Wingate drops football program due to lack of numbers
Special to the Times | Lee Begaye
Wingate running back Zefferino Flores (2) rushes the ball during a nondistrict game last year with the Newcomb Skyhawks. Wingate dropped its football program for the 2026 season due to a lack of numbers.
WINDOW ROCK
The football pads and helmets will lay idle for the upcoming 2026 gridiron season for the Wingate Bears.
Last week, the school administrators made the tough decision to cancel the rest of the football season due to a lack of numbers.
“We were definitely planning on having a season,” Wingate coach AD Jim said. “We actually had a full-on summer program going from March all the way to the end of June. Our numbers were still low at that time, but we were still expecting to go play in the fall.”
Before this year, Jim said the program attracted roughly 60 kids to the football team on the first day of practice for the previous four seasons. Those numbers were a third of that after the third day of practice earlier this month.
To read the full article, please see the Aug. 20, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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Highway 264,
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