KELSEYVILLE >> Winning, as Kelseyville proved in its youth football league this past autumn, can be contagious.
There was, in fact, a serious outbreak in the otherwise quiet town when three different age levels in the Pop Warner program — peewee, junior varsity and varsity — bearing the Kelseyville logo posted 10-0 records.
For a town with a population of only 3,500, this ranks as a phenomenal achievement and a first for Lake County.
There was no magic to it, just a matter of coaches and board members being on the same page.
“I think the biggest thing for the board and the coaches is they want the kids to believe in themselves. Not just to play sports,” said outgoing league president Clay Van Housen.
Van Housen is one of five men who joined in maintaining the program in Kelseyville. He is a heavy equipment operator; Paul Holt, Van Housen”s replacement, is a teacher; Adam Garcia, the varsity coach, is a California Highway Patrolman; Erick Larsen, the JV head coach, is also a teacher; and Paul Murray is a UPS driver.
The coaches agree that friendships borne of the times they”ve shared on and off the field is a factor in their remarkable across-the-board success in 2014. In some cases their friendships go back a half-dozen years.
“I think that everybody being so close we”re pretty good friends,” said Van Housen. “Paul and I met through baseball and football. His wife and my girlfriend went to school together.
“I think the first time I met I met Erick I was coaching his daughter in football,” Van Housen added.
Coaches are strictly volunteers, but they put in no small amount of time. There were two-hour practices five nights a week and sometimes six. Ideas were shared, films studied.
“Once you”re five or six games into the season, it”s hard to keep the kids motivated,” says Larsen. “Sometimes to change things and get the kids to focus we”ve had to use our imagination. We played backyard football (in which) linemen played back and backs and receivers played line. Or we”d run what we called center-eligible ”lineman shenanigans.” “
“We want them to love football and my kids loved practice.”
There are goals at each level. At the peewee level, which is comprised of boys (and the occasional girl), players in the 60- to 80-pound range and in second through fourth grades, it”s learning football terminology.
“We had 18 players this year,” said Van Housen. “One was a girl. She was a two-way starter at tight end and linebacker and she was probably one of the toughest kids out there. Not only was she a good middle linebacker, she would also tell the kids (on defense) where to go.”
The emphasis for the junior varsity, players who weigh between 115-120 pounds and are in the fourth through sixth grades, is fundamentals and, says Larsen, “getting them to love football and making sure they know what they needed to know to be a good player.”
Garcia says he worked his varsity-level players, who weigh in in the 150-pound range, hard during the season.
“I really stepped on them in practice,” he confessed. “And when we got to the games, I told them, ”This is what we did all that hard work for ? to have fun. I told them, ”You know what to do,” and they took the ball and ran with it.”
To maintain its undefeated record, the Kelseyville varsity had to overcome a challenge from Middletown, which held an early 16-0 lead, said Garcia.
“Middletown was a formidable opponent,” Garcia said. “When we played them they came out prepared. It was the first team that my squad had to play from behind. They got the ball on the opening kickoff and went down and scored.
“Then, after an onsides kick, Middletown scored again and we had to battle back to make it 16-all at halftime.”
The varsity coaching position is the league”s most pressured because players go from there to Kelseyville High School competition.
“Next year will be the first year when players in this program will be on the Kelseyville junior varsity team and I”m very excited about seeing a group of our kids moving up,” said Garcia.
Are they ready?
“Yes!” Garcia said enthusiastically. “They”re a highly trained group of athletes.”
