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Help wanted XFL considering using players as young as 19
NEW YORK (AP) -- The XFL is considering bolstering its talent next season by signing players out of high school who have not qualified academically for college. Michael Keller, the XFL's vice president for football operations, said he hoped the plan would be instituted in the next few months. The league would be offering a chance to play to those who have "exhausted their opportunity to attend a two-year or a four-year college," Keller said. The XFL's plan was first reported in Sunday's editions of The New York Times. Keller said the plan calls for a player to become eligible one year after his high school class graduates or when he becomes 19 years old. Players would also go through a screening process, he said. "I don't think it has to be controversial. I think it's wrong to deny young men an opportunity to play football," he said. "You can pick up a rifle and defend your country at 19." The fledgling league has had discussions about the plan with the American Football Coaches Association, which represents thousands of college coaches, Keller said. The Times reported that the coaches' association opposes the idea. "We would be adamantly against the XFL signing players so young," Grant Teaff, executive director of the association, told the Times. "It's a bad idea, and if the XFL did it, we would do everything in our power to stop it." Keller told The Associated Press that he disagreed with the Times' representation of the XFL's talks with the coaches' association. "That flies in the face of what our discussion was," he said. The NFL maintains strict eligibility rules regarding its players, who must be at least three years out of high school. "There are numerous 19- or 20-year-olds who do have the maturity to play football," Keller said. The XFL, which began play last month, has seen its TV ratings drop to near-record lows. Nevertheless, NBC -- which is a co-owner of the league along with the World Wrestling Federation -- insists it is committed to showing the XFL in prime-time for the rest of its two-year contract.
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