This year, I signed up my two younger boys for the LI Broncos. Marco is in the 6-7 age group and Antonio in the 10-11. The Broncos organization is the team for the Seaford school district. Although my boys go to private school, it’s generally the league they should go in if they were to continue in the sport and play in middle school or high school. The Broncos generally end their season with a .500 record year-to-year and are thus middle of the road when compared to other teams.
Both kids are rookies and had a lot to learn. I watched them practice since they started in August 3 until yesterday when they had their first game. Both games ended in a win and both kids played great.
Antonio is on Broncos Blue, which is one of three teams in his age group. White, Blue, and Orange tend to be equally balanced in terms of skill and they scrimmage against each other often. His shirt has the wrong name on it, as you can see in this photo where he’s Irish for a day.
Antonio went in wanting to be a running back, as he had been an amazing running back in his four years of flag before this. He’s a rookie, though, and being a good running back requires a lot more than speed to be successful. The coach put him in a relatively easy position as safety. I personally think this was a great move because the safety has to cover a lot of ground and Antonio’s speed is a good fit from that perspective. Antonio wasn’t a starter, but the coach put him in a half-dozen plays and I thought play time was very fair. Luckily, our offense was on the field for the majority of the game. Antonio pushed the runner out of bounds on two occasions and the other team would easily have scored a touchdown if Antonio wasn’t there to end the play.
While Marco is also a rookie, he found his place as the starting defensive end. Marco is fast and smart and almost always manages to get himself into the pocket and tackle the running back if he hasn’t made his way to the other side. He’s a complete stud. I was only able to make it to the second half of this game as I was traveling from Babylon where Antonio was playing. Here is Marco right before a play.
Here’s another shot of Marco and his coach.
I don’t have a lot of action shots with my own kids because I tend to forget I have the camera when they’re in action. Here is one of Antonio on the field, just before a play:
All in all, watching these kids practice and play is one of the highlights of my week. Until next time, Go Jets!