Estevan Minor Football has been preparing for the 2011 season, and all teams are taking to the field this weekend to kick off the schedule on the road.
Each of the three football teams will have the same coach as last year. Preston Majeran heads the bantam Steelers, Steve McLellan runs the peewee Chargers and Garth Dietz continues with the atom Miners. The teams have been getting together for practices over the past couple of weeks.
Majeran said his team of 35 players includes eight returnees from last year's squad and nine rookies entering their first season of organized football. For the new players, the first few outings are all about fitting into a position.
"You just have to see where their strengths and abilities lie and then try to stick them in the right position," he said. "But we can always just place them where we feel their abilities are the best throughout the year. Their positions are never (set) in one spot, we moved guys around last year, and we can move guys around this year too."
The returning players will be tasked to help the coaching staff, by shaping and leading the team throughout the season.
"They know pretty much what we're going to run and how to lead on the field. That's one thing we're really looking toward them to do, to lead the first-year Steelers and the rookies and to teach them."
As the coaches can't be in all places at all times, Majeran said he does put some onus back on those veteran players to show their teammates how the Steelers run.
Majeran said he wants to improve this year from last.
"Last season we were 4-5, and we'd like to be better than a .500 team this year. There's definitely a winning attitude on this team. The veterans are really up for this year, off a great season last year, and they're pumped up and they definitely want to continue on with what's going (well)."
The Steelers quarterback will be one of the new players on the team, having run the offence for the Chargers last year. Majeran noted the Chargers had a great defence last year, and a lot of those players have moved up to the Steelers this year. He said his team looks to be pretty balanced on both sides of the ball.
McLellan's Chargers are a young team this year, after being a "senior" squad last season, but most of those players have moved into bantam.
McLellan said last year's team was very motivated and knew what they wanted to accomplish, whereas this year's goals are still to be decided.
"This team, so far, we've come a long way in a short time, so we're really excited about that, but being a little bit younger, they're a little more raw, you could say," said McLellan.
The team was together for a training camp, but McLellan said it wasn't until last week that they really came together to resemble a "real" football team.
"I think we're pretty balanced," he added. "From what my experience has shown, it takes a few weeks to get your offence (going) at a high level, where your defence you can really start to cement that earlier in the season. To kind of counteract that, we're more veteran on offence, so hopefully we get the offence in there trying to do as good as we can, but I would say we're pretty balanced overall."
This year the Chargers will likely run a two-quarterback setup.
"We have two very, very different quarterbacks. Both are extremely talented, they both bring their own strength."
One is a first year, and the other a second, so McLellan said they will look to develop both.
He said he has never been one to judge a season on the win-loss record, but noted he would judge a successful year based on teaching his players some of the finer parts of the game and what being a team is all about.
The atom Miners have seen the biggest increase in player registration, from fielding 22 players last year to having 43 kids registered this year. Teams can't dress more than 38 players for a single game. Of those 43 registrants, four have experience playing organized football.
Dietz said he thinks a big part of the high registration numbers is the formation of the flag football league for youngsters this past summer. The added exposure has increased the interest in football for Estevan's youth, he said.
"This year we've had to start right from scratch," Dietz said.
Part of starting from scratch with a team of players who haven't played before is getting everyone fitted into their equipment and making sure all that pads are fitting in the right place.
"Then we started working on some of the very basic stuff, like stances: the three-point stance, two-point stance, blocking, tackling. That was pretty much the first practice."
Getting players to move properly on the field, like how a linebacker drops back, and how to step correctly when doing that. After working on player movement, the coaches ran the players through some of the more precise paces like receiving, throwing and snapping the ball.
"This week we're going to have the kids in position, and we'll be working on things specific for that position."
Throughout the course of the season, Dietz said he wants his team to be competitive, and to teach the kids the basics of the game so that the program progresses and time doesn't need to be spent on fundamentals.
"We've got some kids who look like they're going to be pretty good players."
Despite the large increase in numbers, all the players will get access to field time, as part of the fair play rules.
"Every kid gets a chance to play, so we have to either alternate them by every play, series, quarters, halves, so that every kid gets a chance to get in there and play."
Dietz also touted his "experienced" coaching staff, which includes five coaches who don't have kids involved, but are just volunteering their time.
All three teams are in action this Saturday opening their seasons on the road in Regina. The Miners face the Griffins, the Chargers play the Mustangs and the Steelers open their campaign against the Raiders.
