I'm not from America so I know next to nothing about everything related to football in American high schools. Can someone explain to me how it all works?
How many players in a football team?
When does the season start and end? How many games per season?
Also about cheerleaders: how many cheerleaders? Are their uniforms portrayed accurately in TV shows or do they get everything wrong?
Feel free to tell me more about football in case I forgot some questions.
Thanks!
I can't explain it all, but I can tell you what I know.
In a standard football game, there are 11 men on the field at once (per side). Most teams have enough players for a full offensive team and a full defensive team, plus backups for each position. Depending on the size of the school they may have kids pulling double duty as punters or field goal kickers, or they may have specialized players. The total number of varsity football players will probably be in the 25-40 range. The school may also have Junior Varsity and/or Freshman teams of similar size.
Practices start in the summer, or earlier, especially for those hoping to make the Varsity team. In places like Texas, where high school football is practically a religion, some kids never stop practicing.
The first games are generally in late August or early September. High school football is generally on Friday nights, though games may be scheduled on other day, particularly at playoff time.
Teams play 8-10 regular season games through the year then have a bracketed single-elimination tournament for the state championship. My son's school is currently in the playoff process. They play their first tournament game this Saturday afternoon. If they win that, then it's on to the semi-finals the next Saturday and the championship game the week after that.
Cheerleaders vary by the size, location and type of school. My son's school is larger than the entire town where I grew up. They have about 5 male and 20 female cheerleaders who do the acrobatic-style routines and towers and such, and about 20 "poms" who are basically a dance squad with little pompoms. In my high school, which was about 300 students, we had 6-10 Varsity cheerleaders (all girls) and they mostly just did what it says on the tin - lead the crowd in cheers.
Cheerleaders in my area never wear what I see cheerleaders wear on TV. They'd freeze their butts off. By this time of year, our cheerleaders are in long sleeves with a coordinated turtleneck underneath and leggings under their short pleated skirt. I can't speak to whether cheerleaders in warmer climates wear less, but even in the warm August and September games, our cheerleaders don't wear crop tops.