INNISFAIL – Football season is here.
The Innisfail Minor Football Association is preparing for a busy season but is looking for volunteer coaches to fill a void with several teams.
“We’ve been meeting with coaches and looking for coaches,” said Dallas Haldorson, president of the minor football association. “Right now we’ve got five coaches for three teams so we’re in desperate need of people from the community willing to step up and coach some football.”
Haldorson said any person with or without football coaching experience, or experience with other sports is welcome to apply.
The Innisfail minor football season begins Aug. 20 and will include Innisfail Cyclone atom and peewee teams this year.
“The only team we’re missing this year is bantam. We have some of our bantam age players playing in Red Deer this year because we didn’t have the required numbers for bantam,” he said.
Haldorson said they have been reaching out to the community to attract both coaches and players through social media, including Facebook, Twitter and their website, as well as hosting football showcase days at Innisfail Middle School earlier this spring.
“We went into the middle school in May and June and we (contributed to) several gym classes to teach football fundamentals and see if any kids were interested in coming out,” said Haldorson. “We did have some success with that.
“We have put out the need for coaches on those social media sites, and in fact we got two new coaches from the community that joined the organization from those efforts,” he added. “That was good to see.”
Practices will be held several times a week in Innisfail, starting Aug. 20 and game schedules this season are still being finalized, said Haldorson, noting all peewee games will be held in Innisfail, while all atom games will be held in Red Deer.
Atom players will be part of the Red Deer Minor Football league and peewee players will be part of the Central Peewee Football league.
“Atoms practise Tuesday and Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and peewees practise Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m," he said.
The football season runs from the end of August to the end of October with playoffs into early November, said Haldorson, noting the work of several board volunteers and stressing again the need to fill coaching spots this season.
“We have a lot of help that way (with the board) but we really need to find some coaches to help these kids along,” said Haldorson.
“If we build a good base through the younger programs (atom, peewee and bantam) and graduate eight to 10 kids for every age, all the way up through the different levels, we’ll definitely get there again," said Haldorson. "We'll have strong teams in each division.”
Anyone interested in coaching or playing with Innisfail Minor Football can contact Haldorson at [email protected] or send a message through the Innisfail Minor Football Facebook page or visit Innisfail Cyclones Football on Instagram.
