As the New Hartford Pop Warner Program administration is preparing for the 1997 season, they took time to reflect back on the success of the 1996 season. How do they measure success? New Hartford has established three goals on which they measure themselves. They are to teach sportsmanship, teach fundamental football, and to promote participation in the game of football. Let's see how they did.
First - sportsmanship. The two flag teams played 15 games and the four tackle teams played 31 games. Forty six games were played in 15 different communities without any incidents or problems of any sort. Although our teams made their share of mistakes, no unsporstmanlike conduct penalties were committed by any of our players or by any member of our coaching staffs. Our players, cheerleaders, parents and coaching staffs won the respect of our opponents on and off the field.
Second - fundamental football. The final score of a game by itself is no measure of how well fundamental football is being taught. In fact, the Tri County Central Pop Warner HLA (Highest Local Authority), which is the league we belong to does not keep a record of wins and losses for flag or Junior PeeWee level football. Anyone who watched out teams play last year could tell our players were being taught and were learning good fundamental football. You could see the players improve game by game. Just as important, you could see they were having fun while participating. The PeeWee team had a 6-1-1 record and tied for the league championship and the Midget team, The Bears, had a 2-5 record. The Bears were a young team and could possible have 27 of their 34 players return for the 1997 season.
Third - participation. We are proud to say "Every child who wanted to play Pop Warner football or to be a cheerleader, had that opportunity. We registered all and cut none." Our coaching staffs did an excellent job of making the practice sessions and games fun for all the players and cheerleaders. We started the season with 132 football players and ended with 131. Our only drop was a player with a weight problem. We also had 63 cheerleaders to cheer us on.
Yes, when measured against our goals of teaching sportsmanship, teaching fundamental football, and promoting participation in football, we had a very successful season. Most importantly, we all had fun!"
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