Conference hbahba::cam_sports

    
    My son plays Pop Warner Jr. PeeWees, he's 9....tough kid 
    plays both Offensive guard and Linebacker on D....
    Rules seem the same as any other football, his equipment 
    is in great shape, they are limited to practice 6 hours a week
    the coaches are tough but you have to be ready for football
    if not the injuries would be high.....I think Pop Warner is 
    competative for the kids and also fun, its time to take the skirt
    of your kids at 9 and let them get tough if you don't they may be
    wussys for there whole life......it will seperate the boys form the
    young men.......
    
    /westy

    
    	I have a son who plays in the Pioneer Vally Pop Warner League.
    
    	He is 9 years old.  The rules are fine, the equipment is great,
    	The practices seem to last into the darkness....I don't even
    	know how they can see the ball.  I have no problem with the 
    	coaches.  Its like boot camp out there.....its great, they make
    	even me seem nice.  :-)
    
    	Hal 

    To answer your question on whether your kid will have fun you better
    find out about his coach. He/she will decide if he has fun. I coach a
    7th and 8th grade team and for me (and hopefully the kids) it's a
    blast. We have 42 kids on our team so it's hectic. But only 1 kid has
    quit so they must enjoy it. Football is probably the roughest sport for
    kids (hokey is rough too) so make sure they have equipment that's in
    good shape and that the helmets are safe. And make sure he doesn't use
    his head to tackle or block someone.
    
    Mike

    I'm a little biased on this topic (Yeah, so what else is new)
    so you might take it with a grain of salt...
    
    The most important thing that got me interested in supporting
    Pop Warner football was how they determined the teams to represent
    the districts (I think it was the districts).  Not only did they 
    have to have a good record, they also had to have excelled
    scholastically.  In other words the teams cumulative GPA could
    either get them into the next level of the playoffs or keep them out.
    
    They actually give scholar-athlete awards out to the kids who deserve
    them.  If I'm not mistaken there are even college scholarships
    awarded.
    
    As far as the equipment and practice times go, they are both regulated
    by Pop Warner at the national level.
    
    My only concern with the program is that in NH a few years ago they 
    started up the Junior Pee Wee level.  I think it is for the 7 and 8
    year olds.  There is nothing wrong with an organized sport for kids
    at that age, but the safety equipment they were is ALWAYS too big.
    Not many companies make GOOD helmets and shoulder pads to fit kids
    that small.  Maybe it has changed in the last 5 years, but that
    was my experience.
    
    
    billl

    
    Like I said earlier, my only complaint was the practice times...which
    seemed to be too late for 9 yr olds...6:00 to 8:00pm then moving up
    to 5:30 to 7:30.  By the time it ends, you just can't see the ball,
    ground or eachother.  I'm surprised no one has gotten hurt yet.
    
    My other complaint is that the PeeWee games don't start till Sunday
    afternoon at 12:30 and last about 1.5 hrs.  I do like my pro sports
    on Sunday.  I've made the sacrifice though.  What a Dad!  Aeee.
    
    Other than that.....its great for the kids.  There are some good teams
    out there too.  Its got to be a good experience for them.
    
    	Hal

    I have a ten year old boy who plays in the D division, his first year. 
    He plays and starts as an offensive and defensive lineman.  He says he 
    likes it, although he wishes he could be a running back once in awhile.
    The weight limit for the D division is 90 lbs. and he weighed in at 89
    lbs..  The equipment is good, practices last from 5:30-7:00 Mondays and
    Wednesdays and Saturdays 9:30 to 10:30.  His coaches are very
    enthusiastic, very serious and very intense.  Maybe a little too
    intense for the D division.  The program seems well run and is very
    organized.  
    
