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LaVernia Grizzlies

Youth Sports Association

     The LaVernia Grizzlies have made a few changes to their organization in order to better serve our community and we are excited to share them with you.  Most of you know of the changes we made to the board over the past few years.  We would like to reassure parents and children that each and every one of us on the LaVernia Grizzly board has ties to this community through friends and family and we have chosen to take an active role in helping develop the children who play alongside our own.  A new mindset has been brought to the organization.  We want to make our organization outlook wider.  Our vision is to encompass all of the children in the community and encourage them to come out and get involved in sports.  In order to make our vision come to life we had to make a few changes in our organization.  We realize change is hard.  It wasn’t easy on us because we know the decision we make affects this entire community.  We are not dismantling the organization you have all come to love.  We are just making changes that we believe are for the best of all of the children in LaVernia.  Steve Heinen recently said in an explanation letter to some parents, “The heart and soul of the Grizzlies has not changed. The field and facilities have not changed. The pride associated with being a Grizzly has not changed. All the hard work that has gone into this organization will certainly not be forgotten and go on unappreciated.” We are still and will always be The Grizzlies!

     The first of those changes was simple, we changed our name.  We removed the Pop Warner name from our organization and are now the LaVernia Grizzlies Youth Sports Association.  With this change we can now receive a sizable donation of land from the Wiseman family in order to make our organization grow.  For legal reasons we had to remove the Pop Warner name from the organization.  With the donation of land we can plan to build a gymnasium for our cheerleaders to practice in and possibly in the future use that gym for other sporting events.  We can build practice fields for the football players and possibly use those fields for soccer. Our long term goal is to expand to a youth sporting organization not just for football and cheerleading, but to a number of sports so we can give children a chance to play a sport, any sport, at a quality facility. 

    The second change was not so simple.  We realize that this one could make our community stronger or could tear our community apart. This is not an attempt to destroy or take away anything from the past by any one person or the board, but what this board felt would be best overall for the community and specifically the kids.  We insisted on meeting with both Pop Warner and the Texas Youth Football Association.  We devoted two separate meetings to this discussion.  We weighed the differences and notes from the discussion are as follows.

Venue – Pop Warner has a national venue, with opportunity to go to Disney World in Florida for the big show (which we did in football in 2007 and several times in cheer). TYFA is statewide, and have their state playoffs in major stadiums such as Kyle Field. There’s good and bad to both sides of this aspect. I know firsthand that those kids and everyone associated with going to Florida knows what a tremendous feeling that is and an experience you will never forget. On the TYFA side it will probably be a great feeling to be playing somewhere like Kyle Field or the Alamodome, plus the reality is that we may have a better chance at making the state playoffs. A disadvantage to the national venue under Pop Warner is the financial burden associated with it.

