Bishop Connolly cancels its 2018 football season

Bishop Connolly's football season is over before it began.

In a press release sent to The Herald News from Bishop Connolly's director of athletics John Feeny, the AD said Cougars have been forced to sit out the 2018 football season due to a lack of participants.

"Due to extremely low player turnout for pre-season camp and with the first week of games quickly approaching, Bishop Connolly High School has taken the step to discontinue its plans to field a Connolly/Westport football team for the upcoming 2018 season," Feeny wrote. "Last year’s team was decimated by injuries and illnesses, which resulted in the team’s being forced to forfeit its last several games.  The Connolly/Westport co-op hoped to rebound and compete again this year, as more than enough student-athletes signed up to play for the upcoming season.  Despite this, only a small number of players actually came out for the team, necessitating today’s decision.  School officials wanted to make the decision early enough so that students would still have the time and opportunity to sign up for and play another fall sport if they so desired."

When reached by phone, Feeny insisted his program, which co-ops with Westport, started off on the right foot.

"We had 33 kids sign up," he said. "We really did everything we could to make it work."

Feeny also said the future of the program is up in the air.

"There will probably be some hurdles to clear in order to play next year, but right now we're just trying to step back and assess the situation," he said.