Just wanted to share a letter that the greatest team mom in the history of the game ... Libby Egleston ... shared with the Wadsworth Grizzly Football family at the conclusion of the 2014 season.
Enjoy ... best in football,
Coach Eggs
To a football parent~
Dear FOOTBALL PARENT,
You dreaded this year’s arrival, but it has come just the same. A year full of
promise, but so many “last times.” Over the years you have helped with
countless team meals, washed mounds of sweaty uniforms, chauffeured to more
early morning practices then you care to remember. You have been
top-of-the-world elated when your son has had a good night and endured his
deathlike silences when he hasn’t. It is amazing how the family mood bobs with
the rhythm of each game. You have laughed, cried, screamed, sulked, pouted,
sweat, pulled your hair, bit your nails, bit your tongue, paced, worried,
shoved, frowned, and smiled all very gracefully and within a two hour
span.
Such is the life of a football parent.
You may not be in on the big play, but you feel the thrill of victory and the
agony of defeat right along with your son. You keep your composure when some
fan behind you wants your son’s head while the opponent on the field is mashing
it into the grass. “Get off him, that's my baby” you’d like to shout! You
breathe football at this time of year, especially this time of year when your
heart whispers “just a little longer” as the season slides by. You plead and
bargain, knowing full well that some other parent on the opponent's team is
making their own deal with the Almighty, but you do it anyway, because you no
more want it to end than your son does. You do not want to see the desperation
in his eyes and the pain on his face as he struggles to put away his childhood
dreams. You are helpless in the stands, with no way to make it better.
Is it worth it?
YOU BET IT IS!
Every lost game sock, busy Friday night. Every recovering Saturday,
every aspirin, every ruined hair do, hot bath, goose bumps, and every obnoxious
fan and sports writer you’ve had to tolerate is worth it. The fun isn’t
measured by how many times your son gets into the newspaper, the game, or what
he does when he gets there. The fun - what makes those trips to the ER for the
pigskin stitches all worthwhile, is watching a game, what a sport experience
can do to convert your little boy into a young man. Watching him tackle the
world and you have a front row seat.
You still see that rambunctious 5 yr old playing football in the yard. You bite
your lip and hold back the tears because though you are fiercely proud of the
young man he has become, you miss the boy. In fact you mourn for all the little
boys. You have watched them grow up together, plot and scheme together, win and
lose together. They have raided your kitchen, camped out in your basement,
stole your heart. They are blessed with something they will never have again.
They know it and you know it. So you pray that wonder will last another game,
and then another, because as long as it does, you hang on to a piece of your
boy for a bit longer. Watching him walk off that field one last time will be no
less painful then giving birth to him all those years ago.
We will miss this group of young men.
We will miss watching them run on to the field like soldiers going to battle,
the hi-fives after a great play, the chest slams after a great tackle, the
celebrations over a big win and the sober faces after a disappointing loss. We
will miss watching the boys we love, play the game they
love.....Football.
Anonymous
Monday, November 10, 2014
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
2015 Travel Baseball Tryouts
2015 Grizzly Travel Baseball Tryouts
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Bird Street Park
625 Bird St.
Wadsworth, Ohio 44281
AGE
|
SIGN IN
|
START
|
FINISH
|
10U
|
9:00am
|
9:30am
|
10:45am
|
11U
|
10:30am
|
11:00am
|
12:15pm
|
12U
|
12:00pm
|
12:30pm
|
1:45pm
|
13U
|
1:30pm
|
2:00pm
|
3:15pm
|
14U
|
3:00pm
|
3:30pm
|
4:45pm
|
www.grizzlytravelbaseball.com
For more information contact Rich Egleston
(330) 604-4896 ... thecoacheggs@gmail.com
Sunday, June 15, 2014
It Takes a Village
On August 1st, 2014
Wadsworth Youth Football will award multiple scholarships to recent Wadsworth
High School graduates at the 2nd Annual Scholarship dinner at the
Galaxy restaurant.
It has taken a village to
accomplish this paramount achievement of giving back and paying forward.I first became acquainted with Wadsworth Youth Football Booster Club, Inc. in 2004 when my eldest son was 8 years old. Needless to say, we got him signed up and in the program. What I did not know, was how strong the Wadsworth Youth Football organization was and how much stronger it would become.
As a self-funded not for profit
group, operated solely by volunteers, the Wadsworth Youth Football Booster club
has a long history dating back to the early 60’s. Motivated parents have kept the tradition going
strong and growing strong for over 50 years.
As with everything, changes occur
over time. For example, in 2004, the
situation was such that that our kids were split into two different teams … the
Browns and the Redskins. Although both
teams were supported by the same booster club, the teams practiced in 2
different locations across town from one another. In 2006, WYF leadership floated the idea of
bringing all the teams to the Steiner, High School and Middle school campus for
nightly practice. In cooperation with
the school leadership, it came to pass and all of the teams were in the same
immediate area each night for practice.
