[ATLcardinal]

Anecdotal evidence from my kids school in Georgia, where tackle football starts in 7th grade. 12 years ago ~70 of the 100 or so boys in the 7th grade class tried out for the team.  Now the try-out rate is half that, around 35 boys.  Three big reasons at this school (in no particular order):

1) Fear of concussions/injury (maybe more from parents at that age, but not sure)
2) Specialization: maybe less so than high school, but even at 12 kids are under pressure to specialize -- star player on my son's little league baseball team had to miss the occasional practice and at one point a game because of conflicts with club basketball tournaments.  Coach pulled him and parents aside and said he was setting a bad example for the team and needed to decide where his priorities lie.  Kid hasn't picked up a baseball since.  A lot of the best young athletes now specialize in something other than football.
3) Diminished peer pressure: to be fair some portion of the kids who used to try out didn't really want to play football anyway but there was enormous peer pressure to play on the school football team.  Partially a Georgia/Texas thing I think but boys (and their parents) felt they had to be on the football team to be accepted in the school.  That dynamic has begun to change.

[ATLcardinal]

Anecdotal evidence from my kids school in Georgia, where tackle football starts in 7th grade. 12 years ago ~70 of the 100 or so boys in the 7th grade class tried out for the team.  Now the try-out rate is half that, around 35 boys.  Three big reasons at this school (in no particular order):

1) Fear of concussions/injury (maybe more from parents at that age, but not sure)
2) Specialization: maybe less so than high school, but even at 12 kids are under pressure to specialize -- star player on my son's little league baseball team had to miss the occasional practice and at one point a game because of conflicts with club basketball tournaments.  Coach pulled him and parents aside and said he was setting a bad example for the team and needed to decide where his priorities lie.  Kid hasn't picked up a baseball since.  A lot of the best young athletes now specialize in something other than football.
3) Diminished peer pressure: to be fair some portion of the kids who used to try out didn't really want to play football anyway but there was enormous peer pressure to play on the school football team.  Partially a Georgia/Texas thing I think but boys (and their parents) felt they had to be on the football team to be accepted in the school.  That dynamic has begun to change.