Spring ball: Local middle school students hit the turf for flag football

WASILLA — More than 100 middle school students converged on Redington Jr./Sr. High School for the Mat-Su Borough School District’s first flag football jamboree. Teams from Redington, Palmer Junior Middle and Teeland Middle played three simultaneous games on the Redington turf.

“I’ve loved football for the longest time, it was just hard to find a school that would let me play. It’s taken a long time to try to find a school, but I’m playing and I’m kicking butt on the field and that’s what I love,” Aubrey Lawrence said.

Lawrence and her Redington teammates competed against both Teeland and PJMS as part of the Jamboree. Matt Jaronik, who coached the Teeland flag team on Tuesday and has taken over as the offensive coordinator for the Wasilla High School football team, was one of the key organizers. Jaronik said both Houston and Wasilla middle are also working on getting teams started. Flag football is a club sport as of now, but Jaronik and the high school coaches around the Valley have big plans for flag football at the middle school level.

“Giving kids an avenue who have never played football before to come out and experience football and in the spring is the perfect time to do it, especially at the middle school level,” Jaronik said.

The formerly formidable Mat-Su Youth Football Association folded, leaving only Pop Warner as an option for those who wanted to play football before getting to high school. In flag football, without contact, the kids still enjoy throwing the pigskin around and competing against their classmates.

“It’s probably equally fun. It just matters who you are,” said Redington’s Trevor Bowman.

Jaronik, Palmer Junior Middle head coach Keith Garner and Redington head coach Mathias Weinberger hope to get the sport sanctioned next year. After Tuesday’s kickoff event, five more jamborees are planned. Flag football is all-inclusive, featuring boys and girls of all shapes and sizes playing all different positions. Redington’s team features a female quarterback.

“I just really wanted to do this opportunity and like be with, like meet new friends and like hopefully like even people that’s not on my team I can cheer them on, like just try to keep everyone happy,” said PJMS’s Noah Giossi.

While professional football remains as popular as ever, youth football has seen a decline in numbers that may be related to increased research as to the negative effects of repeated head collisions in tackle football. While the flag football program could fill the void left by MYFA to educate young football players on how to play the game, one of the more important aspects being absorbed in flag football is how to play the game safely.

“Not only just for our programs, but to kind of educate just especially about football. There’s a lot of concussion talk that we see in the news. We’ve seen our high school numbers drop, not just because of overall apathy, but some of it is because of just unawareness, that kind of thing, and so it’s a good opportunity for the kids to get out and learn the game without having somebody coming at them you know, and just having a great time,” Garner said.

Teams competed from 4:15-7:30 p.m. on the Redington turf. If and when flag football gets organized as a sanctioned sport next year, organizers hope to host a mini Super Bowl between the top teams at the end of the year. For some, this is their first introduction to football. For others, this is an excuse to play football in the spring.

“It’s nice to get back out here and throw the pigskin around,” Jaronik said. “Having girls was huge for us. We thought that was a huge deal to kind of kick the district in the butt and get girls flag football for high school. I think that’s a huge motivation as well for doing this so it’s awesome to see all the kids competing.”

Truman Dean plays quarterback for PJMS and jokingly says that his favorite football player is LeBron James. Dean hopes to lead his team to repeated victories this spring.

“We’ve got to stick up on defense and really as a quarterback, I just have to run around and see who’s open and who’s not and make the right decision,” Dean said.

Dean threw the season’s first touchdown to Marques Hall, who said that he is an inspiration to himself.

“Me myself and I, because I caught our first touchdown and our first extra point,” Hall said.

“That’s because you have gloves!” Hall’s PJMS teammate Max Anderson said.

Middle schoolers are staying active, having fun competing, and learning skills they can use at the next level.

“The way that we played football 20 years ago and tackling where you had to get a head across on the tackle, now we teach the hawk tackling that’s prevalent in the NFL. So you have your head behind and the old school way, flag football was a no no because of how you approached the ball carrier. Now it’s the same. Now with the hawk tackling, you approach from behind and you come up the same and so we’re actually teaching them in sixth grade what they’re going to be doing in ninth grade, the only difference is they’re going to be wearing pads,” Garner said.

Lawrence in particular is excited for the opportunity to prove herself on the gridiron.

“I love my team. They’re really nice, they’re really supportive and I’m really glad that I’m on the team,” Lawrence said. “I like the adrenaline you get when you’re playing on the field and you’re going against people and you feel like you want to prove that you can play on the field. Especially when you’re a girl, they’re not going to throw to you as often as they are to their best friend so you’re trying to show that you can get a touchdown and you can get you some yards. That’s the best thing.”

Organizers have also planned flag football events at Teeland on April 16, Redington on April 22, Colony on April 26, Teeland on May 7 and Wasilla on May 16.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Tim Rockey at tim.rockey@frontiersman.com.