BELOIT—Robert Douglas founded Club Fun2Mental NFL Flag Football just four years ago with about 40 youngsters in his program.
Partnering with Beloit’s new Rising Tide Center this spring, the former Beloit Memorial High School and UW-Whitewater wide receiver and track star says the program has grown to about 300 players in kindergarten through eighth grade, boys and girls.
“With Rising Tides involved, we didn’t charge a fee this year and that’s obviously why the numbers are up by about 50 percent,” said Douglas, who also started a new job this week as recreation coordinator for the City of Beloit. “We have had 30 teams playing from May 4 through this weekend. I’m really excited. I’ve actually seeing a lot of growth and development from players and coaches. That makes me feel good.”
The young gridders play in three leagues of separate age divisions: kindergarten through second grade, third through fifth grade and sixth through eighth grade. There are also separate all-girl leagues for second through fourth grade and fifth through seventh.
“I know this is prime AAU basketball and softball time for the girls, but I’m expecting more will play in the fall,” Douglas said. “We have some kids coming down from Janesville to play in the league and some from the Rockton and Roscoe area. NFL Flag Football has really been pushing the sport for girls for about five years now and it’s really growing. Illiois just sanctioned flag football as a varsity sport for girls and I expect the WIAA will get some pressure to offer it as well.”
Douglas hopes the enthusiasm he has witnessed pays off with a stronger high school football program. He still considers himself a Purple Knight and he sees many of the flag footballers graduating to tackle football after cultivating some of the fundamental skills they’ll need to succeed.
“This is just a natural progression, learning basic skills at the flag football level and then learning more when you move up to tackle football,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll change some things at the varsity level. That’s the goal.”
Wednesday night, he served mainly as league coordinator at the turf field operated by Rising Tide community center, which is located at the old Kolak Education Center and Roosevelt Junior High School at 1633 Keeler Ave.
“I’m just around to make sure things run smoothly,” he said. “When we have issues, they are handled with a level of understanding. You are always going to have parents who get a little overly excited and you get some coaches who just want to win and you have to remind them it’s still about the development.”
The program utilizes the Rising Tides facility as well as fields at Preservation Park.
“We have three grass fields at Preservation and one turf field at Rising Tides and I adjusted the schedule so every league got to play at least once on the turf,” Douglas said.
NFL Flag Football continues to be a terrific supporter of the program and Douglas has attended an NFL Flag Football conference in Las Vegas, where he met with pro players and flag football league organizers who provided ideas to improve the local program.
The most committed of the flag football players do have the opportunity to play in out-of-town tournaments.
“We have three different travel organizations run by coaches who were with our original program and they have tryouts and take kids to NFL Flag Football regionals. They find other tournaments, too. One program is called Beloit Elite. Another is Beloit Junior Knights and the third is B-City Blues. They travel to Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Eau Claire and other cities. I think it’s important to not only have the local rec league, but also give kids the opportunity to experience football outside of Beloit.
“There’s an all-girls tournament in Wisconsin Dells in a month and I may be orchestrating a team for that one myself.”
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