Menlo School forfeits its football game this week against Wilcox

Menlo School has forfeited its football game on Friday against Wilcox, the Atherton school announced on Tuesday morning.

“After extensive consideration and discussion, Menlo School has made the difficult decision to forfeit this Friday’s varsity football game against Wilcox High School. A combination of injuries and illness has left the Knights with too few healthy players to compete safely,” Menlo School sports information director Pam McKenney said in a release.

“The coaching staff and school administration prioritize the health and well-being of our student-athletes. This decision allows our players the necessary time to recover fully before returning to the field. The JV game will be played Friday. Our sincere appreciation goes to our community and to the Wilcox High School varsity football program for their support and understanding.”

Menlo School was projected to win the game, according to HSRatings.com’s computer. The popular high school prognostication site gave the Knights a 61% chance to win and projected they would do so by a score of 26-21.

But a computer algorithm can’t capture the state of a team’s health. Menlo School coach Todd Smith noted his team’s precarious injury situation to the Bay Area News Group after his team’s game against Los Gatos last Saturday.

“What I want from the kids is for them to be healthy and enjoy their experience and not have to feel like they’re going through hell at the end of the season because of the way our program is built,” he said. “I don’t want them to feel like they’re getting punished for playing good football.

“We need more kids to play football here, and we need to help those kids so that our kids can play healthy and so they can walk to their families and hug them afterwards and feel good not just about winning or losing, but about being healthy and not being completely exhausted.”

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