Friday Night Lights Start to Dim on High School Football

Fewer high school students are joining football teams, even though more students are playing high school sports on the whole, NBC News reported.

Participation in football has declined 7 percent since the 2009-2010 school year, after the dangers of concussions started to be reported, and the decline has accelerated in recent years, according to new data from the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Even in Texas, where high school football stadiums can dwarf other states' college stadiums, parents are having doubts about their kids playing the game, and enrollment is down slightly from its peak seven years ago.

"When you sit there and the doctor's doing the test and he's having a hard time repeating back basic numbers," said the father of a boy who quit the team at Carroll High School near Dallas, "I mean, that's certainly eye-opening as a parent."