Frequently Asked Questions
What you need to know if you are considering signing up your child for one of our teams
Cost: $250.00 per player for the Fall developmental season or $450.00 for the Summer Rep/Travel season. This includes the loan of all needed equipment, excluding cleats. The player gets to keep his/her team jersey and socks. We regret that due to the fact that we have fixed costs for equipment and jerseys as well as practice and game fields we are unable to provide refunds after the first game of the season unless a player is injured in football, prior to the midpoint of the season, such that he/she is unable to continue playing. Season: Fall - Mid August until early November; Summer - May 1 until August 1 Practices: up to 3x per week, usually 2x per week once school starts but this is up to the coach.For Fall developmental Football only
Practice locations: - Undetermined at present but normally south of the QEW for Raiders teams and north of the QEW for the Panthers teamsWe normally try to keep players from south of the QEW on the Raiders and those from north of the QEW on the Panthers HOWEVER the league (MFL) requires that teams in the same affiliation and at the same level be as close to equal as possible in size and quality. This means that new players are not guaranteed a particular team. If necessary a draft will be held at the end of the second week of practice to determine the team to which a player will be assigned. All efforts will be made to meet the legitimate needs of players and parents, but we must follow league rules.
Games: Most games are Saturday mornings. There are a couple of night games and one game at Ivor Wynn Stadium. Otherwise all games are in Mississauga, no more then a 15 minute drive, under normal conditions, for most people.This is a developmental football league therefore all players will see regular playing time unless unable to participate for safety reasons.
Conflicts: Football games and practices occasionally conflict with other events in your child's life. In such a case we recognize that this is not the Pros, and that other things may take precedence over football. Still there is a safety issue at stake. Players need to practice regularly in order to be prepared to play safely and successfully. Missing games without much advanced notice is a particular concern as we are then required to fill your child's spot with someone else. Someone who may not be fully prepared to play that spot. Commitment is an important trait that we are trying to develop, so please try and make every practice and game and inform your child's coaches if he/she must be absent.That said we fully recognize that the following priorities exist in your child's life and that these take precedence over football and we will always support your decisions in regard to conflicts between football and these priorities:
1. Religious observances
2. Family commitments
3. Your child's education (for information on this please click this link)
4. Other activities to which your child has a previous commitment. Example, Your child plays summer football, baseball, soccer etc and has not completed their season. This commitment takes precedence over the new one made to football and we encourage you and your child to complete the commitment they have made to this team/sport. Likewise, we expect that they will prioritize their commitment to football over a subsequent commitment to another sport.
Questions:
1. Why should my/son/daughter play football?
Football is the ultimate team sport. It has a place for just about everyone, the large and the small, the fast and the slow. There are no unimportant positions, no place where a player can take a play or more off without affecting the team. Everyone on the field is important, on every play. As a result football can develop the skills involved in being part of a team better than most other activities.
Football is excellent for developing strength, balance, explosiveness, quickness and agility. It also develops the ability to analyze changing situations quickly and make decisions based on this analysis. As a sport that involves "hitting and being hit" by just about every player, on every play, football requires players to develop the ability to stay calm and under control under great stress. A player who "loses it" is a detriment to the team, so most players develop a great sense of internal discipline which, if transferred to other endeavors will be a great asset in life.
Finally as a contact sport football is superb, when properly taught, at developing self confidence. When a player learns that he or she can successfully go up against a larger, faster opponent they leave with a confidence based on real world success. They learn to be aggressive but to control that aggressiveness. The business world calls this assertiveness and values it highly. Many activities claim to develop self confidence and the ability to defend oneself against others but often this is a false confidence which can be more harmful then helpful. The self confidence and controlled aggression developed in football is based on real situations and actual experience. It is a self confidence that is deserved. In today's often hostile environment this may be one of greatest gifts we can give our children.
2. Is football safe?
Football is a sport and all sport, like life in general, has an element of risk to it. Injuries do occur. It should be noted that the injury rate in football is much less, overall, than some sports, gymnastics comes to mind, and is no worse than that of soccer or basketball. In fact, if you exclude college and professional sport where play is much more intense (high paying careers are on the line) the injury rate in football is less than that of soccer. It should be noted that better coaching, better equipment and changing techniques have significantly decreased the number of head and neck injuries previously experienced in football. For example, blocking is now done more with the hands and arms than with the shoulder, practically eliminating neck injuries. With good equipment, proper training and coaching and a well disciplined environment your son or daughter has at least as good a chance to avoid injury as he or she does on the playground, better probably.