    My son played soccer since he was 5 years old and switched to football
    this year.  I do not care what sports he plays, let play what he likes,
    but he made Dad real happy when he wanted to play football.
    
    regards
    Paulf     

    
    	I've coached Pop Warner for six years, Lowell and Dracut at both
    the D and C levels. Pop Warner has one of the lowest injury rates of 
    all organized youth sports. Like Little League you'll get your
    occasional out of control coach and parent but it's not too bad.
    Football has a little different mindset than other sports so I think
    that the kids expect it will be physically tougher and it is. My
    step-son won't even think about playing, says the kids are nuts :)....
    	Practices go from 6:00 to 8:00 3 nights a week, it's gets real cold
    this time of year and will get colder soon.....playoffs can run until 
    the Thanksgiving timeframe. The program is strictly regulated, school
    grades are taken into condsideration. Equipment is checked out,
    physicals given...I think it's very organized, and it's all volunteer
    work. 
    	Some kids decide after a while that they don't enjoy it, that's ok,
    they tried. Maybe they'll come back maybe they'll find another outlet
    that they enjoy more. New England has fine Pop Warner programs.
    

    we played football sans pads from age 7 - 21, the later years on sunday
    afternoons.  As a youngster some of us had the leather helmuts but when
    the plastic jobs came we all discarded helmuts, soft and hard.
    
    I couldn't make the 98 lb minimum for 9th grade football so dropped
    that.
    
    nada injuries except my brother bruised a leg; he was 14 playing with
    16-18 on hard ground.
    
    I will let young phillip make up his own mind; one thing about football
    vs almost all sports is that it is 98% desire.

    My son played youth football from ages 8 to 14 and is now playing
    High School football.  I have coached youth football since 86 and
    am currently coaching Seniors.
    
    My experience is that kids playing football are tops, you gotta love
    the sport to play it, unlike baseball, soccer, et.al. where parents
    can force youngsters to play for many reasons (cheap babysitting?).
    Some kids have it in em to play some don't.  If a kid wants to play,
    fine but don't push em.  My parents tryed to stop me from playing
    football, all togther.  The most meaningful and positive experience
    of my youth involved my playing football.
    
    The bond developed between players and players and coaches is strong
    cause you overcome pain, cold, mud, hard-hitting opponents with an
    intense desire to succeed.  
    
    
    (Here comes my bias.) Hate the sushie sucking, BMW driving, liberal
    democrat parents, who's kid is playing soccer, who looks arrogantly
    at you with disdane for allowing your kid to play football cause it
    sooooooo brutal.  Soccer is, afterall, for the more sophisticated.
    
    
    

    
    Glad you said it and not me :)......

    Gee, I must be doing something wrong.  I am coaching 2 soccer teams at
    the moment, of which both of my daughters play on.  I don't like sushie
    (sp), and I WISH I was driving a beamer.  You must be thinking of
    another sport...sport!
    
    RTG

    I don't understand why parents of football players are so defensive.
    I played three years of HS football and really enjoyed it.  Both of my
    sons prefer soccer.  That's fine with me.  If you saw the Dracut-Lowell
    soccer match lasted night, with the blood spurting outta the Dracut
    player's head during the game, and the brawl afterwards (when a Lowell
    player on crutches was going through the line shaking hands and decided
    to whack a Dracut kid in the stomach with a crutch, setting off a
    full-scale brawl, you would be happy having your son play a kinder,
    gentler sport like football.  The Lowell team refused to leave the
    field without a police escort, and the kid on crutches and another
    Lowell player who sucker-punched a Dracut kid when the brawl had
    seemingly ended were suspended for the rest of the season.
    
    BTW, the game ended in a 2-2 tie.
    
    NAZZ 

    
    	I'm from Lowell and now live in Dracut. I've coached both Lowell
    and Dracut Pop Warner. It' unfortunate that some kids have to react
    in a non-sportmanlike manner but why should anyone think that it's any
    different from society. We warn the kids at practice and at games that
    "any" retaliation will not be tolerated and they will sit. In my 6 plus
    years i've only seen a couple of fights and with equipment on it's kind
    of stupid, but hey they see it every week on TV , this week you had
    Neon "NO BRAINER" Sanders duking it out. Because a kid gets a cut on
    the head does not mean soccer is more physical, just go to a football
    practice and watch, "Nutcrackers" for a while. Every sport is physical
    in it's own environment.
    

    flag,touch,midget, high school football are rougher games than Soccer.  
    It's not even in the same league.  Soccer is about as tough as
    softball, but at least you can take some one out in softball......
    
