Adams/Cheshire Youth Football is a community-based youth sports organization serving young athletes ages 5 through 14 through flag football, tackle football and cheerleading.

This season, we have 174 young athletes involved across our programs, including 70 tackle football players, 68 cheerleaders and 35 flag football players. Having that many kids and families involved makes the organization about much more than what happens during a football game on Sunday. It includes practices during the week, flag football games and practices on Mondays and Wednesdays and a great football experience for our local youth.

Our mission is to give kids an opportunity to learn their sport while becoming better teammates, competitors and young people.

Football and cheerleading are what bring everyone together, but our goal is bigger than either sport. We want kids to learn how to work as part of a team, handle adversity, respond when things don’t go their way, be accountable to other people and understand that improvement requires consistent effort.

We want every child who goes through our program to leave it more confident, disciplined and connected to their teammates and community than when they started.

If a kid finishes our program believing in himself or herself a little more, understanding how to work toward something difficult and knowing what it means to be a good teammate, then we’ve accomplished something much more important.

Adams/Cheshire Youth Football has deep roots in our community going back more than 65 years. George J. Beckwith was one of the original founders of Adams Youth Football, which eventually grew into what is now Adams/Cheshire Youth Football and Cheer.

That history matters to us because the program has always been about giving local children a place to begin their football and cheer experience, grow with their teammates and stay connected to the community as they move toward the high school level.

The program has evolved significantly over the decades. Today, we serve 174 young athletes ages 5–14 through flag football, tackle football and cheerleading. In the last 7 years we have added cheer and flag football to be operated within our organization.

One area we’ve worked hard on is creating opportunities for kids at different ages and experience levels. Our flag football program gives younger players a fun introduction to football. This year alone, we have 35 children participating in flag football. (Ages 5-9)

From there, our tackle football and cheerleading programs provide opportunities through the Pee Wee, Junior and Senior divisions. This season we have 70 tackle football players and 68 cheerleaders participating across those three levels.

We’ve also become much more intentional about how we coach. There is a greater emphasis today on teaching proper fundamentals, age-appropriate practice structure, player safety and making sure kids understand why they’re doing something rather than simply doing it because that’s how football was coached years ago.

We want to preserve the toughness, teamwork, community pride and competitiveness that make football and cheerleading special while continuing to improve the way we teach and develop young athletes.

At the same time, we try to preserve the foundation that people like George Beckwith, Dick Elwell, Mark Harrington, and so many other great coaches helped establish: giving kids an opportunity to belong to something, learn the game, build friendships and represent their community.

One of the things we are most proud of is that, more than six decades later, the program is still serving generations of Adams and Cheshire families.

The biggest thing is that it really feels like a community program.

When you have 174 kids between the ages of 5 and 14 participating, that means a significant number of local families are connected through our program. We fundraise together, we work together in practices and throughout the season.

Our 25+ coaches are volunteers. Parents help with everything from concessions and fundraising to equipment and game-day operations. Local businesses sponsor the program. Families spend countless hours getting kids to practices and games. People who participated in the program years ago come back as coaches and volunteers.

There’s something special about seeing generations of families connected to the same youth program.

We also try very hard to make sure every athlete understands that he or she has a role.

Youth football shouldn’t just be about finding the best 11 players. Youth cheerleading shouldn’t just be about the athletes who already know the skills. Our responsibility is to develop the entire group.

Some kids arrive with years of experience. Others may show up at their first practice having never put on shoulder pads, taken a handoff or performed a cheer before.

That’s what youth sports are for - teaching them through their sport.

We teach player development by focusing on both the mental and physical sides of the sport.

Mentally, we want our athletes to become great teammates, confident competitors and students of the game. We want them to understand their responsibilities, learn from mistakes, handle adversity and continue building confidence as they improve.

Physically, we put a strong emphasis on speed, strength and safety through consistent in-season training during practice. Our players are challenged outside of traditional football drills with age-appropriate strength, speed and conditioning work that helps them develop as athletes throughout their time in our program.

We want them to become better football players, but we also want them to understand the value of strength training, athletic development and taking care of their bodies throughout the year, including while participating in other sports.

Competition is also a major part of how we develop players. We try to create many different opportunities for athletes to compete and experience success. Those small wins matter. The more times a young athlete can challenge themselves, improve and succeed, the more confidence they build.

Our goal is to teach progressively and intentionally. At the youth football level, fundamentals come first: proper stance, blocking, tackling, ball security, pursuit, footwork, positioning and understanding assignments. As players get older, we can introduce more advanced concepts, but the foundation always matters.

We want competition to challenge players without making them afraid to fail. Mistakes are part of development, and we want our athletes learning from them, responding positively and continuing to compete.

And it has to be fun. These are kids.

We want practices to have energy. We want them competing with their friends. We want them celebrating each other’s successes, and we want them looking forward to coming back the next day.

Our coaches also have to recognize that development looks different for every athlete. The goal isn’t simply to develop the strongest players. It’s to help every kid improve from wherever he or she started.

If we can combine good instruction, appropriate competition, accountability and fun, that’s where we believe the best development happens

We couldn’t operate without them.

Youth football and cheerleading require an enormous amount of volunteer work that people outside the program may never see.

This year alone, we have 27 volunteer coaches working directly with our young athletes.

Those coaches give an incredible amount of their personal time throughout the summer and fall.

Board members handle registrations, scheduling, equipment, league responsibilities, fundraising, communication and countless other details. Parents work concessions, help fundraise, volunteer on game days and get their children to practices and games several days each week.

When you’re serving 174 young athletes across seven program groups, it requires an enormous collective effort.

Our local sponsors are also incredibly important. Their support helps us purchase and replace equipment, maintain the program and keep participation accessible for local families.

Renfrew Field in Adams is our home field, and on football Sundays it becomes much more than a football field.

You’ll see grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, former players, friends and people from throughout the area there supporting the kids.

It takes a lot of people to give a child a youth sports season. Most of those people will never have their name announced or appear in a game story, but the program doesn’t exist without them.

Community support is always valuable.

Sponsorships, donations and fundraising help us keep participation accessible while continuing to purchase and replace standard league-issued equipment such as helmets, shoulder pads, uniforms, cheerleading equipment and field equipment. We work hard to fundraise so we can keep registration fees for our participants as low as possible. Looking ahead, we are also hoping to purchase tackle crash mats within the next year or two to give our players and coaches another tool for teaching safer tackling and contact technique.

We are also always looking for good people. You don’t have to be a football expert to contribute to a youth sports organization.

We need coaches and assistant coaches, but there are many other ways to help. Volunteers can work concessions, assist with fundraising, help with equipment, work at events, serve on the board or help with the many behind-the-scenes jobs required to operate the program.

One of our priorities is making sure finances don’t become the reason a child doesn’t have an opportunity to participate. Community support helps us continue working toward that goal.

Anyone interested in sponsoring, volunteering or otherwise helping the program can reach us through www.adamscheshireyouthfootball.com or our Facebook page at facebook.com/HurricaneYouthFootball.