Pro football is the most popular sport in America, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that by looking at the playing fields of New York City. Amid all the youth soccer, baseball, and basketball in Manhattan, tackle football sightings are relatively rare. But full-contact football does exist in New York, and it’s quietly growing, despite obstacles such as field availability, costs, and parents who worry about their kids getting banged up.
On a recent wet and windy Sunday on Randall’s Island, the Upper East Side’s Yorkville Eagles took on the Queens Falcons in multiple age divisions—Peanuts (age limit, 8), Jr. Pee Wee (10), Pee Wee (12), and Midget, or Bantam (14). Despite the raw weather, there were handfuls of spectators on the sidelines and scattered across the grandstand on one side of the field. Yorkville wore maroon and silver uniforms with Eagle logos on the helmets, while the Falcons sported Notre Dame-knockoffs, complete with “golden-dome” helmets. The standard of play was immediately clear. Both teams were impressively organized, disciplined, and well coached—this was no series of haphazard scrums.
Bobby Franzese, 12, who lives on the Upper East Side, plays center for the Eagles’ Pee Wee team. He says he’s learned everything he knows about football from the team: “I didn’t know how to tackle, how to block, how to do anything like that.” His favorite set-up from the Eagles’ playbook is the 400 Formation. “It’s just me, the quarterback, and the fullback behind the ball. And then four guys way off to each side.” It’s a shotgun formation, with Franzese snapping the ball as the only offensive lineman, and four players split wide on either side of the field. The Eagles can run or pass out of the 400, and they used it to complete a two-point conversion that day. They also sprung a big gainer with the 400, but it was called back after a holding penalty.
Earlier, the Yorkville Junior Pee Wees rang up their first win of the season, downing Queens 26-6. Avery Hoffman, a 10-year old from the Upper West Side who plays running back and defensive back, broke off several long runs in the second half. Asked about his favorite part of tackle football, he does not hesitate: “Hitting,” he says with a grin. His teammate Mikey Edelman, who’s also 10 and lives on the Upper East Side, plays quarterback and defensive back. The Yorkville team grew out of the Yorkville Youth Athletic Association’s flag football program, of which Mikey is a veteran. He was surprised at the difference between tackle football and flag. “In flag, there are only five guys on the field. Here, we have 11. And…there’s hitting,” he adds with the same smile Avery just flashed. This proves to be a popular theme among Manhattan’s youth football players.
The following night, at the other end of the city, the Downtown Giants were gearing up for practice on the rooftop field at Pier 40. (Their home field for games is in the East River Park.) Thirteen-year-old Louis Maresky, who lives in Battery Park, talked about what he’s learned from playing for the Giants’ Junior Midget squad.
… Wait for it….
”Hitting people.”
Maresky’s teammate and Battery Park neighbor, 13-year-old Brian Giffin, plays quarterback and linebacker. His dad founded the team four years ago, and Brian has been with the Giants since they started. He loves the conditioning drills: “Gassers, which are like suicide sprints, and the Indian Drill, where you run in a line and the last guy has to sprint up to the front.”
The Giants, along with their downtown counterparts, the Lower East Side Warriors, play in the Big Apple Football league, a division of American Youth Football (AYF). Like the Uptown Yorkville Eagles, the Giants are essentially an expansion team, playing against clubs from Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens that have been in existence for years. Some of Yorkville’s opponents—they play in the rival New York Youth Football League—have been around for more than three decades. So the Eagles and the Giants face an uphill battle, but it’s a challenge they welcome. Last year, two of Yorkville’s teams missed the playoffs by one game.
There is a fourth Manhattan-based youth football team, the Jets of Harlem, who were founded in 2003 by Jamel Wright and Kevin Wiggins. The Jets wear the same green as their NFL namesakes and have enjoyed some striking successes, most notably in 2008, when their Pee Wee team qualified for the AYF national championships in Florida, finishing third. The Jets play their home games at Harlem River Park, where, earlier this season, they scored lopsided victories over the Downtown Giants in the Junior Pee Wee and Pee Wee divisions.
But those were just part of the growing pains for Manhattan’s newly sprouted youth football teams. They know they have a ways to go, and they’re enjoying the journey.
With lots of hitting.
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