“I think we’re lifers,” Lacey White said of her family’s devotion to Pop Warner cheerleading.
Last year, White’s daughter signed up for the Baldwinsville Pop Warner cheer program. White volunteered to be a coach and the family “just fell in love with it,” she said.
B’ville’s Pop Warner cheer and football teams have been going strong for more than 30 years. This year, 220 kids have signed up, many of them veterans of their teams.
The children, who range in age from 5 to 15, gather in groups scattered across the Town of Lysander Park on Smokey Hollow Road four evenings a week to practice. Pop Warner doesn’t keep individual football statistics; as it says on B’ville’s website, “Pop Warner only recognizes the athletic accomplishments of the team, not the individual.”
At a time when many parents are mulling the risk of head injuries in sports such as football, B’ville Pop Warner is taking steps to make sure kids play safely. Each athlete is sorted onto a team by an age and weight matrix to ensure that players are evenly matched. Coaches have tweaked their techniques to help players reduce the risk of concussions as well.
“There’s a lot of misconceptions that football is a dangerous sport,” said Mary Roff, Baldwinsville Pop Warner’s public relations coordinator.
A 2012 study from the National Academy of Sciences showed that football leads all other youth sports when it comes to concussions: 11.2 concussions per 10,000 athletic exposures. Lacrosse comes in second place with 6.9 head injuries per 10,000 exposures.
While wearing properly fitted helmets and equipment reduces the risk of head injury, helmets can’t protect kids from every blow. Charlie Lacey, B’ville Pop Warner’s player safety coach, said helmet caps do not offer much added protection; it’s more important to teach kids — and coaches — how to make the game safer. Baldwinsville’s coaches are certified with USA Football and are trained in CPR.
“We came up with a whole different program instead of just putting something on the helmet,” Lacey said.
Using techniques he’s learned from USA Football and NFL clinics, Lacey instructs the coaches to teach their athletes “heads-up” tackling and blocking in which players lead with their shoulders instead of their heads.
“Back when I played, everything was, ‘We’re going to lead with our head. We’re going to wrap them up and take them down,’” Lacey said. “We’re actually picking up our opponents instead of throwing them to the ground.”
Lacey said Baldwinsville Pop Warner’s football teams have not seen a concussion in three years, but it’s still a rough-and-tumble sport.
“We want our kids to know what it’s like to get tackled,” Lacey said.
Even the players have noticed the difference.
“I feel confident with what we’ve been taught — to not get hit as much as we used to,” said 12-year-old J.J. Razmovski, who is in his eighth year of Pop Warner play.
In Pop Warner, standards are high for safety as well as scholarship. Roff said Pop Warner puts the emphasis on the “student” portion of “student-athlete,” requiring kids to keep their grades up to participate.
“Kids are required to submit report cards to prove that they are doing well in school,” Roff said.
“That’s what Pop Warner stands for — to help mold and change young minds,” said Midget cheer coach Natalie Paul. “Pop Warner is education first and the cheer or football program second.”
McKenzee Gould, 15, had the opportunity to move up to varsity cheerleading at Baker High School, but she opted to stay with the Midgets.
“I love to cheer with my friends, and they’re great coaches,” Gould said. “Every year, they make me want to come back.”
Gould is in her sixth season as a Pop Warner cheerleader.
“We win together and even when we lose together, it’s great,” she said.
To learn more about B’ville Pop Warner football and cheerleading, visit baldwinsvillepopwarner.org. There are still a few spots open on some of the teams, so you can register your kids online.
