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Tackling life’s challenges through sports

Youths learn lessons for on and off the field

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Photos by Charlie Shoemaker⁄The Gazette Coach Steve McCartin puts his hand on the helmet of 7-year-old Sam Brustad of Silver Spring during a Thursday night practice for the Silver Spring Saints, a youth football club in the Capital Beltway League. Click here to enlarge this photo McCartin leads a group- of 6- and 7-year-olds in a series of drills: ‘‘It brings out a lot of people, a diversity you otherwise wouldn’t see.”

‘‘You gotta hit them low,” he told 11-year-old Lawrence Jr. before his son ran back onto the football field at St. Bernadette Church in Four Corners.

It was week three of practice for the Silver Spring Saints, but day one for Lawrence Jr., who had just returned from a family vacation. He was in one of 11 groups of maroon-clad players scattered all over the field, some practicing technique, others working on agility and tackling drills. The sound of whistles interrupted the loud cracks of helmet meeting helmet or shoulder pad.

‘‘You gotta listen on the field, and you take it home,” said McKinney, a Burtonsville resident who played football in college.

Taking lessons learned between the lines and applying them out of bounds is the underlying mission of the Saints and the other 19 teams from the Capital Beltway League. In its 37th season of youth football, the league will kick off Sept. 9 with more than 4,000 children on teams from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Washington, D.C.

‘‘You learn about teamwork and hard work,” said John Buonassisi, league commissioner since 2002. ‘‘Nothing comes easy.”

This time of year, the message is driven home in sweat. Lots of it. August means practice, a month of repetitions and dry runs in the hot sun before the season gets under way.

And it’s not for just the players. Some of the parents are rookies, watching from the sidelines as their children participate in sanctioned violence for the first time, while others are more experienced and watch without flinching.

Maryna Eichelberger stood on the sidelines observing her son, Aaron. ‘‘He’s limping now. I wonder what happened?” she asked.

Aaron, 12, is in his first year. He played soccer, but one of his friends plays for the Saints and Aaron wanted ‘‘to prove himself,” his mom said. ‘‘I think it’s the hormones,” she added with a laugh.

Nearby, Sandy Kiernan of College Park overheard another mother talking about the emphasis on fundamentals stressed by the Silver Spring coaches. ‘‘This is for the kids, not the men,” Kiernan said in agreement.

Her son Jake, 12, played on a local Boys & Girls Club team before the club’s coach moved to the Saints. Kiernan liked the camaraderie and sportsmanship, particularly since Jake goes to a small, private school. ‘‘He needs to be a smaller fish in a bigger pond,” she said.

That description is apt for the Saints’ first few years in the Capital Beltway League. The team formed in 1995, combining the St. Bernadette Saints and the St. John the Baptist team from the old Catholic Youth Organization league. Overnight, the new Saints went from having to field two or three teams to nearly 10 for the new league, said Steve McCartin, director of the Saints.

‘‘I want to build a club that’s competing for championships but doing it the right way,” said McCartin, who began coaching in 1979 while he was in high school.

This year, the Saints will have about 200 players, ranging in age from almost 7 to 14. They are divided into eight teams based on age and weight to compete in the league’s five divisions. ‘‘It brings out a lot of people, a diversity you otherwise wouldn’t see,” McCartin said.

Like all of the other league teams, the Saints are self-sufficient, covering all of their expenses through registration and fund-raisers. The day-to-day operations fall to volunteers, including the coaching. Each team has four or five coaches who are responsible for running the practices, checking in on players during the season, and, in some cases, filming and scouting upcoming opponents. ‘‘Coaches put in a lot of the legwork,” said McCartin, a current coach of a 6- and 7-year-old ‘‘Anklebiter” team.

James Gibbs coaches his son, Matthew, on the same team. ‘‘We’re teaching them fundamentals, proper technique, how to catch, tackle, run a pattern and protect themselves,” said Gibbs, a former high school football player in his first year of coaching, as he played quarterback for a post-practice game of two-on-two that included his son.

Though Matthew’s favorite part of the game is tackling, he said he wants to play running back or quarterback. ‘‘But I need some smaller shoulder pads,” he said, head creeping out above his jersey.

On the other side of the field, some of the older players rehearsed plays and worked on their positioning on the field. Much like the younger kids, their practice also ended in 20-yard sprints, though there was no chance the older boys would tip over from the weight of their equipment as there had been with the ‘‘Anklebiters.”

‘‘You’ve got to be dedicated to play,” Colin Kane, 13, a running back and safety in his sixth year with the Saints, said afterward.

When asked about his favorite part of the game, Kane and Jordan ‘‘J.T.” Coleman, a 13-year-old running back, wide receiver and linebacker in his third year with the Saints, answered simultaneously: hitting.

‘‘Defense wins championships,” J.T. said.

But they were also quick to answer what lesson they take off the field: discipline.

As the sun set after practice, Brad Kemp stood in the middle of the field holding a green clipboard filled with diagrammed plays. ‘‘It’s much more than football,” said Kemp, now in his sixth year of coaching and a father of three football players. ‘‘To see these young men turn into productive citizens of society is worth it.”