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Football boom |
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Written by TED CLARKE
Citizen staff
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Friday, 18 April 2008 |
High school game keeps growing in popularity
Crunching hits, mad end-zone scrambles and nail-biting championship games played on snow-covered fields.
There’s no doubt about it, Prince George high school football is cool.
Fueled by seven teams, 210 players, and a never-ending supply of school spirit, the steamroller set into motion with the revival of the sport four seasons ago continues to gather momentum.
The increasing profile at the high school level is sparking minor football interest in the Prince George Minor Football Association, the grassroots league that is producing the high school stars of tomorrow.
“Because of the success of the high school program, we’re growing,” said Curtis Hansen, who coached the Prince George bantam Axemen travelling team and the D.P. Todd Trojans high school team last season.
“Four years ago we had 126 players (in minor football and no high school players). Last year, we had (500) players. There were seven high school teams, four peewee teams, four junior bantam teams, three atom teams and one bantam team. It’s an inexpensive sport -- it costs $200 per kid to play high school football.”
As important as football is to the high schools, minor football is giving younger players the skills they’ll need to advance to junior football and the university ranks. Without the PGMFA, high school teams would be facing $15,000 startup costs in equipment alone.
“One can’t really exist without the other,” said Grant Erickson, coach of the College Heights Cougars and a longtime PGMFA coach. “The high schools can’t afford their own equipment and the minor football equipment allows us the equipment to have a high school league. The exposure high school gets helps the community (football) numbers.”
Hansen believes minor and high school programs will continue to prosper now that there is an indoor facility available in the city.
“Prince George used to have a four-month football season -- we want to see football year-round, and with the Northern Sport Centre we can do just that,” said Hansen. “Right now, the only limits we have are the limits we put on ourselves.”
The Northern Grind Football Camp put on by the Vancouver Island Raiders and SFU Clan in February at the Northern Sport Centre gave 95 players based in northern communities a taste of off-season skills instruction regularly available to players who live closer to major population centres like Vancouver. The camp was geared toward more experienced players who are trying to move on to junior or college football, and they picked up on the professional approaches of the guest coaches.
“When I coached midget five or six years ago you couldn’t get them into the gym if their lives depended on it,” said Erickson. “Now, probably half the (College Heights) team is going to the gym and taking it seriously. When they see coaches from university and junior teams up here, all of a sudden it’s real to them and it’s not as hard for them to imagine themselves making that next step.”
The indoor field space at the NSC made the winter camp possible in Prince George for the first time, but it would not have happened without the input of the Raiders and Clan teams. Having former Prince George minor football star and current Raiders head coach Matt Blokker as a connection in Nanaimo led to nine Prince George players moving to Nanaimo to play last fall.
The junior Raiders will have at least four other D.P. Todd graduates playing for them this season -- Adam McConaghy, Kyle Moore, Francis Roller, and Darcy McDonald -- as well as six-foot-three, 270-pound defensive tackle Curtis Vissa.
Vissa, a native of McBride who tried out with the Prince George Cougars as a forward two seasons ago, has become a dominant two-way player in the B.C. Junior Football League with the Raiders, starting at defensive tackle and offensive guard with them.
“He’d never played football, they had to show him how to put on his equipment,” said Hansen.
A flag football program, funded by the NFL, is now open to Prince George players. The PGMFA can field as many as two seven-person teams of players aged 11-14 to play in provincial, national and international tournaments.
“One of the benefits to flag football is you get to work on your technique,” Hansen said. “Kids who transfer from flag football into tackle football usually excel at it.”
There’s little doubt some local players rate among the best in the province. In March, 11 Prince George players were part of the Senior Bowl in Vancouver and running back Mike McMaster
of PGSS was named the game’s most valuable player.
n Nechako Valley and Correlieu join Duchess Park, D.P. Todd, PGSS, College Heights and Kelly Road in the local high school league, which opens its schedule Sept. 5, following the eight-team High School Jamboree, set for Aug. 23. The P.G. Bowl championship will be played Halloween Night, Oct. 31, at Masich Place Stadium. The winner will move on to play the Fort St. John-Dawson Creek winner in the Northern Provincial Cup, Nov. 6. The winner of that game will meet the best Tier 2 team from the Lower- Mainland-Okanagan-Vancouver Island region in a one-game playoff.
n At the minor level, Erickson said there should be enough players in the northern region for a four-team bantam (14-and-15-year-old) city league with two Prince George teams and one each from Quesnel and Vanderhoof. There was just one bantam team in the region last season.
“We had to do something at that age group because we have an hourglass demographic -- heavy on the bottom with all these (junior bantam) teams feeding one bantam team,” said Erickson. “That one bantam team had to support five high schools. We’ve got 75 bantam kids, and you have to have somewhere for them to play.”
n The peewees (10-and-11-year-olds) will make their trip once again to B.C. Place Stadium in Vancouver, where they’ll get to play a half-time game during a Lions game and then sleep overnight in the domed stadium.
n The PGMFA is sponsoring a one-day skills camp in May that features three B.C. Lions players -- linebacker Tyson Craiggs, offensive lineman Angus Reid, and a player to be named later. The camp is open to first 100 players aged 6-11 who sign up.
n Volunteer coaches, team managers, trainers, and statisticians are needed in the PGMFA. The league is also looking for an equipment manager and referees, which are paid positions. Contact Judy at 964-2207 or Grant at 962-8085.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 08 October 2008 )
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