So, I don't know how many of you guys watch SportsCenter or get the SportsCenter ticker updates on your phone, but we're kind of hosting this in combination tonight with our Pop Warner brethren, all right? They are providing dessert tonight, so please give them a huge round of applause as well.

Now, The reason I bring up Pop Warner is not just because tomorrow is again one of my favorites other than Patriot night which is Meet the Vikes Night where we get to visit and have our middle schools as well as the 230 plus football players and a hundred plus cheerleaders that they're gonna bring to the game tomorrow night that will someday fill your shoes.

But I think it brings us back and it centers us and when I mean centers us and I mentioned and I reference ESPN. There's a gentleman by the name of James Franklin, who if you're a Penn State fan you might be applauding this, but they just bought out his contract for 48 million dollars to basically say guess what over the next six years we don't want you to be our coach. We're gonna pay you not to be our coach.

That is where the game of football and I'll say all semi-professional sports have gotten. Okay, now you think that that's crazy... it's crazy money. I can't even fathom that type of money.

But what's even crazier than that is that it has already trickled its way down into interscholastic sports.

It's trickled its way down now not from just the professional level and semi-pro, but now it's in college.

And now it's making its way down into high school and I'm gonna tell you a story that kind of sickened me the other day.

It made its way down to the middle school now. Not buyouts and money and things like that okay.

What really got to me was I had one of our and I won't use which school, but one of our middle school coaches came up to me says. "Hey Bill, how do you handle this? I have a seventh grade player who is splitting time between the B team and the A team. And I was just approached and confronted by his dad because I'm hurting his exposure for a future scholarship by not playing him the full time on the A team."

And I had to sit there and I said, you know what, that is one question I've actually never been asked in all my years of coaching. From the middle school level, hurting my son's exposure.

Now again, granted, we have guys in this room, guys that have graduated several times over these last 20 years that I've been doing this, that have gone off and played football, scholarship football. In fact, every single one of our kids from last year's team that went off had zero stars in their ratings.

Zero stars, combined, zero stars in their ratings.

But the problem we're starting to see is this infiltration, this trickle down, where every player, and I would say maybe not every player, but definitely a lot of parents, families, start buying into this atmosphere of it's all about this.

It's all about exposure.

It's all about money, it's all about the money, and granted, I know the cost of an education. Guys, I went to a private school, trust me. I know the cost of paying to go to school, because I had just finished up, now 20 years removed, those student loans.

But what we've done, and I'm not just speaking in here and in these terms with that one reference to the middle school, I'm talking collectively in youth sports and beyond, is we've taken away, in my opinion, the real purpose and reason why you play this game. Now, again, you notice I focus on this game.

All right, this game has given me the world's over in regards to repayment for the amount of time that I spent being able and blessed to play it. It's given more back into my life than I probably was able to give it as an athlete, to be honest with you. And that's what I'd like you to focus on tonight. The activity that I'm having you do is not something that's new to this program. It's probably new to this group. And I've used this before. 

I've used it at the beginning. I've used it in the middle, and I've used it at the end of seasons.

Well, this is not the end of our season. It's the end of our regular season.

But I think it's a good time to stop and pause and reflect. And I'm not dissuading anybody from pursuing college football. I have, and I will continue to push for you in every aspect of that, to make sure that you realistically know what you can do, your potential, and that you can live that out and play that like nine of your teammates are doing right now from last season. But what I want you to write about, and I want you to give it some thought, is this.

Why do you play football? That's the question I have for you.

What drives you to play football?

Why football?

I know you have multiple sport athletes in the room, but this is unlike any sport that we offer at this high school, maybe with the exception of wrestling, but that's more individual than anything else in terms of toughness, hardness, resiliency, pain, suffering, injury, all of the above, okay?

So I don't want you to do what I think some of you might do. Man, I like bashing heads.

We know that. Some of you, we know that you like it excessively, okay?

But here's what I want you to do. I want you to give it some real honest-to-goodness thought. And now, I'll be honest, it could backfire and you're like, I don't know, I quit. I hope not, I'm just joking, all right? But I want you to think about that.

Is it because it's about family, your family playing?

