Laying the foundation

Grid Kids is building football programs in the Basin

MOSES LAKE — The action on the field is rough and tumble enough, but there's positioning for power on the sidelines as well.

"I'm the quarterback!"

"No, I'm the quarterback!"

Such banter between two players, on the sidelines of a recent regular Saturday Grid Kids game on the practice fields behind Moses Lake High School, is all a part of learning the game of football, and about sportsmanship.

Columbia Basin area children had their first opportunity to participate in the Grid Kids program in the spring of 1999, when MLHS head football coach Greg Kittrell and varsity defensive back coach Jared Pope organized the first such program in a rudimentary form. The 70 fifth- and sixth-graders who participated that year donned too-big junior high school football equipment, but it was enough to begin to grow a program that today is already proving a benefit to local middle school coaches who are seeing the difference Grid Kids has made in their players.

The program is now held annually in the fall and the third- through sixth-graders who participate are well-dressed in equipment suited to their small bodies and in colorful jerseys that show the support of their team sponsors. The current seventh-grade class in local schools have been able to play a full four years of Grid Kids football, and coaches like Wayne Johnson, head coach for eighth-grade football at Chief Moses Middle School, are noticing the impact.

"These kids come prepared to play," Johnson said. He's observed bigger numbers of kids wanting to turn out for football and feels the Grid Kids program has helped to show young players the fun and excitement of the sport. "I think they get a good taste for it. They're equipped very well, it's a very safe program."

We give a lot of credit back to the Grid Kids program," he said.

Johnson said the program is comparable to Mat Muscle, a long-standing program for youth wrestling in the area, often attributed with the success of the MLHS wrestling program. Johnson said Grid Kids has also begun to feed local high school football programs.

Pope said the basis for starting the program was to get kids involved in football at an earlier age. Neighboring schools in the Yakima and Tri-Cities area already had programs, as did Othello, on which the Grant County's Grid Kids was modeled.

This year there are about 280 boys participating in Grid Kids every Saturday morning through Oct. 22. Girls have played in the past, but Pope said none turned out this year. There are 19 teams total, 10 at the fifth- and sixth-grade level and nine at the third- and fourth-grade level. Moses Lake teams make up most of the league with 12 teams, with the remainder made up of five Ephrata teams and two Warden teams. Those numbers are up this year by about 45 kids, resulting in four additional teams compared to the previous year.

Every team is sponsored by a local business, and coached by volunteers, primarily fathers with children involved in the project.

Justin Lange is one such volunteer coach who leads the Cactus Works Cougars. Lange said that without Grid Kids, players don't have a chance to play tackle football until seventh grade, only two years before high school. Grid Kids is way to become familiar with the game long before joining a middle school team.

Aside from all the reasoning about why the program is advantageous, it's fun.

"They're just kids," said Lange. "It's still pure for them."

"It's such a howl to watch," said Steve McFarland, who was cheering on his son Evan, 12, as he ran the ball on a recent Saturday morning. Steve McFarland was one of many dads and moms on the sidelines that day who help with everything from marking the line of scrimmage to providing snacks for the players. "He looks forward to it every year," Steve McFarland said of his son.