Why youth football? A message from the LBC President

Over few years, many concerns have been raised about the safety of youth football...and rightfully so. The game has changed. Coaches, parents and athletes are more educated about the safety of the game. Libertyville Boys Club (LBC) started in 1933 as a boxing organization, and has evolved over the years. In 1949, we started our first community tackle football program. We had four original teams: Yanks (Coach Tony Basso), Demons (Coach Chuck Brown), Eagles (Coach Harvey Grimes), Hornets (Coach Chuck Post).

This season marks LBC's 70th season of tackle football in our Libertyville community. We have evolved from a boxing club in 1933, to a local community tackle football program in 1949, and currently to a program offering recreational and competitive cheerleading, tackle and flag football in 2019. With all this change, the tradition of the Yanks, Demons, Eagles and Hornets still exists - those are the names of our bantam-level flag teams.

As an organization, we believe strongly in our rich Libertyville roots, and deep tradition of serving the community. Although we serve athletes from kindergarten through eighth grade, we encourage our youngest players – our bantams – to get introduced to the LBC tradition early, and carry on that legacy future generations. In fact, myself, as well as many of board members and coaches are LBC and Libertyville High School alumni. We volunteer our time for the love of the game, and to further the great tradition of Wildcat Football in Libertyville. Our program, from the beginning, has been a volunteer-run organization, and continues to be.

Evolving programs to serve the community

With the evaluation of the great game of football, the LBC program has adjusted with the times. After many years of being a tackle football only program, we added cheerleading to build the local community involvement. We then added flag football as an introduction to the sport of football, and to help with the transition to tackle football. There was the evolution from a 600-player house league tackle football program to a travel-only organization serving tackle football families. Don’t let the word travel scary you - travel football is not like other sports. LBC athletes don’t have multiple games a week. There are no long tournaments that they have to be gone for an entire weekend, or travel out-of-state. Our travel program is also very different since every athlete makes a team. We understand that every child has different levels of football experience. We divide the teams to give the best opportunity for each player to learn the game and fall in love with it. Travel football in Libertyville finds a place for every athlete - we are a no cut program. We teach the kids to work hard, but also have fun at the same time.

Actions to address player safety are working at LBC

When it comes to the safety of the game that’s where we have seen the biggest change. We as a football family our learning new things every year, and we are taking those learnings and implementing them to make the program better. All coaches get certified by USA Football, and master new techniques to teach the game and fundamentals for each position. We teach how to block and tackle safer than we ever have before. In fact, during the 2018 season, LBC invested to have a trained medic at every practice and game during the season. This is an investment we continue to make each season. Having a medic on-site helps coaches, and gives parents confidence that the decision to return to play following an injury is no longer in the coach’s hands, we leave that to the trained professional. We understand nutrition better than we ever have before, and share this knowledge with families, and explain the impact this has on their player and the game. We stress the importance of hydration, and have invested in watering stations on our fields to use during practices and games. As well, water breaks are mandated as part of our certified coaches practice plans. These changes are working. Our post-season surveys have consistently rated LBC’s focus on player safety as a 4.7 out of 5.

What does the game of football teach our youth?

Football is the ultimate team sport, for a play to work you need all 11 players on offense or defense to work together. Football cannot be dominated by one player on the field. All 11 must function as ONE. The sport teaches you how to overcome adversity, when you get knocked down you stand up, dust yourself off and move on to the next play. Yes, we celebrate the big plays when they happen. The celebration is not because of that one play, the celebration is because of the hard work it took to be able to execute that big play. This game also teaches you about strategy, and how to think outside the box…do something creative…catch your opponent off guard. Football teaches us to win with class, and more importantly lose with class. When a play or game doesn’t go your way, we teach to hold your head high. We show players ways to reflect on the game as a whole, and individually to learn from it and make themselves better. Football is more of a mental game then it is a physical game. How are we going to setup the next play, what did we learn from our film study, and how did we adjust during the game to be able to execute. It teaches players to communicate with one another, and coaches. In today’s society, it is very easy to get lost in electronics and only communicate via text message or e-mail. On a football field you can’t do that. Things move so fast on a football field, and it forces players to be vocal and communicate. When players come off the field, the first thing a coach asks, is “what did you see”. Coaches don’t ask that to question the players ability, but to understand their interpretation of what is happening on the field to be able to adjust and better communicate with the player.

Football is different than other sports, and that’s a good thing

Certainly, not all sports are the same. In many ways, football is very different from other sports youth athletes play. Football is the only sport that you practice multiple times a week to play in a single game on the weekend. At LBC, we understand this dynamic may not make football an attractive sport for some athletes who are looking to compete in three to five games a week. How we handle practices is another important adjustment we have made over the years. We have worked closely with Libertyville High School, and model their practicing planning template. Our coaches spend a tremendous amount of time preparing practice plans for each practice. Coaches will plan out every minute of practice, and allocate time to maximize player engagement. At LBC, we have one coach for every 4-5 players, and on the younger levels the ratio is even lower. We make practice efficient, engaging and fun for the players. There are always learning and teaching moments, but gone are the days of coaches just showing up and only practicing plays. There is individual position group time and team time as part of the practice schedule, so we can break down the plays and techniques down to the lowest levels for the individual, and then build them back up for execution as an offensive or defensive unit. Specific days are focused on offense and associated special teams, while other days are defense-centric and additionally focus on punt return, punt block and field goal block. All of these individual pieces are then brought back together to execute the big picture strategies.

Multi-sport participation is encouraged

At LBC we don’t think football is the only sport or activity a child should participate in. We believe that kids should play multiple sports, or do multiple activities. We encourage kids to play baseball, lacrosse, wrestle, basketball, hockey, run track or any other sport. Having kids that play multiple sports helps the child’s long-term development, and lessens to the overuse of certain muscle groups by just playing one sport. There are other great activities in our community, and we work together with the organizations facilitating these programs to ensure that all young boys and girls in Libertyville and the surrounding communities are aware of the great opportunities available. There are acting, band, orchestra, religious groups, and many other activities that our players participate in, and it’s encouraged. At LBC, we are about helping mold a well-rounded individual while we teaching the greatest game on earth.

The LBC Executive Board encourages everyone in the community to come check out our program and to find out what we are about. You can find us online at www.LBCFootball.org, follow us on Facebook @LibertyvilleBoysClub or Instagram at lbc_football, or contact our executive board via email at executiveboard@LBCFootball.org . Reach out to us at any time, and come out to see what our organization is about.

Thank You,

Dan Nikolich

LBC President