Chargers Football

This past Fall season, we signed Luke up for Flag Football with the Junior Eagles Football League in Lake and the Hills.  The League has numerous divisions of  teams beginning with 5 year old flag teams all the way up to 8th grade tackle teams. The League basically prepares young kids for High School Football. When  Brian took Luke to meet the Coaches and Sign him up, at the time Luke was only 4 years old, so we were not sure they were going to let him join because of his age. To my surprise,  when Brian went to sign him up...the coaches took one look at Luke and determined that he was big enough to compete with 5-7 year olds.   So we signed him up, purchase a football, some cleats and he landed on the Chargers team.    I was a little nervous at first because this was the first time Luke has played on an organized athletic team..I did not want him to get hurt or bullied around - especially since he was playing with kids that ranged from Kindergarten all the way up to 1st & 2nd grade!  But to my surprise he was a Natural.   He absolutely loved it!   He had practices 1-2 times a week and games on Saturdays. Brian was even able to join his team as an Assistant Coach.. 

Since I do not have a hyped up camera, most of my pictures are pretty lame and very few....mostly because I spent at least every game trying to keep Adriana from running on the field.  Some games I was pretty sure she wanted to play more than Luke.  Poor kid...every game she would say....My Turn!  I Want to Play Football with Lukey! From this experience, she knows some of the terminology, has learned to hike the ball and pull flags.   Pretty cute......and pretty annoying all at the same time. Sorry Adriana!

This picture is Luke and some of his teammates on the sidelines...waiting for the game to start.

So as the season started, we started to notice that Luke was an amazing player in practice..and a little shy and nervous when it was game time. In practice he was the fastest runner on the team, constantly pulled flags and had numerous touchdowns.  When it was game time...he would get very nervous and did not perform up to his potential.  He was turning into a real Practice Hero.  After the first couple of games and especially after his first touchdown, Luke slowly started to realize that there was no reason to be nervous, this was all for fun...and OH MY GOD..he really shined...totally shocked the Hell out of me!  In a nut shell....Luke had about 5-6 touchdowns all season and 2 in the playoffs.  I cannot remember his team stats..but I can tell you the Chargers made it through two rounds of the Playoffs and were shut down...right before the Superbowl. They had a great season!

This is Luke playing Quarterback! The great thing about this league is that they get to play every single position.....that is until he gets to tackle football where they wear helmets and it gets a litte more serious.  We have about three more years of Flag and I am fine with that. Not sure if my nerves can take my baby playing tackle!

The Huddle!

Homecoming Week all the Mom's pitched in and made something for the boys...my contribution was signs for each kid....

I do have a lot more pictures, but was only able to get a couple of them up. All in all it was a great season!  We had an end of season banquet and Luke earned his first football trophy..I have never seen him so proud.  Nobody is aloud to touch the trophy....especially Adriana, but if you want to see it, I am sure he would be glad to show it off.   The coach even said a couple of nice things about Luke as he handed him his trophy...he said that "This is a kid who did not even know his true potential...in fact I think he even surprised himself..  The fastest kid on our team and a player that is going to do great things in the seasons to come.. Watch out for Luke!"  I can tell you, I was grinning from ear to ear and Brian was extremely proud and excited!

So while we are in the off season, Luke is signed up at a Football camp that he attends every Saturday to brush up on skills and learn more about the game. He seriously loves football!