Weddington Titans are All-Around Winners!

1-2-3 TEAM, 4-5-6 HARD WORK is how every Weddington Titans Junior Pee Wee football practice, chalk talk and post-game chat ended.  It is also how you can summarize their amazing season.  They worked extremely hard at practice every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from August through November and played together as a TEAM every time their cleats touched the turf on any given Saturday.  Hard work and team work paid off big for this team.  They were only scored on four times the entire season with three of those touchdowns occurring in their final game.  As a result of their strong defense, they were named the Defensive Team of the Year at the Bronko Nagurski Awards Banquet by the Charlotte Touchdown Club.  The team’s offense was just as amazing.  In fact, they won most games by at least a 20 plus point margin and had many shutouts this season.  

Lately, youth football teams have been receiving a lot of negative publicity.  So, what makes this team so special?  There are many factors that contribute to this team’s success.  The first being that the gentlemen who coached these boys realized that there is a lot that youth can learn about life from the game of football.  They taught the young men to be disciplined- arrive early, work hard, give your best effort and do your job.  As a result, they came to practice early.  Some arrived 30 minutes prior to practice and did parent and player-led drills and warm ups.  They practiced as hard throughout the week as they played on Saturdays.  The expectations were high and clear and the players consistently hit the mark.  The coaches stressed the importance of working together as a team.  Every player understood and believed their job was vital.  They knew the player who blocked was just as valuable as the ball carrier and they realized that they needed each other in order to be successful.  Perhaps the most important reason for their success was that they were told from the first day of practice that they were student-athletes which meant doing their best in school was just as important as doing their best in football.  Each week the players were asked to complete a journal entry.  One week they had to describe what makes a good teammate and explain if they were one or not.  Through those journal entries, the players were able to make the connection between academics and athletics and to further understand the concept of team.

In addition to that, every Friday after the team’s walk-through practice, the kids had the privilege of listening to a motivational speaker.  Those speakers ranged from moms of players on the team who had survived breast cancer during Breast Cancer Awareness Month encouraging the young men to fight when faced with adversity, to dad's who were former NFL players sharing with the kids how hard they worked to become professional athletes, to a local high school football star sharing how important it is to be your best on and off the football field.  Each of the speakers spoke about overcoming adversity, never giving up, and striving for excellence and that is what the Weddington Titans Junior Pee Wee team did all season long and that is what made them champions!