    Jimbo  

Most sports have a physical aspect.  My very first knee problem came from
playing soccer -- play goalie for a while against immigrant oppoents in
an industrial league and you'll learn about messed up knees, sore testicles,
and bruised ribs -- especially when you're just a skinny 15 year old.

Football, at a pro-level especially is so much more physically abusive
than soccer.  While I think that soccer demands more in terms of fitness,
(and you can't really compare that either), football, at the pro-level, is
more abusive to one's body.

Look at the stories of defensive lineman who start a career at 6'3" and
end their career at 6'1".  Look at the average lifespan of a lineman
being somewhere in the early 60s, as opposed to mid-70s for the rest of us.

Put those pads on them, and watch them hit harder and harder...  Unreal.


'Sa

    I agree with you at the pro level 'Saw, but my point was that at a
    younger, non-professional level, soccer is a physical game as well.
    I find it amusing how many of the macho, good-ol'-boys in this note
    are intimidated by soccer, as if discussing it is a threat to their
    manhood.  It's obvious most of these types have never seen high school
    soccer in person.
    
    I went to the Brockton-Xaverian football game Saturday, and the
    Lowell-Dracut soccer game last night.  The more physical contest was
    the soccer game, and it wasn't even close.  More blood, more injuries,
    more one-on-one physical confrontations.  And I'm not even talking
    about the brawl after the game.
    
    NAZZ

>
>    I agree with you at the pro level 'Saw, but my point was that at a
>    younger, non-professional level, soccer is a physical game as well.
>    I find it amusing how many of the macho, good-ol'-boys in this note
>    are intimidated by soccer, as if discussing it is a threat to their
>    manhood.  It's obvious most of these types have never seen high school
>    soccer in person.
>    

Things can be pretty darn physical, I know.   And high school rivalries
here in CT sometimes are on a par with some of the European rivalries.


'Saw

    I'm still trying to figure out how a guy starts by saying that his own
    parents tried to make him stop playing football and ends by insulting
    someone else's parents for doing the same thing...
    
    glenn
    

>    (Here comes my bias.) Hate the sushie sucking, BMW driving, liberal
>    democrat parents, who's kid is playing soccer, who looks arrogantly
>    at you with disdane for allowing your kid to play football cause it
>    sooooooo brutal.  Soccer is, afterall, for the more sophisticated.
    
    Rat on, Glenn.  I'm still scratching my head on this one.
    
    Mark.

    
       And I don't get how one soccer game between rival schools,
      that was obviously full of dirty play and generally poor
      sportsmanship culminating in assault with a deadly weapon 
      (typical of the sport), is pointed to as a laudable thing 
      when we all know after watching the Word Cup that the proper
      thing to do in a soccer game is fall to the ground every time 
      an opposing player so much as brushes against you.

    OK Nazz I'll bite, I notice the words seen, see etc...  Have you 
    ever played soccer?  If the high school soccer your watching is
    a physical game it's more likely bad refs.  
    
    Jimbo
    

    I played soccer in college on an intramural team that went to the
    finals of the intramural championships.  We lost to an international
    team from somewhere in Africa.  That was my first real exposure to
    soccer.
    
    My next acquaintance with the sport was a dozen years later when my
    oldest child began playing.  He is now on the Dracut JV team.
    