The following season, the team names Browns and Redskins were retired
and all youth football players became Grizzlies. The major point to take away is that we
managed to bring all the kids playing youth football together and told them all
that they were now Grizzlies. An idea
with motivated people and the support of the village made this significant and
positive shift possible.
After such a positive transition,
the Grizzlies faced a tough challenge after Wadsworth taxpayers passed a tax
levy to fund the construction of the current Wadsworth High School and
Community Center campus. At the time, I
was serving on the booster club and I thought … “but we just got here” … “now
we have to go somewhere else?” Yes, we
were essentially evicted forever. It
wasn’t like it was just a transition period during construction, it was
permanent. In my opinion the major flaw
and lack of visionary thinking by both city and school leaders in the new
“Community Campus” is that youth sports were for the most part “deleted” with
no plan for integration now or in the future.
In keeping with tradition, the
leadership of WYF crafted a plan to migrate to Bird Street Park and develop a playing
field in a new portion of the park known as Fieldcrest. In fairness to the city, Fieldcrest had been
earmarked for youth football years before when the adjacent subdivision was
initially planned but WYF was never able to secure funding and execute building
a game field. In 2009, WYF boosters
worked with the city leaders and were able to build the field and move the
entire program to Old Bird, New Bird and Fieldcrest. The first games were played there in the 2009
season and have been every year since. In
another significant move, WYF launched a flag football program which uses the
same facilities each season. A group of
motivated parents met with WYF leadership and decided that WFY should integrate
flag football program into the current tackle football program. Again, the village rises to the occasion and
makes a positive impact on the community.
In the fall of 2009, I was
fortunate enough to be elected president of the boosters, and one of the first
things I wrote down in my goals was to develop a scholarship program. I failed
to get this done in my 2 year tenure. In
2012, some new leadership entered the WYF ranks to fill vacancies. Fortunately, the new leadership shared a lost
vision and was able to create a scholarship fund and successfully executed our
first scholarship event in July of 2013.
Once again, the village did not disappoint. In cooperation with the schools, scholarship
criteria was developed and implemented.
Financial commitments from our community were secured with overwhelming
support. Now, in the 2nd year, WYF will award at least 2
scholarships to Wadsworth High School graduates this coming August.
This is just another example of
“The Village” taking care of its own and as someone once said, “It takes a
Village”Thursday, May 29, 2014
From USA Football ... good advice from a football mom ...
What to do when your child doesn’t like the coach
Wed, 01/08/2014 - 9:50am
Throughout 21 years of sports parenting, we’ve dealt with at least 80 different coaches among our three kids. We’ve experienced every kind of coach you could imagine.
We’ve had coaches who try to please everyone and didn’t care about winning and coaches who cared way too much about winning and not enough about developing players.
We’ve had coaches who were high strung and emotional and coaches who only showed poker-faces and were very hard to read.
Yet even with the endless coaching personalities we’ve worked with, I’ve concluded that there are really only two kinds of coaches: the ones we liked and the ones we didn't.
If your child plays sports long enough, he will have both kinds. What will you do when your child comes home and says he doesn’t like his coach? Consider these steps:
- Let him voice his frustration to you without judging his feelings.
- Decide with your child about whether a confrontation with the coach is needed.
- If a coach confrontation does not resolve the problem, then you and your child may simply have to agree to disagree with the coach (unless there are moral issues).
- Keep your conversations about the coach between you and your child. Don't share your complaints with other parents.
- If you decide to disagree with the coach and remain on the team, then accept the situation without bad-mouthing the coach to your child.
- Find a way to vent your frustrations about the coach. Whether it's writing it down or sharing your feelings with your spouse or a friend (not two or three or four). Then leave it at home when you go to games.
- Teach your child to treat the coach with respect even if he has a problem respecting the coach.
What should you not do when your child doesn't like the coach?
- Stir up trouble behind the coach's back. If you have a problem, confront the coach face to face instead of behind his back.
- Try to get the coach fired. If you want to get a coach ousted because you do not like him, what exactly are you teaching your child? That we just get rid of people we don't like? I've known parents who complained to the administration and got a coach fired simply because their children were not playing the position they wanted.
If your child faces a season with a coach he does not like, help him learn to look for the good in his coach. This is a great opportunity for young athletes to learn how to work with someone who they find difficult. If they can learn this while they are young, they will have a head start in learning life skills to work with future bosses.
Janis Meredith, sports mom and coach’s wife, writes a sports parenting blog called JBM Thinks. Check out her Sports Parenting Survival Guide Series with survival guides for football, basketball, and volleyball moms.
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