The sport of football has long been running throughout the high schools in various parts of Saskatchewan and of course in Yorkton.
Now for the first time, it is running at the elementary school level too, said Jason Boyda of the Yorkdale Central Elementary School Royals team.
The team, or at least a good sized practice roster, took to the field of their own backyard on a chilly, but sunny Thursday afternoon, a day before the Easter weekend began.
While hundreds of shoppers everywhere were found roaming the aisles of the grocery stores, none of these guys wanted anything to do with any kind of Easter shopping madness.
Instead they chose to play football.
Forty-two kids came out to play, reports Boyda, and a few girls too.
Boyda told Yorkton This Week that it's the first sign of organized competitive at the elementary level and there was by far enough interest in the school to make a team for the coming season.
"We suited 42 kids. We did a good job of practice planning (with them)."
The players along with Boyda and six other coaches went over the basics in a practice that ran just nicely into its second hour that afternoon.
Boyda said there is so much ground to cover in teaching football that it's almost impossible to stick to any time frame under two hours.
"We wanted to do a lot of blocks," he pointed out, adding that according to him, you can't have any kind of success on the field at game time without having lineman who know how to block effectively.
"We wanted to do blocking, the basic fundamentals so we broke it into stations (for the ease of learning)," he told the paper.
"There's different levels of tackling," he added.
He said that when it comes teaching the players, one of which is only eight years old, there is a definite need to keep things short and sweet.
"We kept this short and simple and to the point," he stated.
Following the end of the Royals' first ever football practice, he reported that things went allright.
"We're pretty lucky (here), he observed. "The kids are catching on quickly."
Practice makes perfect."
Boyda said the idea to bring elementary school to life was something that the school's administration was all in for, as well as the long-running Yorkton Minor Football Association. Their goal is to prepare the players to play in high school. The team is preparing to play 6-man and 9-man football.
