Pull the plug

[Wildcat17]

Has anyone ever seen the show Friday Night Tykes? I think it was on Esquire this past spring(might be on netflix now). It's about 8 year old and up football in Texas. It is crazy! They have a state playoff system and state champion. They broadcast games on the radio and I think even rank the players. It's pretty much out of control as far as youth football goes. Here's an article from USA Today:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/friday- ... re-popular

[Guru]

Youth football is a joke. I'm not going to spend much time on this subject other than to point out that little kids brains are programed to throw rocks, chase cats and play with lego blocks. Just because parents want to relive their football years through their kids doesn't mean it is right. Their brains are growing, their necks are little and 99% of youth coaches are there so that they can give their kid the ball every play. I believe that 7th grade is the earliest that a kid should play. For those of you who would argue that point may I point out that my father, brothers, myself and my son all played college football and none of us played a snap of tackle football until the 7th grade. Flag football is a good teaching tool but contact is out of the question. All that pee wee football does is alienate the kids. It also expands the heads of those kids and parents who are a little more developed than the rest of the pack... Just my two cents and if this offends you then you are in the 99% and you will NEVER understand it.

[sonofpsycho]

Guru nails it !!!!

[west33]

So just because u and ur family made it to a small college level not playing pee-wees means everybody should sit tight and that will work for all! Ridiculous! I will tell u more pros and college players by a landslide played pee-wee before 7th grade! lol. So you are telling me baseball, wrestling, soccer, and basketball, kids should wait and they will be better??? I highly doubt that. U can disagree all u want, the bottom line is you have to play at a young age all the way up thru to compete with kids nowadays. There are a SELECT FEW like ur family that may have success, but no comparison to the kids who played it at a young age. I saw forest hills kids go thru the system at grpfl and built fh tons of talented teams and most the good players were from that league. U people are crazy to believe u should wait til jr high to go out. jmo

[Hardknocks]

Is there any successful high school football team that does not have a midget program in there are?

[west33]

No, but shade got one started up 5-6 years ago and are now having success vs the school that kicked the crap out of them before. Heck they gave berlin and portage all they could handle this year which was always a 60-0 game. Did wonders for that program. Con. valley had some great pee-wee teams coached by the bair bros that should bring cv out of the gutter here soon. They r in jr high now, but in a few years cv will be tough. Pee-wees means a lot when u get a good coach.

[knowitall]

Is there any successful high school football team that does not have a midget program in there are?

There's a lot of terrible teams that do.

[deepcreek]

I see nothing wrong with it as long as the adults run the program responsibly. Since this very rarely happens, I can see the wait until junior high and real coaches.

Things I noticed when my son played midget football

1) Kids taking laxatives to stay below weight limit
2) Kids starving themselves to avoid the dreaded "stripped helment"
3) Kids being pushed too hard for the sake of being good at 10
4) Coaches treating wins and loses like life or death
5) age violations
6) kids getting discouraged and never playing football again (this is the biggest issue since some kids don;t develop until 14)
7) kids blowing ACL at 11 because someone much larger rolled up on them
8) Otherwise sane parents becoming maniacs over this endeavor

None of the above are good and other than teaching kids discipline I can't think of another good element to it. You can teach them discipline and skill development just as well through flag.

[Eaglealum]

Listen to today's Ruscillo(spell) and stu gotts show. All about this topic

[GrapeApe]

Kids don't lose interest per se. Many quit before Jr High because they sat behind the Coach's kid in pee wee and weren't given a chance. Of course, many times the parents of the kid only focus on the "injustice" which leads the kid to quit instead of instilling in him the attitude to work hard and persevere. And I'm not saying all pee wee coaches are bad, but sure there are enough of them out there.

Kids also give up after 3-4 years of pee wee because they weren't physically ready yet. And then when they are physically ready in 7th grade, they don't come out because they had bad experiences in pee wee or they've moved on to something else.

The CV pee wee thing is a joke from what I hear. Teams don't want to play them because they're better than everyone else?! That's life boys. Sometimes there are teams out there better than you and you just go out and do the best that you can. What are these coaches teaching their teams? When things aren't going to go your way, take your ball and go home? Did Ferndale have enough players to play the week after the forfeited CV game (Note- I'm not from CV or a Cv supporter).

Football is the one sport that you don't have to develop particular skills at an early age to be successful (ex: dribbling, hitting a baseball, etc). If you like to hit people, you can step in in 7th grade and just play. Yes, pee wee football may be aligned with the varsity offense, but it doesn't take that long to teach the kids the playbook.


And don't get me started on one sport athletes. Let the kids enjoy playing everything they can. You only get to do it once and most kids aren't going big time anyhow.

End rant...