Westminster pulls plug on football

When Westminster Christian Academy headmaster Dana James took over the Lions football program earlier this year, he knew it would be a challenge to recruit enough student-athletes to field a competitive team.

The team began practice last week with just 15 players, but over the weekend several players decided to transfer to other schools, and on Monday James opted to cancel the 2009 season with hopes he can field a varsity squad by 2011.

"We held out hope we could recruit some more players once we got started, but that didn't happen," said James, who has been at Westminster Christian for the past 14 years after a 15-year coaching career at Oconee County High School. "Then several families who were concerned about our numbers transferred their kids, which brought our numbers even lower, and at that point I began to worry about safety, burnout and kids getting hurt."

James, who has also coached boys basketball at Westminster Christian for the past 13 years, added that the decision to cancel the Lions' season was also the result of not wanting to get halfway through the campaign and then have to bow out of scheduled games.

"It was a matter of thinking about the kids who wanted to play," he said. "I didn't want to get started with the season and then have to cancel games midway through. Because of safety concerns and a lack of confidence that we could actually get thro

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