March 27, 2004

By Katie Lewis

HoustonTexans.com

Click photos to enlarge

Over 300 young football stars infiltrated the Texans practice bubble Saturday morning to show off the skills and fundamentals they've learned over the past month as participants in the Texans Junior Player Development Program.

In it's fourth year of existence, the free program has grown from just one original site at Rice Stadium, to practice locations at Delmar, Barnett and Butler Stadiums and a May camp slated for Cy Fair.

Madison High School coach Ray Seals heads up the Houston JPD program in addition to various other youth football endeavors.

The groups, led by Madison High School coach Ray Seals, meet Monday-Thursday nights for two hours where they take part in a step-by-step progressions of drills, skills and scrimmages that will help them prepare to play football on the middle and high school levels.

Almost 500 students from the Houston Independent School District ages 11-14 signed up to participate in this year's program. Not only do the students receive football training, but coaches also emphasize life skills, character development and mentoring in athletics and academics.

The success of the JPD program wouldn't be possible without the help from so many area coaches.

The students aren't the only enthusiastic participants. About 58 coaches, many who volunteer, lead the groups over the month-long program. With so many mentors at each individual practice, every coach can be paired with about five students, enabling more personal attention and instruction.

Down the road, many of the JPD coaches will coach students that participated in the youth program on their high school football squads.

"It's been great," Seals said about the students learning correct football fundamentals at a young age. "It makes such a big difference. If you start them here at the beginning stage, there are less mistakes to correct later on.

"The key is to get as many kids involved as possible."

After four weeks of scrimmaging against their own teams, the students were able to come together and face competition from the other JPD sites at the "JPD Jamboree." At the end of the morning, Texans linebacker Shantee Orr was on hand to award each of the teams' Most Valuable Players.