Bruin Football Association’s flag football program, now 3 weeks into this season, brought the sounds of football back Azalea Park this past Wednesday afternoon.
Throughout the season, the Wild Coast Compass features some of the coaches who volunteer their time to coach in the Bruin Football Association’s flag football program, and ask them to share a little about themselves, as well as their experiences teaching football to these young athletes.
This week we introduce you to Seahawks Coach, Chris Winn, a Title Officer with Crescent Land Title Company in Crescent City by day, is now in his first year of teaching the new ‘Flex Football’ program after coaching 5 years in the Flag Football program for Coach Bavaro and the Bruin Football Association.
Now in its 7th year, the Bruin Football Association changed the highest division of 7th and 8th graders to ‘Flex Football’, designed to help these young athletes to transition from flag football to tackle football by bringing some significant changes into the program most notably the extra equipment involved with head, shoulder and chest protection as well as more players on the field and blocking schemes and play calling from both sides of the football.
We asked Coach Winn, what is the toughest aspect you have found to teach so far in the new program? “Adding blocking and rushing schemes to the play calling allows the game to open up for these kids.” he said. “Getting the kids understanding how to block properly and the footwork needed is the big added wrinkle this year.”
“Looking at the football program as a whole, having the ‘Flex’ program at this age is huge for our middle school football programs,” Coach Winn said, “and now with four coaches from our middle school football programs coaching in the ‘Flex’ program, bringing the kids along with different steps in their learning while having fun, it provides a great head-start in the future with many of the same kids who will be playing in the Azalea Middle School football program this fall.”
“Keeping it fun keeps the kids engaged” Coach Winn continued, ” so when the team jokingly came up with ‘Dessert Cards’ to call plays, I decided to run with it, and now phrases like “that looks good” and “now I’m hungry” bring a smile to my face when I hear it from the parents and fans because I know it’s an easy way to pass along the info to the kids while keeping it fun, and it keeps the kids engaged.” he said.
“Adding Flex to the existing Flag, and Rookie Tackle programs is growing the amount of kids wanting to play, and I can’t praise enough thanks to the Bruin Football Association’s board for getting this going. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for all these kids.” – Coach Chris Winn
