Youth Football in the City (Atlanta, Smyrna: 2009, skateboarding, house)

[plessthanpointohfive]

Can anyone help me?

My son has expressed interest in playing football. He's almost 7 and he's very athletic - played soccer for 3+ years.

I can't seem to find programs in the city.

I Googled "Atlanta Youth Football" and got a bunch of links that don't help me. For instance, the Atlanta Colt Youth Association is at Murphey Candler Park...which is a long way from the original Candler Park where I live.

I heard from someone that the Eastlake Y has a program but their website was not forthcoming (or did not match what I'd been told).

?????

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by plessthanpointohfive

Can anyone help me?

My son has expressed interest in playing football. He's almost 7 and he's very athletic - played soccer for 3+ years.

I can't seem to find programs in the city.

Doesn't your school have a team? Although 7 might be a bit young, I don't know. That would probably start in the fall, though.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Doesn't your school have a team? Although 7 might be a bit young, I don't know. That would probably start in the fall, though.

I really don't know anything about American football, but I think rcsteiner is right.

At Open House at the beginning of 4th grade, the parents were as usual seated in their child's seat in the classroom. I found myself wedged between two moms who were avidly discussing their sons' football participation across me. I mentioned this to my daughter just recently, when she was mentioning that those two boys became well-known football heroes at middle school, and her fellows at middle school could never believe she actually sat between them in 4th grade. (I think people were thinking this was more of a privilege than she considered it to be!)

So there's football for fourth-graders, at least in Cobb County, but I have the impression that may be about the starting age.

[Atlantasfinest]

I've seen a team practicing in Old 4th Ward/Inman Park when I used to live at Studioplex bu tI can't remember the name of the team. They practiced at the field on Randolph/Irwin Street in the neighborhood at an old school that is used for a police station and community center and polling station.

You can see the field here... Irwin St NE & Randolph St NE, Atlanta, GA 30312, USA - Google Maps .

I will ask around for you to find out If the team is still active and when practice starts, etc. I played Pop Warner Football coming up as a youngster in California and I loved it!

Honestly, I don't believe youth football in gentrified/established areas ITP like Inman Park, Candler Park, Druid Hills, Decatur, VaHi, Midtown etc. has caught up/or is as popular with their Northern/Southern suburbian counterparts yet because it's just not as established with youth football and most people who live in the area do not have kids or have young kids who are just starting out so it's going to take some time to get programs established. Seems like most of the kids in the areas I mentioned are more into the arts, skateboarding, soccer, tennis, etc.

However in some of the areas of the city with a heavier Black population like Cascade, Sandtown, South Fulton, West End, Westview & Adams Park I know for sure that those areas have established teams. I will dig up some more info to see what I can find out closer to your area .

[plessthanpointohfive]

Hey all,

Thanks for the response. My son is elementary school (going into 2nd grade) so there's no athletic program yet.

I knew this would be hard because of the demographic of where I live. There are a lot of Europeans around here...and soccer is REALLY popular. It's so huge around here it rivals, in scope, the way pee-wee football was where I grew up. But I know I'm not the only one looking for resources!

Today I posted the same request to the CDC Parent Listserv and got back emails from about 5 parents who are looking for youth football programs.

Thanks, Atlantasfinest, for looking into it. I will keep searching, too.

When we lived in Gwinnett there was probably 5 different pee-wee leagues...

[RainyRainyDay]

Any of these locations work...? METRO ATLANTA YOUTH FOOTBALL LEAGUE: Locations

[CoachMarcSmith]

I you are trying to find Football in the Cobb County area. There are different associations you can join. Ages start a 5 through 12

East Cobb-

Blackwell Bears
East Cobb Vikings

South Cobb

Smyrna Spartans
Milford Warriors
Southwest Cardinals
Wallace Park 49ers

West Cobb

Hillgrove Hawks (my association)
McEachern Indians
Fair Oak Lobo's
Due West Hoyas

North Cobb

Acworth Warriors
Altoona ??

Paulding

South Paulding ??
East Paulding Raiders
Hiram Hornets
New Hope Eagles


Douglas

Douglas ??

