Texas Youth Football League is Having 4-Year-Olds Signing Letters of Intent
Source - “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Complete Signatures” is the headline for a Wall Street Journal feature by Kevin Armstrong on a new concept in one youth football league in Odessa, Texas.
The Permian Basin Youth Football League mandates that each player, from ages 4 to 12, must sign a letter of intent to show their commitment to a youth team in the league. It even includes public “signing ceremonies” just as has become popular with high school athletes signing to play in college.
And if there’s one singular line that points to the absurdity of it all, it’s this from league president Matt Lawdermilk: “The 4-year-olds play flag,” Matt said. “They can’t sign their name so they just scribble.”
Lawdermilk told WSJ he started the letters in 2014, two years after founding the league, to deter coaches from recruiting players already on a team. As Armstrong writes, “as with so many issues in youth sports, the adults were getting out of hand.”
Coaches would approach parents at major events and recruit their kids. According to WSJ, families went tent to tent at a celebration to get free food and hear coaches’ pitches.
Megan Lawdermilk, the league manager and Matt’s wife, said they “had to draw the line.”
“Once the kids sign, we take a picture of them signing with the coaches so other coaches can’t go and bug ’em, make promises, which they’ve done in the past.”
The players, parents, “Team Mom” and coach all sign contracts stating their commitment to a team. There are approximately 1,500 kids in the league.
Yeah, right. Good luck with that crusade, Lawdermilks. You think any self-respecting Texas Youth Football coach is going to let a little thing like a piece of paper with “ANDY” scribbled on the bottom with a backwards “N” like on Sheriff Woody’s boot stop him? Or some picture of a smiling 4-year-old holding his lucky Signing Crayola in one hand while shaking hands with an arch rival in the other? That’s not a deterrent; it’s a target. The other coach in that picture might as well have a sniper’s crosshairs on him.
Leagues like Permian Basin aren’t about making promises and keeping to your commitments. And they are sure as holy fuck not about fairness to your fellow coaches. They’re about attaining the glory that can only come from winning the flag football championship in a league of preschoolers. Any man who’d pass on an elite 4-year-old athlete who could help him achieve his life’s goals like that is worthy of neither respect nor the honor of being called “Coach.”
If you want that kid, you recruit him. If anyone waves a Letter of Intent in your face, you wipe your ass with it, Bobby Knight style. And you offer that superstar whatever it takes to get him. Money. Toy cars. Video games. Girls (unless he thinks they’ve got cooties, which is probably very likely). All the sugary cereal he wants. No naps. Ice cream for dinner. Unlimited TV. A bed time of whenever he wants. Then you send that kid out there to crush the dreams of the guy you stole him from, because that’s how winning is done.
So go ahead, play your little games. Keep up the charade of your big Signing Days. Show them on ESPN for all anyone will care. Then good luck trying to make the Letter of Intent hold up in court. Meanwhile the coaches like the ones I worked with all those years – the real kind – will be clearing space in their trophy cabinets.