Twelve miles south of Madison, nestled in the coal-dusted hills of Boone County, West Virginia, there’s a town where football isn’t just a game. It’s lifeblood. You can feel it in the way the town shuts down on Friday nights, how the crowd roared for every touchdown, and how standout player Gavin Branham described 2022, “It’s an exciting thing to watch. Small town coming together to watch a good football team. It’s a lot of fun. The crowd helps us get going.” But fast forward to the fall of 2025, things are set to take a drastic turn.
No touchdowns. No roars. And no Friday nights. On July 1, Rivals High School made a gut-punch of an update on Instagram. In a shocking, but not entirely surprising decision, Van High School (West Virginia) football team has canceled its 2025 football season. The post featured national high school sports writer Andy Villamarzo’s statement that read, “West Virginia high school football team cancels 2025 season This would be the second WV team in as many weeks to shutdown their program ahead of the fall.” And this decision didn’t come on an easy note as HC Mark Agosti made it clear.
This is the same Van that posted a perfect regular season in 2022, that same Van that clawed its way into the West Virginia state playoffs with just 18 players. Mark Agosti didn’t hide his emotions in his interview with MetroNews Midday. “It was definitely a gut-wrenching decision to be made,” he admitted. “That’s where I went to school and played football as well so it’s home to me.” But reality hits like a brick. The Bulldogs finished 2-8 last season and could barely scrape together 13 names for the 2025 roster, most of them freshmen or kids who’ve never laced up cleats in live action.
“Football being a contact sport, kids get hurt unfortunately,” Mark Agosti said. “But with this roster that we had, a lot of these 13 were very new kids, ninth-graders or kids that’s not played a lot of sports at all and I just didn’t feel like it was worth risking their safety to try and make it happen.” Because for him, the biggest concern is safety. “I didn’t feel we could complete a season safely. It isn’t worth a kid getting hurt,” the HC added. And this isn’t just a football concern.
The ripple effect through the Van High School community
The decision to cancel the 2025 football season caused a school-wide shockwave. “It affects the referees that I have that’s committed to referee the games for me, the parents, I mean,” Mark Agosti said. “If you don’t have football, you don’t have cheerleaders. You know, it’s a trickle-down effect. It affects the entire building actually, and it’s not a good thing.” The Bulldogs were set to open against Meadow Bridge in late August. Now, a tradition that began in 1929 will pause only for the third time in nearly a century.
This marks the second West Virginia program in two weeks to hit the brakes ahead of fall after Madonna High School’s decision on June 18. And for Van, which has only ever missed two seasons in its storied history (during WWII, 1942 and 1943), the silence this August will echo hard through the hills. As Agosti added, “Football is not just us, it’s a community. It’s a tradition there, generation after generation. It’s a blow, not just us or the students, but the community.” But the hope is that this is just a one-year timeout.
It’s about how the community spirit could rebound and the roster refilled. The hope is that Bulldog Country gets its Friday nights back. But for now in Van, safety is a priority which is why they had to walk away.
The post Historic High School Football Program Cancels Season Over Safety Concerns appeared first on EssentiallySports.
