Bellwood vs Ridge

[Lefteyelouie]

I don't think old school coached Jr. High did he? I thought it was 7th grade football. I could be wrong.

[Bedrock]

You heard wrong Gunner----the offer was made several times but declined. It was appreciated.

Old School wouldn't want to switch sides because there are way too many state records on the jr high level going on right now to move. Heck with varsity, jr high is where it counts!

[southpaw]

The nice thing about JH is that you only have 300 idiots yelling at you on Thursday night not 3000 on Friday night!

[CRLionDawg]

Wow, this has turned into quite an interesting thread of information.

Both CR and Bedford sound really nice places to live!

[old school]

7th grade games you only have 30 idiots yelling at you.

Bedrock and Ham...FYI...CR 7th grade team record over the past 4 years......22-2....how do u like those apples.

[Lefteyelouie]

Wow! Maybe we have found Joe Paterno's replacement right up the road in Fishertown. lol

[southpaw]

Old school's offense in 7th grade is about as predictable as State's.

"3 yards and a cloud of dust"

[ham55]

I haven't talked about J.H. or anything, your getting me confused with Gunner. BTW, if you read Crep's article, early success means nothing, one of the best teams in Bedford history didn't win a game or score a point in J.H. Who cares about 7th grade football, its a building block, nothing more. And the only way that your peewee tackle league makes a differnce is there, 7th and 8th grade.

[CRLionDawg]

Come on Ham. If you have a well organized youth program to feed the high school team it can only help. The better trained and more experienced the group of athletes are that show up the first day of HS football camp the better the end result will be. That includes Old Schools 7th grade team. Is that the only way to do it? No. But year in and year out a good system produces better results.

[LionPride]

I agree. The youth programs help tremendously. If nothing else, they teach the basics at an early age and those basics don't have to be learned at the 7th grade level. Back in the stone ages, when I played some football, I was lost because my Dad never was a sports fan. In 7th grade, I didn't know what the 2,4,6,8 or 1,3,5,7 holes were. Heck, I didn't even know where all the pads went :shock: . I didn't know the proper way to tackle. And so much more. With the youth programs, they are getting all that now when the games don't really count.

The youth programs are great for our area. The trick is to not push the kids so hard that they start to hate a sport. If they sign up for it, they must finish it, but if they don't want to sign up for something, don't push it and ask again the following year. My kids live for sports. A lot of people think I push them into it, but it's the other way around, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Now, once they are in something, I do push them to do play up to their potential, but it's a fine line to walk.

In the end, sports are great for our youth. Their are tons of building blocks in sports to help kids shape how they will live their lives. And starting these sports early in life helps the kids to be more competitive in high school - there's no doubt in my mind about that.