Battlefords Minor Football has seen its membership grow as it enters its fourth season of operation.
Founded in 2011, the program, which was started by president and coach Mike Humenny along with other high school coaches and volunteers, started with 35 kids in the Grade 7 and 8 division. In four years, BMF has three divisions and around 200 players in the program.
"We've been adding to the program each year and I think it's at the point where we wanted it to be," said Humenny before Tuesday night's flag football practice. "We're kind of at our max right now, but we'll wait and see."
BMF is comprised of a flag football program for kids in Grades 3 and 4, tackle football division for Grades 5 and 6 and a division for Grades 7 and 8 players. There are 50, 65 and 85 players in each division respectively. Along with the addition of two divisions, Humenny credited word of mouth for helping the program grow.
"If one guy signed up and all of his friends were kind of doing the same thing, they would go ahead and do that."
There were "growing pains" in the first season for the program. Humenny said they borrowed equipment from Regina Minor Football before being able to purchase about 70 sets of equipment for their second year. He said the league runs almost exclusively on player fees. The league avoids fundraising as Humenny said parents get fundraising requests from schools, other sports or other activities in which their kids are involved. Coming into this season, with the help of the Saskatchewan Roughriders Hockey Challenge, the league now has upwards of 150 sets of equipment for the tackle football players. The Roughriders approached the league and Humenny "graciously played host." It helped the league afford proper-fitting and safe equipment.
"That was one of the things that was a bit of a struggle in the beginning," said Hummeny. "But I think we're kind of at a level now where we're able to provide equipment for these guys and run a pretty quality program."
One of the hurdles BMF had to overcome was getting coaches and coaching development. Humenny, some coaches and a few parent volunteers attended a football clinic sponsored by Football Saskatchewan.
The coaches are helping to prepare the players in the Grade 5 and 6 division for high school football. Humenny, who has been coaching for 17 years, said the program will help both John Paul II and North Battleford Comprehensive High School.
"The biggest thing is when these guys enter high school, [BMF] will help them out significantly because they'll already know what the positions are called," Humenny said. "They'll know how to put their equipment on. They'll understand what a football practice is like and what it's like to be in a game."
Humenny said it can be difficult for kids who haven't played football before to show up and play in high school. If they had not played before, coaches had to immediately assign a position they should play as the timeframe is too short for them to learn something else.
"By doing it at a younger age, they might play receiver when they're in our Grade 5 and 6 league and then they might end up playing as a defensive back," said Humenny. "But at least they'll understand what a receiver is supposed to do, how to line up as a receiver or who the receiver is on the field.
The flag football program is new this year and is mainly modeled after the Regina Youth Football League. Humenny has been in contact with their league to help start the division by suggesting where BMF should purchase their equipment.
"It's more of an introduction into football," said Humenny. "All of the concepts we've been teaching, these flag guys are going to use these same skills when they start playing tackle football as well."
Practices for the flag and tackle football divisions all start with working on fundamental football skills, from blocking techniques to route running for wide receivers. A major teaching point is how to tackle properly in order to avoid concussions. Humenny has based the tackling instruction on USA Football's Heads Up program. One of the directives of the Heads Up program is to stop players from leading with their facemask. To do this, the directive suggests instructing players to get their eyes to the sky "so you should see how the clouds are." It allows the players to focus on tackling with their arms in a ripping motion.
"That's one of the biggest ways we're getting the head out of the tackle, which is going to hopefully decrease the amount of head injuries to these kids."
Another focus to avoid concussions is decreasing the amount of up tempo contact drills during practice.
"There's a lot of other skills they can work on without banging heads the whole time," Humenny said.
As the drills and evaluation portion of the schedule ends, the players begin to scrimmage. Because there are enough players, the divisions can play games amongst themselves. The flag football division plays five-on-five, Grades 5 and 6 play a hybrid six-on-six style, which is popular in smaller communities in the province, and Grades 7 and 8 play 12-on-12. Humenny said the response from the community has been "awesome."
"I've got some really good parent helpers, some really good volunteers and coaches that have a really good understanding of what we're trying to do. That's making things a lot easier."
The flag football division meets every Tuesday night. The tackle football division practice and play Monday and Wednesday nights.