    I agree with you 100% about the poor refereeing that allowed last
    night's match to deteriorate into that ugly brawl, but having seen many
    high school football and soccer games in Dracut and at Xaverian, I will
    maintain that, considering you play without pads, that soccer matches
    up well with football in terms of its physical aspect.  Football,
    however, is supposed to be physical on every play.  So you expect it. 
    When that huge offensive line for Brockton kept opening those holes for
    Harris, the Xaverian kids knew what was coming but couldn't stop it.
    The physical aspect of soccer is not part of every play, but is
    something the players must be aware of and be ready for.  When you jump
    for a header in a crowd, you've gotta expect physical contact. 
    Breaking through defenders, slide tackling, contesting loose balls all
    involve contact.  Not the same type of contact as football, but contact
    nonetheless.
    
    NAZZ

    regarding note .9
    
    I like soccer and view it as a tough, physical sport.  Perhaps,
    at a high school and above level, even more demanding than football.
    If a kid wants to play soccer, great.  Same with football, baseball,
    bowling, what ever.
    
    My issue, if you will read my note, is directed at the soccer elitists,
    those who view the parents who allow their kids to play football
    as barbarians, and as parents who are not concerned with the health 
    or welfare of their kids.
    
    As a side bar, our youth league football insurance rates are lower than
    those for baseball or soccer.  
    
    Must have hit a nerve with the susie sucking, BMW drive DECies. :^}

    
>>>    My issue, if you will read my note, is directed at the soccer elitists,
>>>    those who view the parents who allow their kids to play football
>>>    as barbarians, and as parents who are not concerned with the health 
>>>    or welfare of their kids.
    
    I see your point now, and I agree with it; even as a enthusiastic 
    soccer parent/fan, I would be as proud and supportive of my son if 
    he were playing football, or anything else.  

    Consider this: the 'tude you are refering to on the part of soccer 
    fans is brought on as a reaction to the #*&@#$%@! they have had to take 
    from "football" fans.  I know I never felt that way before.

    Example: this Sports notesfile, where we can't even discuss OUR favorite 
    sport without being trashed and ridiculed incessantly by Bridie and 
    friends to the point that it is not fun to read Sports anymore.

    Clark

    I played on the state champion Clinton Raiders in 1975.

    Thanks for sharing that with us.
    
    Mark.

    Neither one of the Leominster teams could score on us.

    My son is 12 years old and is in his 4th year of Pop Warner.  I have 
    also coached for 3 years.  The equipment that the kids wear is very
    good and protects them well, and the coaches that I have worked with
    stress safety first.  
    
    Like any other sport, the coaches can make a difference.  They can make it
    a positive learning experience or turn kids off.  I have coached youth
    basketball and baseball at the local level as well as all star teams, and
    have not found football coaches to be any different than the ones I
    have met in other sports.
    
    The one thing that I have noticed about football is that the sport is
    not for every kid.  You cannot avoid the hitting.  I have seen good
    athletes try, but eventually quit because they could not get used to 
    the contact.  We try to let each child advance at their own pace, but
    some don't make it.  My son was a classic example.  When he told me
    at the age of 9 that he wanted to play Pop Warner football, I was in
    shock.  He was not a tough kid.  The first year he avoided as much
    contact as possible and only played the minimum play requirements. 
    The coaches were patient with him and worked with him as much as they
    could.  By his second year he had developed more confidence and courage
    and started in the offensive line.  The last 2 years he has started
    both ways in the line and is more than willing to hit anyone that is in 
    front of him.  Lucky for my son he had coaches that were patient with him
    his first year, or he might have quit.  
    
    charlie    
          

    regarding note .28
    
    Could not agree with you more.  Have witnessed many kids who suddenly 
    figure out how to hit and are transformed into a miniature Butkas,
    or the second stringer in Pop Warner who gets a full ride in college
    and the plays for the pros.  This happened with two of our kids, who
    like many big men, develop late.  Both got full rides at the U of W,
    then one played for the Bills and the other for the SeaHawks.
    
    
    

    Last night Acton Pop Warner held their awards night.  Every player on
    all four teams and the cheerleaders received a trophy.  Each coach said
    some words about the players on their teams.  It was a real nice ending
    to a great season for the kids.  After the awards presentation a ice
    cream and soda party was held in the school cafe for all those in
    attendance.    
    
