OXFORD – Oxford’s youngest football players will be able to compete in their own colors this year for the first time, thanks to a group of parents who have worked hard over the last year to organize a youth football program.
“We’ve gotten a great amount of community support,” said Rob Murrer, who is coaching director for the fledgling Junior Blackhawks program.
Murrer said the need for a local youth football program hit home for him last summer, when he and his wife Kim tried to sign their then 8-year old son Jacob up for a youth football. As an out-of-towner, he didn’t make the cut for Norwich’s Pop Warner program, so the Murrers headed to Greene, where he was able to secure a spot on the municipality’s youth team.
During the season, they learned that other Oxford parents had been forced to do the same, with some going as far as Bainbridge and Sherburne to find a place for their children.
That realization led to conversations with their friends Scott and Sheri Howe about what it would take to get a youth football program started in Oxford. After doing some brainstorming, the growing group decided to gauge interest in such a program. They started by surveying kids and parents in grades 2 through 5. The response was immediate.
“Over 100 kids said they wanted to do this,” Murrer said, between football and cheerleading. They also had more than 40 parents indicate their willingness to volunteer.
With that support in mind, Murrer and the others began to formalize their intentions. First they established a board of directors and drafted a set of by-laws. Then they worked to find a place for the fledgling program in the Quad City Youth Football League, which includes teams from Deposit, Hancock, Sidney, Unatego, Unadilla Valley, Harpursville, Bainbridge and Greene.
“They did have an opening and we were lucky enough to get voted into it,” he said. They have also gotten verbal permission from Oxford Superintendent Randy Squier to use the high school football field for practices and games during the season, which runs from mid-August through the end of October.
While the Junior Blackhawk program will be run under the auspices of the Oxford Youth Sports Program umbrella and not through the school, Murrer said Oxford Varsity Football Coach Mike Chrystie has been supportive of the program.
