Flag Football Season Begins

: By Dan Veaner; Sports; | Sep 29, 2005 |

Last Saturday (9/24) Lansing's flag football team was on the town ball fields playing their first game of the season. Flag football is a Lansing Recreation Department program that is about five years old. The Lansing team is open to players in grades one through three with kids aged six through eight.

Jim Strait organizes the team. He says, "We don't really have a head coach. We all just kind of got together. Everybody is coaching and trying to make a good thing for the kids." Five parents were coaching the Saturday game.

Jeff Lapar goes over the plays with Mike Ziegler (not shown) assisting

The first game was a home game against Candor. Before the game was practice time, with the coaches working out strategy and plays and the kids running and practicing throwing the ball. Lansing had four practices prior to the game. During the season Lansing will also play Newfield, Groton, Ithaca and Dryden.

Flag football prepares players for Small Fry, Modified and Varsity football by using the same plays and calls as the older players use. "When they get up to Small Fry (football) they already know the plays," explains Mr. Strait. "There is a uniformity between the flag football all the way up to Varsity. That way when a kid goes from Small Fry up to Modified they don't have to learn the plays. They just have to fine tune them. It makes it better for them up there."

As the game began the Lansing team emulated their older counterparts by scoring the first touchdown of the day. But the point isn't winning. Mr. Strait noted that officially they don't keep score, although he said the kids always know how well they are doing. "It's strictly for fun. It's to get the kids involved in football," he says. "It's to get them enthusiastic about it, to draw other kids into the program, to keep these kids organized and get them started on football."