    Paul

    What's the point of having trophies if everybody gets one?
    
    NAZZ

|    What's the point of having trophies if everybody gets one?

Spoken like someone who was probably always the star of the team.

I was always a scrub when I was that age, and it would have been
nice to get at least one trophy.

    
    Pop Warner....everyone gets a trophy. Dracut gives trophys to all the
    kids....both players and cheerleaders get jackets their last year. Wish
    I could get one......

            The Pop Warner season has ended a few weeks ago for myself. it
    has taken me this long to "cool off" from our last game.I won't get
    into it here, But some, have to "WIN" at every aspect of the game. 
    This truly is not the purpose of Pop Warner Football.
    	There have been many reflective moments for myself, as a coach
    and as a parent. There have been many rewarding moments for myself
    and for the team. There has been defeats that we all shared, and
    learned from them. From this we learn of 'Team Sports.'  We make many 
    a new friend, some friendships may carry on for years.  This is a true
    reward of a 'Team Sport.'
    	The Coaching experience is wonderful. I have informed all players
    that my home is open to them, at any time, for any reason. I hope 
    to continue coaching and watch all players grow and mature in future
    years.
    
    Frank Smart
    Chelmsford Pop Warner

Frank

So you must be the guy I see screaming at the kids when
I run by Sully's.

=Bob=

(Only kidding, the only screamer I see at those practices
is the HS head coach.)

    I attended our local Pop Warner meeting last week.  The president of
    our teams said the enrollment has increased enough to add a E division. 
    He also said most of the teams in the league have added an E division
    and some other towns are going to have 2 teams in each of the other
    older divisions.

    Chelmsford also has a large increase in enrollment. We usually have an 
    E division, but this year we have 2 D teams and 2 C teams. Both of
    those team have nearly full rosters too.. the B enrollment is up and
    so is the A team...   it's hectic on and off the field.... additional
    uniforms, very crowded practice fields...  Games scheduling is another
    item still be developed.. the Board of Directors are working hard as
    well as all the coaches...  additional coaches are hard to find, most
    parents are shying away...anyone interested in coaching ?
    
    frank

    	This Sunday the Oakmont Pop Warner Association will host the annual
    	Wachusett Pop Warner Football League Jamboree at Monty Tech's 
    	Bulldog Field.  Twenty-one teams will be participating.  The
        Jamboree will begin at 10am and end around 6:30pm.  In addition to 
    	the game, the jamboree will feature an appearance by three of the
    	New England Patriots cheeleaders, who will sign autographs and pose
    	for pictures.  Though there is no admission charge, the league will
    	be taking optional donations of $2 at the door.  Everyone who gives
        a donation will be entered in a drawing for a pair of 1995-96 
    	season ski passes to Wachusett Mountain.  (50% of the procedes from
    	the gate will be donated to the DARE Program)

	The ol' 'tronic tavern has been kinda quite lately so.....

	I thought it was kinda bee-zare when the pop warner program here in
	Merrimack, NH, got involved in the "Junior Pee Wee" division.  For
	you outsiders that's youngin's in the 8-9 year old range with 
	appropriate weight limits.

	Now they've gone even farther....

	Would you believe a "Might Mite" division for 7-8 year olds?

	Soon there will be time outs on the field for diaper changes.



	billl

    yeah but it might be worth the cheerleader poses...
    

    
     re .39
    
        Seeing as how New Hampshire has the highest concentration
        of militia members in New England coupled with the state's
        "Live Free Or Die" motto, I'd guess that this is early 
        military training so's the kids can defend their inalien-
        able right to place state liquor stores next to interstate 
        highways.

	Hey Tommy....pppfffffttttt!


	Actually this 'another' dumb idea (IMNSHO) that migrated from across
	that de-militarized zone from the Peoples Republic of Massholes.  ;^)



	billl