I love football season. And there is a lot of football to love in the Alle-Kiski region. About a month ago I dug out my coaching whistle and playbook from last season. Two weeks of practice at our home fields and then we were off to football camp running two-a-day practices in the beautiful mountains near Seven Springs for a week. By the time this issue of Alle-Kiski Today hits the streets we'll be about half way through the youth football season. Youth teams from Plum, Highlands, Burrell, Ar-Ken, the Kiski Valley, Freeport, and surrounding areas will butt heads every Saturday afternoon to the delight of fathers (and football moms) everywhere. There is no more entertaining sight than a five-year-old running under the weight of twenty pounds of equipment, pads clanging and helmet flopping. Youth football teams are set up by age and weight to keep it fair. Usually 5 to 7 year olds are first, then 8 to 9 year olds, 10 and 11 year olds, and finally 12 thru 14 year olds make up the senior youth teams. It makes for a great Saturday afternoon of football.

While Saturday afternoon belongs to the kids, Saturday morning is Junior Varsity time in our valley. If you are willing to crawl out of your cozy Saturday-morning-sleep-in bedtime you can watch some very exciting and competitive football being played by young men vying to impress their coaches. Many of these games have no admission fee. It's worth a trip out to the field to cheer on these boys and their coaches. And, if that is not enough football for you, there are about another dozen games throughout the week featuring seventh, eighth, and ninth grade school teams.

But of course Friday night is "sports king" in the Alle-Kiski region. Friday night football played our way is three hours of screaming excitement spread out over a dozen local stadiums rocking with thousands of passionate parents, band members, cheerleaders, and of course the faithful face-painted teenagers who make the noise level just perfect. There, before these expectant spectators, players and coaches execute their perfectly planned game strategies within a game of a thousand variables. To a novice onlooker these games would seem chaotic. To coaches the game is a blur of orchestrated intensity where they squeeze out every bit of their coaching skills to guide a football across a white line, or stop the other team and get it back to try again. To the players, it's all about heart and team and winning. Through numbing humidity, rain, sleet, and even snow by late season, hundreds of young athletes fight every week for the coveted season-end trip to the big show at Heinz Field, the WPIAL Championships.

Alle-Kiski football. There is nothing like it anywhere. Come on out to support your local team and the dedicated men and women who give our young people these opportunities. You'll love it !