kids the opportunity to play and give them the best experience possible. It can work instead of folding programs, it’s definitely a way to help in the interim if there’s something like droughts in enrollment but things are going to turn around.”
There’s also criteria which has to be met. By CIAC rules, to be part of a co-op, a program must have 32 or fewer players in grades 9-12, and 25 or fewer in grades 10-12.
Advertisement
Gauging those numbers from year to year can be a challenge.
“(Participation) is sort of difficult to gauge because you don’t get consistency in the classes,” said McMahon athletic director John Cross. “You’ll have a good cohort of kids that come through with like 30 or so, and then the following year, you’ll get 15 (in the next class). What you want is large groups of kids coming through every year and that’s helpful for the program overall.”
Not only that, but a team has to have a match, a partner in a similar circumstance who is willing to come together.
In Hartford, the joining of forces via co-op has allowed schools’ athletic programs to offer more opportunities and, more importantly, has kept players on the football field.
Advertisement
The breakdown of the Hartford co-op includes 18 from Weaver, 10 from Hartford Public, and seven from Classical. Hartford uses an Open Choice Program, which allows families the opportunity to attend public schools in nearby districts.
That Open Choice means that kids could be neighbors but not go to the same schools, according to Courteney Jackson, the former Hartford Public coach who is now with the Hartford co-op.
“Honestly, the easy part (of forming the co-op) was the kids,” Jackson said. “They’re all friends on social media and in Hartford, our kids can live on the same street and not go to the same school ever,” Jackson said. “Last year, when we played CREC (co-op), it was their senior night and some of our kids went over there and walked the kids out. So in Hartford, the boundaries aren’t what they used to be.”
In New Haven, participation numbers dropped about five years ago following the lost Covid season, but have held steady since with “decent numbers” this year on both Hillhouse and the Wilbur Cross/Career co-op, according to city athletic director Eric Patchkofsy.
Advertisement
“There are certain districts where football has been able to maintain numbers better than others,” Patchkofsky said. “The biggest factor I see is a lot of our athletes in New Haven are playing a different fall sport. Our soccer numbers have risen significantly at both Hillhouse and Cross.”
The Wilbur Cross/Career pairing is not a massive co-op, with Career adding just five players to the roster.
Patchkofsky echoed the sentiment that it’s hard to pin down when low numbers are a blip or a trend.
“In the 36 or 37 years I’ve been in the district, I’ve seen the numbers go up and down a lot,” Patchkofsky said. “I really think it’s just the amount of interest in the sport that kids want to play when they get to high school now. There are also a lot of parents who would prefer their kids not play football because of all of the press about concussions and different things over the years. But I would say right now, the last few years, our football numbers have steadied.”
Advertisement
In Stamford, the Black Knights program has seen its numbers go up each year since Covid, according to athletic director Chris Passamano, who estimated the numbers to be a little higher than before the 2020 season. Stamford’s roster on the CIAC website shows 70 players in grades 10-12.
“I think that has to do with success, I think it has to do with culture, and I think it has to do with leadership in the school,” Passamano said. “A big part of that is whether kids are enjoying where they are, enjoying what they’re doing and enjoying being a part of whatever it is that they’re doing. Football is hard because what is really the legitimate number you need to be safe?”
In terms of co-ops for other city schools around the state, Passamano said he didn’t “know what the right answer is to that.”
“It’s a slippery slope when you say co-op this or co-op that,” he said. “A co-op has to be used for the right reasons.”
Advertisement
One of those “right reasons” was cited by Jackson: Proper development of athletes, something which is difficult with low numbers.
It’s something Weaver, Hartford Public and Classical avoided with the co-op.
“What ends up happening is you’re not allowing kids to develop properly,” Jackson said. “They’re coming in as sophomores and having to play varsity, and a lot of those kids, you can’t retain because they’re not going to have a good experience. That experience is getting out there, playing a little bit of JV, and then the game slows down while they’re developing. And from a coach’s standpoint, you want the kids to leave as stronger adult males.
“The co-op allowed us to do that.”
This article originally published at Hartford embraced football co-ops as numbers fell in Connecticut. Could other cities follow?.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
