Coastside Pop Warner recognizes its scholar/athletes, begins 2008 recruiting

The Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc., a national youth football and cheerleading organization, has just announced nation-wide winners of scholastics awards for 2008, including five Coastside Cougars Pop Warner players. 

The highest scholastic honor given by Pop Warner is the National First Team, which includes the top 35 football players and top 35 cheerleaders from each grade level.  Fewer than ten players from the 6000-member Bay Area Peninsula Pop Warner League achieve this recognition each year.  Joseph Lowman received this prestigious award for 2008.  Sean McCaffrey, Nathan Seaton, Neal Seaton, and Ryan Segervall were named to National Second Team. 

To achieve this recognition, players had to accomplish outstanding academic performance in school as well as demonstrate excellence in non-athletic activities and responsibilities such as honors classes and school awards, after-school classes, community service, and special projects.  Second Team includes the top 1,000 scholar-athletes from each grade level from approximately 360,000 Pop Warner participants across the United States.

The Coastside Cougars Pop Warner teams will be recruiting for the 2008 season now until practice begins on August 1.  More information is available at http://www.coastsidefootball.org/

Coastside has a tradition of being represented within this prestigious group, past Coastside football players, Zach Schuller, 2006, and Drew Bollman, 2005, received National First Team recognition.  Nathan Seaton and Joseph Lowman, along with Daniel Custer, Evelyn Moseley, Nicholas Moss, and Daniel Welch received National Second Team or National Honorable Mention awards for 2007.

In March of 2008, the Pacific Northwest Region Pop Warner organization recognized 1,000 players/ cheerleaders out of 20,000 participants in leagues across Northern California and Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska for academic achievement.  In addition to the National scholars above, who were also named to the Regional First or Second Teams, Regional Honorable Mention Scholars from Coastside included Justyne Beck-Dewilde, Christopher Bradley, Devon Canty, Marshall Egger, Joseph Erdie, Jamin Hines, Blake Kastl, Spencer Meyer, Patrick Meyers, Dominic Pintarelli, Jacob Spaeth, and Daniel Welch. 

In February, a total of 58 Coastside cheerleaders and football players received scholastics awards at the Peninsula League level, recognizing academic achievement and community service among some 6,000 participants from the greater Bay Area.

Our Coastside national scholars are invited to the national scholastics award banquet, held in alternating years at Disney World and Disneyland.  Pop Warner began as a junior football conference founded in 1929 by a stockbroker named Joe Tomlin, who wanted to help Philadelphia youth and young adults.  Glenn Scobie "Pop" Warner, who had coached football at Stanford, where his teams won three Rose Bowl championships, became associated with the program in 1934, and by 1938, the organization had grown to 157 teams.  After a decline during World War II, the Pop Warner Conference became more focused on youth.  During the 50’s, the group caught the attention of Walt Disney, who promoted Pop Warner with a TV show.  Expanding coast-to-coast, by the late 1960’s, the organization totaled over 3,000 teams across the country.  Cheerleading was introduced and grew rapidly during the 1970’s. Today, the organization is the largest youth football, cheer, and dance program in the United States, and has over 5,000 teams and about 360,000 participants, ages 5 to 16 in eight age/weight classifications, in 41 states and several countries around the world.  The organization also focuses on building scholarship and community service.  Pop Warner Little Scholars requires boys and girls to perform satisfactorily in their schoolwork before allowing them to participate on the field.  It also recognizes outstanding achievements in scholastics and community service through special awards at the local league, regional, and national levels.

The Coastside’s Pop Warner Association, now known as the Coastside Cougars, has fielded youth football teams and cheerleading squads since 1969.  Scott Jones and Mike Berger were on the first Coastside Pop Warner team, with head coach Al Shue, and continued to play football through high school.  Cheerleading parents handmade the jumper outfits when cheerleading was added in the early ‘70’s.  In 2007, 60% of the HMBHS varsity and 50% of the HMBHS frosh/soph football, as well as 50% of HMBHS varsity and frosh/soph cheerleaders started out in the Coastside Pop Warner Football and Cheer program.

Last year was an outstanding one for the local teams.  In 2007, the Coastside Pop Warner Cheerleaders competed at the Shoreline Amphitheatre Cheer Invitational Competition for ages 5 – 14. The Coastside Midget team (11 – 15 year-olds) won 1st place in the Peninsula Championships and advanced to 1st place in the Northwest Regional Championships in Santa Clara, defeating a team that traveled from Washington State. The Pee Wee team (9 – 12 year-olds) placed second in the Peninsula Pop Warner League Championships and advanced to the Northwest Regional Championships in Santa Clara, where they placed third by winning a game with another team from Washington state.  The Mighty Mites football team (7 - 9 year-olds) played in the Peninsula Pop Warner Regional Bowl in Hollister.