Is it because of the love of the sport, the game, the camaraderie, the life lessons, those types of things?

And it's maybe something nobody has ever asked you because it's just like, oh, it's fall, I must be playing football.

But now I'm asking you to reflect on that and go ahead and leave out the stats, the accolades, the scholarships and everything else, unfortunately, that the sport has turned into and had a trickle down.

At your core, at the core of what Pop Warner does, why did you start?

Why did you continue?

And why are you still here?

Do me a favor, take five minutes, get your thoughts down. Captains, you will be our first, I mean, volunteers to go ahead and stand up and let us know what your thoughts are, but I'm gonna call on random, so to sit there and pretend like you're in class and not do anything will not be allowed. All right, five minutes on the clock, go.

And here's what they came back with.....

Ben Fedorchak

#48 Captain

Okay, so I play football now, obviously, because I love it, and I've just gained the love for the game through playing over the years. But I grew up watching my brother play football, and I always knew I wanted to play, but I was always scared. And it's weird now, cuz I love contact, but I was scared of the contact, and I was scared about what would happen. And my parents wanted me to play when I was little, and my mom could vouch for this, and I said no the first year, actually. And then the next year, they said just try it, and if you don't like it, you could stop, and I've loved it ever since. And I grew up, as I said, watching my brother meet it, and he met so many people that he still talks to today, just in Pop Warner football.

And I met so many people that I can consider family now. I've known Mateo since he's hated bear crawls when he was little, and he still hates them now. But. Um, yeah, so like obviously I like the contact now and I like playing but it's really just the friendships I've made and the people that I've called family like obviously a lot of you know this already but I hated Gage like a lot and Me and Gage all like got in a fight when we were in elementary school and honestly one of the biggest things that brought us together was football because we both played running back and like One of us couldn't not block for the other else. It wouldn't succeed as a team so I just feel like a big thing that's came from this for me is like growing a family and being able to call people my brothers who aren't blood-related and Just yeah, I just love doing that and that's why I still play.

Kellan Hosek

#8 Captain

The reason I started playing football was because of my cousin. I went to one of his practices when I was younger when I was like in kindergarten and I kind of saw what he was doing and wanted to be like him and so that's the reason I started playing. The why I play, I said friendships and then also like the life lessons that football has taught me through the hardships of playing and then why I continue to play is kind of similar. I'd say the friendships I made along the way and finishing what I've started. I've played football since I was in the first grade and stick it through and finish out my senior year now.

Brody Wheeler

#47 Captain

So I truly don't remember why I started. I'm sure it was a combination between my mom wanting me to play and the influence from my brother also playing at the same time but I do know my why and my why is because of this brotherhood that we have here. I played with so many of my teammates for so long that it's like become second nature like to always be around them and I can't remember a lot without playing football and I just can't imagine not going into fall and being side-by-side with helmets on next to my my brothers every year so that's why I play.

Caleb Hazlett

#56 Captain

I'm not gonna lie, I started playing football cuz my dad forced me to. But I really am thankful for that. I'm forever grateful for him signing me up for Pop Warner. It really has exposed me to toughness and that's kinda why I continue to play. I continue to play for my brothers. It's always been about playing for the guy next to you, to me. So that's why I continue to play. I also continue because I love to hit people, obviously. But it also will shape you into real men as you grow older. And that's why I continue to play.

Ethan Poisel

#22 Senior

I started playing when I was five after my dad signed me up and along the way like I've met people like Ben, Sam, Callen, and Caleb who I've known since I was probably like five years old. And I think that's something special about football is people go, friends go, but those people have stuck around for the past 13 years and it's felt like you can always have someone there no matter what. Um, sorry. I guess when it's all said and done, I'll be sad not because it's over, but because I might be missing those people, but I hope in the future we can still stay in touch with all those people and never forget the bond that football gives you, which is something that's unique to the sport.

Trevor Faughnder

#97 Senior

I started playing it because my brothers played it and I wanted to be like them when I was little and we moved around a lot so it was a really easy way to like make friends and meet people. I play it now because I use it as an outlet to glorify God, and I also see the team as like a huge family, so it's my home away from home.