Age and Weight limits – Pop Warner has age and weight limits for each division of play, whereas TYFA is divided by age only. This is certainly one of the biggest changes and most discussed. There are four divisions of play on TYFA versus five on Pop Warner, which can help in times of lower enrollment, but might be a disadvantage in times of higher enrollment TYFA is grouped into two year increments - 5-6 yr. olds – Flag, 6-7 yr., 8-9 yr., 10-11 yrs., and 12-13 yr. divisions for tackle, which we won’t have the 12-13 yr. old division here because at that age they choose to play Jr. High. Pop Warner is 5-6-7 for flag no wt. limit, then for tackle 5-6-7 yr. 75 lbs. max., 7-8-9 yr. 90 lbs. max., 8-9-10 yr. 105 lbs. max. Plus 11 yr. olds 85 lbs. max. and 9-10-11 yr. 120 lbs. max. Plus 12 yr. olds 100 lbs. max... Will likely lose some kids on the light side with the switch to TYFA, and likewise will gain some on the heavy side. Kids being grouped by age without the weight restrictions will better prepare them for Jr. High with TYFA. There is concern about the weight differences, but generally felt that it is not the heavier kids that can deliver the heavy blows, it’s the 11 year old playing older/lighter with the extra experience that can deliver the hits as an example. A comparison of last year’s players showed the following estimated number of kids in the divisions: Pop Warner – Flag and Tiny Mites (5-6-7 yr. olds) – 25 total, Mitey Mites – 31, Jr. Pee Wee – 15, and Pee Wee – 11. TYFA – 5-6-7 yr. olds (Flag and Tackle) – 25 total, same as Pop Warner, 8-9 yr. olds – 34, 10-11 yr. olds – 23. A much better spread numbers on TYFA vs. PW. Also, 5 of the 11 kids assumed on Pee Wee for Pop Warner probably would not be able to play due to the weight restriction, but also may lose some kids with TYFA due to no weight restriction. The biggest advantage with regard to age/weight limits is that with TYFA, there are no kids going to be turned away until the rosters are full, meaning 100% opportunity for all kids to play and no kids being turned away because of weight. If a child chooses not to play, it will be of their own decision, not a discriminatory weight restriction. Mandatory play – In contrast to Pop Warner, TYFA has no imposed minimum play rule. However, the local organization has the authority to establish its own rules or can leave it to the coach’s discretion.Competitive play – All levels of play in TYFA are eligible for playoffs, versus only Jr. Pee Wee and Pee Wee in Pop Warner.  Divisions of play – Both Pop Warner and TYFA have two divisions of play (Division I and II). Pop Warner bases their division placement on the prior year’s win-loss record for Jr. Pee Wee and Pee Wee. TYFA places organizations together based on location and size, i.e. San Antonio teams might be division one, outlying towns like us would be division two.La Vernia tradition – We have been Pop Warner for 11 years.  Costs and insurance – basically no significant difference.  Governance and administration – Pop Warner – Local-San Antonio-Regional-National. TYFA – Local-State.

     As you can see we weighed a lot of information and we did not at any time take this decision lightly. Most of us on the board have children in the organization and wanted what was best for all the kids in our community.   None of our kids had problems with their weight, but we saw that there are kids in our community that had to go to another town in order to play football because they were too big to play for Pop Warner in their age group.  Some people are saying those kids could go to Floresville, but wouldn’t you rather play in your own community with the same kids that you play with in school?  We realize that the weight restriction that Pop Warner had was preferred by some parents because they felt it protected their children, but we have to keep in mind the children that were excluded by this rule.  This was a big component to our decision because we didn’t want to ever have to turn away a child.  As you can see from the points above, the decision that the board made was with a lot of thought, thorough debate and analysis in great detail. So after weighing all of the information from both organizations the board decided to go with TYFA instead of Pop Warner this year.   Coach Bo Robinson stated, ”LaVernia Grizzlies do a great job of preparing our children for UIL competition.  We are fortunate to have a large number of people that care about youth sports and helping kids learn fundamentals at an early age”.  Rod Allen added, "I am excited that the Grizzlies have moved to TYFA. Now every child in the LaVernia area will have an opportunity to play football, regardless of their size".

     We realize that this will pose a ton of questions from our community and we also know that there is opposition out there on these decisions. To help answer your questions, we are inviting the community to come out and get to know the board and also the TYFA organization.  We will have a booth at The LaVernia BlueBonnet festival to register for the upcoming season and will be available to answer your questions.    We hope our community will come together for the kids and not let The Grizzlies get torn apart by those who oppose change over our children’s best interest. 

      We are excited about the upcoming season and hope that the LaVernia Grizzly community will join us and become as excited as we are for the future of the children in our community.  See you at the BlueBonnet Festival!!  Go Grizzlies!!!!!!

- The Grizzlies Board, Delina Walker, Matt Miller, Paul Chadwick, Tammy Elrod, Lisa Denson, Steve Heinen, James Green, Devlin Howton, Bubba Wahl, Nina Johnson Brandi Dennis, Jennifer Parker