"Saturday Morning Footy" Youth Program Turns 10

Saturday June 13 marks the beginning of the tenth season of Washington DC’s youth Australian football program, Saturday Morning Footy. My wife, Deena Ackerman, and I began the program when our son was 6. We hoped that through the program he would learn to play and love the game of Australian football.

Recently, our son, now 15, played in his first game for the Baltimore Washington Eagles against the Philadelphia Hawks. The Eagles went down by 5 goals, but my son had fun, got a “touch” and put in some valuable minutes on the field. His only official statistic, a handball, led to an Eagle’s goal. If it was ice hockey, he would have earned a point. One of the Hawks players noted the handball, telling me after the game that he knew I would be very proud.

Passing on the love of footy is hard work when you live 10,000 miles from home of the game and your club is celebrating twenty years since its last championship. Saturday Morning Footy has been a great way to bring my love of the game to our family and our community. My hope is that over the next ten years we will see more players graduate from Saturday Morning Footy to represent the Baltimore Washington Eagles and Lady Eagles. Maybe even a few will even represent the USA and put on the jersey of the American Revolution or the USA Freedom.

When I was in elementary school in the 1970s, my best friend’s dad brought a new Australian football program to our school. The program called, Vickick, was designed to be a way of introducing a love for the game to a broad audience of children. The program focused on fun skill-based activities over competitive games. In 2006, we decided to bring its successor, the AFL’s AusKick program, to Washington DC. Taking our cue from a very successful local youth sporting program called Saturday Morning Basketball, we rebranded it Saturday Morning Footy. This branding also gave us the flexibility to provide Auskick-style skill based activities to the younger children while giving older kids more of a competitive game based program that they demand.

In our first season in 2006, twenty-two boys and girls participated in two session, mostly friends and neighbors. The next year we had three sessions, but only 14 boys and girls participated. At our height, in 2010, almost 100 boys and girls participate in the program’s four sessions. Since then our numbers have been lower with 49 boys and girls participating over five sessions in 2014. While the numbers in the program have ebbed and flowed, we have been able to build a solid coaching and administrative structure for the program.

Like Auskick programs in Australia and around the world, we rely on volunteer coaches, mostly parents, to run the activities. Many of the parents have little or no experience with the game. That said, many are experienced youth coaches in various sports and many bring a great enthusiasm for the game. Over the years we have learned how to take advantage of their knowledge of coaching and their enthusiasm while giving the players the skill instruction they need. One of the great things about Auskick is that it allows the parents to participate with their kids. We try to make Saturday Morning Footy a great family experience.

Our parents have included the likes of Collingwood AFL and Washington NFL player, Sav Rocca, as well as the United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. We have introduced many Washingtonians to the great game of Australian football, but we are proudest of the fact that members of the Australian military and diplomatic corps can keep their kids in footy while their families complete a two or three rotation to Washington DC.

It has been a long ten years, with some disappointments and frustrations, some heart lifting support while our family coped with severe illness, and many beautiful summer mornings kicking a footy around a field.

A few months ago we formed the Washington Junior Australian Football Club. The club’s formation is the culmination of many years work of many people. We hope that the Washington Juniors will provide the administrative backbone to help build and develop Saturday Morning Footy for the next ten years.

Thank you to many who have supported and helped Saturday Morning Footy over the last ten years, particular thanks goes to the players, coaches and alums of the Baltimore Washington Eagles. We are also very grateful to the leadership and administration of the USAFL, staff of the AFL, AFL Victoria, and the Western Australian Football Commission. Most of all, we are thankful for the parents.