Cherokee
South Cherokee Redskins

They are in the process of splitting into two leagues but this should help you.

Hillgrovefootball.org

[leslie reeves]

My son is in first grade and we too live near the city (Druid Hills). We have played through Atlanta Colts the last two years, and it is a great program, probably better than any I would find in the metro area, but it is not close and traffic getting out there at 5 and 6 pm can be dicey.
I have searched to no avail for a closer youth football program. Someone told me a few months ago that Druid Hills HS will be offering a youth program to little guys this Fall, but surfing the web, I have not yet found a link to it. However, I was told at the time it would be new for Fall 2009, so it may not be out there yet.

That's my two cents....good luck.

[plessthanpointohfive]

UPDATE:

I finally got a link to the city park league. And that's what we did. The closest team was Morningside but they didn't have enough of a 6 and under enrollment to make a team. So they consolidated the Morningide U6 with the Peachtree Hills team.

Now, I will admit that this ended up being pretty blue collar football. The head coach was a city employee. The asst coaches were dads. There was a lot of yelling at the kids. My son was the only white kid on the team...


And he loved every freaking second of it.

He never minded the coaches in his face screaming at him (probably because it reminded him of me...lol). He really really really really really loved to HIT. He loved practice. He loved games. He played defensive tackle and he loved sacking the quarterback. He also played center and he loved hiking the ball.

He's not that big and won't be a big guy. But he was the oldest on his team so he was one of the biggest.

And he didn't notice he was the only white kid until toward the end of the season.

It was a great experience for the whole family and we can't wait to sign him up next year.

He can't wait either. He loves to play two-hand touch with his buds during their after school program.

But sometimes he forgets and tackles.

Anyway, about him being the only white kid. That was interesting. The black kids came from an extremely broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds - from very poor to very priveged.

It was an interesting observation.

I should say that while my son didn't notice he was the only white kid until the end...from what I could see the black kids didn't notice either. At least they never said anything about it. And these are 5 - 7 year olds. They'd have said something if they'd noticed.

That such a wonderful age!!!

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by plessthanpointohfive

UPDATE:

I finally got a link to the city park league. And that's what we did. The closest team was Morningside but they didn't have enough of a 6 and under enrollment to make a team. So they consolidated the Morningide U6 with the Peachtree Hills team.

Now, I will admit that this ended up being pretty blue collar football. The head coach was a city employee. The asst coaches were dads. There was a lot of yelling at the kids. My son was the only white kid on the team...


And he loved every freaking second of it.

He never minded the coaches in his face screaming at him (probably because it reminded him of me...lol). He really really really really really loved to HIT. He loved practice. He loved games. He played defensive tackle and he loved sacking the quarterback. He also played center and he loved hiking the ball.

He's not that big and won't be a big guy. But he was the oldest on his team so he was one of the biggest.

And he didn't notice he was the only white kid until toward the end of the season.

It was a great experience for the whole family and we can't wait to sign him up next year.

He can't wait either. He loves to play two-hand touch with his buds during their after school program.

But sometimes he forgets and tackles.

Anyway, about him being the only white kid. That was interesting. The black kids came from an extremely broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds - from very poor to very priveged.

It was an interesting observation.

I should say that while my son didn't notice he was the only white kid until the end...from what I could see the black kids didn't notice either. At least they never said anything about it. And these are 5 - 7 year olds. They'd have said something if they'd noticed.

That such a wonderful age!!!

Hey plessie...how are you?

I just want to say...I'm so glad you entered your into a youth football program (and that you found one!).

Another poster remarked earlier on this thread how so many in-town kids (white) don't do youth football...it was an issue over when I worked over Decatur. So many young boys wanted to do youth football...but their mothers wouldn't let them! Some of them ended up playing by middle school age though (wore their mothers down).

If you look at Decatur Recreation they have SO many sports...but NO football!

I think it's important to expose kids to a wide variety of sports...not everyone can end up playing soccer...many kids who may not turn out to be a good soccer player, may find their "sport calling" in football, etc.