Windham Father Jump Starts Youth Athletics Programs

Jim Williams has received a thank you from a Windham resident in just about every public place in town, from the Transfer Station to the supermarket to the gas pump. 

But according to Williams, he makes sure to tell everyone offering him kind words that it was not a one-man effort, but rather 11 dedicated individuals who worked to start a youth football and cheer program in Windham in 2010. 

“As I tell people, go to the leadership tab of our website and there are 11 names there,” he said.

That website displays the name “Windham Wolverines,” a team name that was introduced by fellow board member Kyle McInnis.

In their first year, the three Wolverines teams were definitely a work in progress. Seventy-nine of the 84 kids who signed up for the team had never put on a football helmet.

“It’s kind of interesting,” Williams said. “The first thing is, you know  'Coach, how do I buckle this helmet?’” 

Despite the sharp learning curve, he said the kids were able to remain positive last year. 

“From top to bottom, our kids had excellent attitudes and they were just sponges in terms of learning,” he said. “It was handled very well by coaches.”

It was a huge task to catch up to other teams in the league, the majority of which were fielding nearly a complete roster of athletes who had played football before. 

But you have to start somewhere, and according to Williams, “the demand was there."

In fact, he wasn’t committed to the idea of starting a program until the sixth or seventh resident came up to him asking the same question: Can you start Windham youth football? 

It was a gradual process, with two or three parents inquiring about a possible league during baseball season, followed by a couple more the following summer. 

The "straw that broke the camel's back" was that one father whose son is a multi-sport athlete in town who asked Williams outside of church in the fall of 2010.

"That's when it was decided to move forward and see if there was truly enough interest in town for boys to play football and girls to cheer,” Williams said.

The Pennsylvania native, who played youth and high school football himself, did eventually get the ball rolling, and he hasn’t looked back since.

“I started the ball rolling, and that ball would not have gone more than a few feet without the 10 board members that came aboard immediately,” Williams said. “(That was) followed by football and cheer coaches, along with the many parent volunteers, such as team moms, concession volunteers, our film guy and announcer.” 

In fact, the 84 kids nearly doubled during registrations in February. 

Three teams will turn into five in the fall, as the Windham Wolverines will field squads for second and third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh grades. 

When Williams first began the team in 2010, he also immediately contacted Windham High School athletic director Bill Raycraft, who sat down with him three days later and pretty much opened up his facilities for the program. That included the use of fields for practice and games and the use of the school for meetings. 

The biggest barometer of the Windham Wolverines’ success ­– not a single kid left last year. 

“Every program has at least one kid quit,” Williams said. “We started with 84 kids, we finished with 84 kids.” 

Despite the fact that he and his fellow coaches and board members saw the need for a program in Windham, Williams did clarify that youth football doesn’t work for every town.

He said that he has seen towns further north in New Hampshire, such as Franklin and Tilton, struggle to sustain their own programs. 

“One of those towns should have a football program and the other should drive, in my opinion,” Williams said. 

But now, with its own team, the Windham Wolverines program and the high school can work together to create a system of directly pipelining kids to the Windham Jaguars.

“Do I feel there’s a need for a youth football program in every town? Absolutely not,” Williams said. "But in this case in Windham with the high school, there was definitely a need, in our opinion.” 

Aside from his work on the Windham Wolverines, Williams works two jobs, one a tax business in town and the other a financial staffing and accounting company out of Woburn, Mass.

According to Williams, his tax practice model has proven to develop long-lasting relationships with clients in the five years he has been preparing taxes, where his clients are primarily residents of Windham and Pelham.