For data on injuries in sports go to the following web site: http://members.rogers.com/smfc-club/Injuries.htm
3. Does football encourage violent anti-social behaviour?
Football is a contact sport. However, it does not encourage violent behavior. Violence involves the deliberate attempt to injure another person and is normally associated with a lack of emotional control. Control is a key to success in sport and football is no exception. A player who loses control is going to make mistakes, mistakes that can cost his/her team a game. Coaches work hard at teaching athletes to maintain control at all times. When successful the human tendency towards violent behavior is put under strict control. Football may be better than many sports at teaching our young athletes to control their tempers and apply their aggressive tendencies positively.
4. If this is so how do you explain the number of incidents of violent behaviour among professional football players?
It is unfair to compare adult/near adult professionals with children. However, the question deserves to be answered. Professional athletes, in any sport, are subject to immense pressures. Their careers, and the often lucrative contracts that go with them, tempt some to make decisions that are totally against the rules and ethical principles of their sport. The use of drugs such as steroids is well documented, at the higher levels of many sports. As you probably know, the use of steroids and many other drugs, increases the tendency to lose control in an often violent manner. However, some athletes find the perceived benefits worth the risk. While all incidents of violent behavior among athletes can not be laid at the doorstep of drug use, much of it can. Our sports teams are a microcosm of society and the weaknesses of society are sometimes evident.
The biggest problem here though is the human tendency to key in on the sensational, a tendency used by the media to increase revenues. What we do not see, unless you are intimately involved as a coach, is the number of young athletes who have been saved by sport, who have learned to overcome negative environments and behaviors because of their participation in sport. Football because it involves direct confrontation with other athletes in a controlled environment encourages these athletes to develop the emotional and social control needed to be successful. This control can benefit them in all areas of their lives but will rarely become a newsworthy story .
5. Should girls play football and if so should they play against boys?
This question shows how far we have come in eliminating restrictions, placed by society, on the ability of some groups within it to reach personal success. After all, if girls were automatically forbidden the right to play then the question wouldn't have come up. But it also shows how far we still have to go. Physically, we know, that the obvious differences between men and women don't generally become relevant until they become men and women. Prior to that, girls, due to their more rapid rate of maturation may actually have an advantage. Even after puberty though, some males may be too fragile for football while some females can play without problem, certainly into the high school level. The more relevant questions should be whether or not your son/daughter can play safely, and do they have the personal desire to be involved.
In our society girls/women compete head to head with boys/men in many areas including education and the world of business. Females face the same problems males face, often more so, as some males still perceive them as the weaker sex. If football benefits males in the development of confidence, assertiveness, leadership etc, so to will it benefit females. Ask my 13 year old daughter. She is going into her 5th year of football, playing with and against the boys, and has done so successfully, even when as a 12 year old she had to play at peewee against 13 and 14 year old males. She has maintained her femininity and is in no way distinguishable by appearance or social mannerisms from her non football playing female friends. She is not particularly large but thanks to her participation in gymnastics and competitive trampoline is fit and strong. She has never been the weak link on her team and has, in fact, had coaches vying with each other to have her play for them. She is more confident in her ability to compete with males but recognizes where her strengths and weaknesses are in relation to them. In my mind this can only benefit her in the long run.
The last concern that should be addressed here is the feeling that males will not do their best against a girl. I, personally, was involved in one of the first sports to pit males and females against each other, over thirty years ago. That sport was karate, another contact sport. I admit to being hesitant against my first female opponent. This lasted until the first attack by her, a few seconds into the match. A couple of good hits and the sex of the opponent became irrelevant. Nothing has changed. Many males in football don't even know that the person across from them is a female until the helmets come off at the end of the game. All those pads do that to you. If they do know, they will cease to care once the adrenalin starts pumping. Guaranteed!
6. My son/daughter plays hockey. Is a commitment to football likely to interfere with the commitment to hockey? What about soccer or baseball?
This depends greatly on the level of hockey your child is playing. Typically there is no or very little conflict between house league hockey and football with the MFL. Playing hockey at the rep level however, is somewhat more of a problem. It is not fair and may be unsafe for a player to miss large numbers of practices in either sport and missing games is a major concern. It is therefore recommended that parents investigate the degree of conflict that may exist and if that conflict is severe make a commitment to one or the other not both. It should be noted that players who can't give their full commitment to football are unlikely to be given key positions as their absence would make it difficult for the team to play successfully. There is almost no conflict between soccer or baseball and what there is occurs at the beginning of our season and we have always been flexible enough to deal with this concern
7. My child's coach claims that participation in other sports will impair his development in his sport.
With very few exceptions this is nonsense. Research shows that children benefit the most from playing a wide range of sports as this lessens burnout, keeping the child fresh and enthusiastic and has a crossover effect beneficial to the development of athleticism. SWFA supports this concept and encourages our players to be active all year not just during football season.