Junior Player Development Targets Youth Tackle Football

The following article on Junior Player Development appeared in USA Today on April 5, 1999.

Junior Player Development, the NFL’s blueprint program for the future of youth tackle football, began five weeks ago in New York City. Three hundred boys, ages 12-14, are participating in the eight-week program, which teaches the fundamentals of tackle football in a fun and re-adapted way. Participants receive instruction from area high school football coaches three times a week, two hours per night over the course of the eight weeks.

USA TODAY, April 5, 1999
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NEW YORK -- The NFL is using an innovative Junior Player Development program to reach a generation that often seems mesmerized by all things video.

As part of the league's $ 100 million commitment to youth football, 300 boys ages 12-14 and 30 volunteer coaches are participating in an eight-week training session at two New York sites that will lead to competition next fall. Los Angeles is targeted for next year as the unprecedented effort gradually expands to other NFL markets.

"We just see it as a huge opportunity," says Scott Lancaster, the NFL's director of youth football."

Lead instructor Jerry Horowitz, head coach at JohnF. Kennedy High School in the Bronx, N.Y., believes the NFL's first such involvement at the junior level is critical to the sport's overall health.

"High school sports in New York City are destined to be dinosaurs," Horowitz says, "unless something like this takes hold and people latch onto this. Very few programs in New York City are thriving."

Finding the dollars to pay for equipment, an expense that is higher for football than for many other activities, is only one problem. Tearing youngsters away from video games and other forms of entertainment is another.

"The world has changed," Lancaster says, "but sports hasn't changed. "Our challenge is to make it exciting, more contemporary for kids. They're having fun and learning at the same time."

The two sites are operating three nights a week at Kennedy High School in the Bronx and at Brooklyn College.

Youngsters are provided uniforms and helmets bearing the logos of NFL teams. They are divided into small groups and focus on a different part of the game each week.

They ultimately will be introduced to the basics of every position before the spring session ends April 30. Each two-hour segment also emphasizes the teaching of values such as responsibility, sportsmanship and self-control.

"I played a lot before this," said Darrin Jefferson, 12, of Riverdale, N.Y., "but I didn't really know what I was doing."

Volunteer adults work beside veteran coaches. They will receive assignments in an NFL-sponsored eight-on-eight tackle league the players will compete in next autumn.

"Give us an opportunity to work with kids," Horowitz says, "and we can make them football players. "Courage can be learned. It's not something you're born with."

Lancaster says the NFL is making a long-term commitment and is encouraged by the initial response.

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