It Takes a Village

On August 1^st, 2014 Wadsworth Youth Football will award multiple scholarships to recent Wadsworth High School graduates at the 2^nd 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 2^nd 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”