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How to start my own youth football program?

I'm looking to get information on starting a youth football program, a team or a whole league for my area kids how do you go about starting that? does anyone no of websites?

start with www.popwarner.com and find a league as close to you as you can and reach out to them for help. It would be easier to start a local organization and join an existing league then create a whole new league. If there isn't one close by, reach out to a few others and see if any of the teams would be willing to help with some ideas.

Also reach out to your local parks and recs department and your local school football coaches. Just talk to them and ask for anyting they can help with - equipment lists, ideas, thoughts. You never know what resources and information you will turn up by talking with people.

Talk to parents - lots and lots of parents and see what kind of demand you have.

Your issues are many - just a few of the major ones you will have:

1- Financial - how are you going to bankroll the equipment you will need. There is a lot of gear to buy in the first year - pads, helmets, footballs, cones, shields, standup dummies, balls, equipment bags, jerseys, pants, water bottles and coolers, etc, etc, etc

2- Fields - where are you going to practice and where are you going to play? You should start with your your parks and recs department to see about practice fields and the local schools for a game field. If you practice at night - practice fields will need lights.

3- Insurance - a must have.

4- What rule sets will you follow? The pop warner rules are outstanding. You may not join a pop warner orgnization, but you should review their rules. If you start a league from scratch, you will need a set of Youth rules and not just High School rules.

5- Officials - if you start a league from scratch - where are you going to get officials? How will you pay them? Officials are not expensive usually - they do it because they love the game and the kids, but they do make a few dollars per game none the less. If you start your own league - you must provide them with training. What about shirts and pants, etc?

6- Fundraising - you will find that covering the costs of the initial equipment in the first year along with fields adn insurance is going to drive your per player cost pretty high. are you in an area that players can afford to pay that much? (it is not a trivial point - I know from experience). Even if you can recoup all that up front capital expenditure, you are going t find much more need for dollars over time - plan on fundraising right up front.

7- Volunteers - youth sports programs started by parents are pure volunteer. Lots of parents like to pay their fees and see their kid play, but they don't want to operate the clock or take tickets on game day much less handle behind the scenes operations such as keeping the financial books, making coaching ID badges, doing background checks on coaches, shopping for supplies and running the snack shack, etc, etc, etc.

8- Politics - its a parent run organization - you better draft by-laws of what is acceptable and what is not. Get some examples from other leagues. You will need a board to run the show and set rules and regulations around things like volunteer hours, disciplinign parents who cuss out a ref, who controls the checking account and tax codes (assumeing you declare non profit 501c).

I love what you are thinking - jsut make sure you talke to a lot of people before you commit. There is a lot to consider beyond the team and the X's and O's.

Good Luck

do both - start pulling together kids an parents to see what kind of demand and commitment you will get and at the same time approach a local league to see what options are available and how they can help and if they will let your team join. Report It

Have a lot of sons and name them all George.

call my dad and ask him. he did it!

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