What is it about football???

Inside, see what rec football kids looked like in 1953! Also, see slideshow inside and in Photo Gallery
October 16, 2009
by Christine Yeres

On Wednesdays and Fridays from now until November 11, all 120 fourth, fifth and sixth graders of the town’s Recreation Football League will meet on the rec field next to town hall to play one another, in full gear, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The sixth grade league played their first games Wednesday night on bright green autumn grass under the big lights. As parents watched the games, teams waiting their turn practiced with their coaches on the edges of the field while younger siblings cavorted on the baseball diamond. All across the field, footballs traced arcs in the air.

Tonight, the fourth and fifth grade teams – the Auburn Tigers, the Georgia Bulldogs, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Oregon Mighty Ducks – play one another. The sixth grade teams – the Syracuse Orangemen, the Michigan Wolverines, the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Florida Gators – play one another next Friday. See the full rec football schedule below.

One of the few rec football towns left

“We’re one of the few towns that still play rec football,” noted Pete Zimmerman, owner of EZ Sports in downtown Chappaqua. Zimmerman has organized the town’s recreational football program as a volunteer for 25 years. “Instead of big travel teams with 30 or 40 members, like in other towns, we play each other in teams that have just 13 or 14 players. And we take everyone. In fact, the football program takes everyone all the way up through high school. We want everyone to feel welcome. Kids don’t hear from us ‘Oh, you’re not fast enough, not big enough, not good enough.’ From fifth grade all the way up to the high school, if you want to be on our team, we want you.”

Zimmerman’s family moved to Chappaqua in 1959, where he entered Roaring Brook Elementary School as a first grader. At Greeley he played football for the Quakers. “I was a third stringer. I was 5 foot 8 inches; I weighed around 140 to 145 and was playing against guys who were 200. I didn’t play a lot, because there were better players than me, but I was on the team. I loved football. My friends played too.”

Dan Papes, another native of New Castle, is coach for his son’s sixth grade team, the Michigan Wolverines. Papes is an alumnus of the rec football program, and was captain of Greeley’s football team in 1979. “Pete was seven or eight years ahead of me at Greeley. He’s given thousands of hours for 25 years to the New Castle rec football program. He loves the sport, he loves the program, and he loves the kids.”

How rec football works

The program has two leagues, one for grades 4 and 5, another for grade 6. During the match-up process, some fifth graders are invited to play with sixth graders. Practices are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. Games take place on Wednesdays and Fridays. Everyone practices on Monday; during Wednesday and Friday games, anyone not playing in a game practices.

“We start practicing in early September with all 120 kids combined,” explained Papes, “and after five or six practices we divide the two leagues into four teams each. We divide them as evenly as possible, with an equal number of big guys on each team. In soccer, if one team is better than the other, they just score more goals. In football mismatches can cause injuries.” Zimmerman added: “If we’ve got a 60 pound kid and a 170 pound kid, those two kids should never match up against one another. Other teams try to create mismatches to win games; we try not to, to make it fairer for everybody.”

The football family in New Castle

“We’ve got great support from the Quakers’ coach Bill Tribou and his whole program,” noted Papes. “At last Saturday’s home game against Fox Lane, at halftime our kids ran out on the competition field as each of their names was read out by the announcer.” Zimmerman was there too with the rec teams. “For a kid to be able to run out on the field at halftime and hear his name, that’s like heaven,” he said.

“I coach baseball, basketball and football,” said Papes, “and there’s nothing like the sport of football. The kids come in not knowing what it’s really like, having just seen it on TV and thinking it’s cool. But by the third or fourth practice, they’re like ‘Wow, when you get knocked down, it hurts!’ But you get knocked down and you get up, and we’ve never had any significant injury. The kids wear full protective gear.”

“They work very hard, harder at football than at any other sport at this age,” stated Papes. “You take a kid on September 7 and take the same kid on November 7 when we finish, and they’re different kids. They’ve come a long way in confidence and maturity, more than you’d see in one baseball season.”

“If you saw some of these faces, of kids playing for the first time,” said Zimmerman, “and how much positive can come out of football camaraderie with teammates working for a common goal. There are eleven guys out there; if one guy doesn’t do his job, the play fails. Everybody has to pull their weight. That’s what I love about football. I’m so passionate about it because I’ve seen the positive aspects of it. A lot of kids grow at different rates. A kid might be small but tough, or big but intimidated. It’s really about how big your heart is.”

And it takes time. Zimmerman explained, “A lot of other sports have been playing games for weeks now, but in football, we’re about playing when you’re ready, and in football you’re not ready right away. In football we have to teach it.”

See rec football schedule, photos and slideshow below.

Kids couldn’t afford color in their uniforms in those days.