Wilde Lake high school football coaches, players mentor middle school players in flag football program

Apr. 4—By Jacob Steinberg — jsteinberg@baltsun.com

PUBLISHED:April 4, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.| UPDATED:April 4, 2024 at 6:43 p.m.

Wilde Lake High School football prides itself on community involvement. One of its biggest successes on that front has been its youth flag football program that is now set for a major expansion.

In 2016, Wilde Lake football coaches and athletes began a flag football program for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students at Harper's Choice Middle School, a Wilde Lake feeder school. The program runs on Mondays every April and May.

Last spring, Wilde Lake submitted a youth programming engagement grant proposal to Dr. Calvin Ball and the Howard County executive's office. The proposal was broken up into multiple phases, including summer camps, scrimmages and flag football in 2024. In June, they were awarded a grant worth more than $30,000.

Howard County's Youth Engagement Programming Grants, "promote youth activities and engagement in Howard County through free, accessible, and supportive programming developed by nonprofit and community organizations," according to the Howard County government.

The grant allows the program to expand into Wilde Lake Middle School. The Wildecats will conduct the program at both middle schools starting on April 15 and run every Monday until Memorial Day.

The expanded program is highlighted by "Flag Super Bowl" games that will be held on a Saturday to be announced. The sixth, seventh and eighth-grade levels from each middle school will face off.

"We are always trying to find ways to give back to the community, so that has been the biggest piece," Wilde Lake football coach Brian Henderson said. "Our guys enjoy it, so it's one of those things where the best recruiter is another kid. You don't even have to ask, they're usually gung-ho about bringing other kids. They'll say, 'Hey coach, a couple of the other players have been asking, when do we head over, what are the actual dates?'"

The expansion has only increased excitement about the program.

"There's also the pride now that both middle schools are being represented," Henderson said. "There's that pride of what middle school you came from. There are a lot of them that want to go back to their school. Now knowing that the two schools will be playing each other, there's more of an excitement for them to go back and try to help and coach and develop those guys. Then they all realize at the end of the day, it comes back in house and we're all one group one family."

The coaches and players serve a variety of roles in the hour-and 20-minute sessions. Wilde Lake's entire coaching staff is expected to help out, while Henderson estimates roughly 30 to 35 players who aren't participating in a spring sport will be there as well.

Starting each session, coaches and players lead the students in warm-up drills and calisthenics. The roughly 30 to 40 middle school students are then broken up into even teams, depending on turnout and grade level. Some player volunteers serve as referees with others coaching teams. Other Wilde Lake football staff members are there to supervise, interpret close decisions and assist in any way possible.

The setup mimics a conventional football game, score is kept, there are also timeouts and penalties. Wilde Lake players and coaches provide on-field coaching points in the heat of competition. They also preach sportsmanship and battling through adversity — two of the program's foundational principles.

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Freshman Jaydin Gore exemplifies the program's benefits. Gore attended the Wildecats' skills camps growing up and became involved in the flag football practices in middle school. He has fond memories of what he recalled as a fun and energetic practice environment.

"I feel like it translated a lot," Gore said. "A lot of the things that the coaches would tell you, it's not just about scoring touchdowns and making all the big plays. They would tell us the little in-between stuff and tell us what really mattered as far as playing as a team, working together and communicating."

Gore, a second-team All-County performer as a freshman, looks forward to passing down those same lessons.

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"The thing that I'm going to tell them the most is to play together as a team and never shut each other down," Gore said. "I feel if you're not bringing a teammate up, once one person's head is down or his attitude is wrong, it's kind of like a domino effect. It just knocks everybody else down. So, I'm going to tell everybody to keep the energy up, communicate and play as a team."

The mentorship is mutually beneficial. While the younger players are taught valuable fundamentals, the Wilde Lake coaching staff gets to build strong relationships with future Wildecats. Many of the program's current juniors and seniors participated in the program for all three years of middle school.

"I think it's really important we give back to the middle schools and get them involved in sharing this vision and stop waiting for them to just enroll in their ninth-grade year," Henderson said. "We're proactively trying to build those relationships early on now and it's making a huge difference. Families get to see exactly what's coming up on the next stages and get our names out there."

Wilde Lake football is optimistic for future growth, continually spreading the wisdom once provided to them.

"It's really exciting to see some of these kids how they've grown with it," Henderson said. "We're just really excited and we're hoping that this is just another new stage and we'll continue to grow. We're already thinking about how we're going to expand next year. We do get a small group of kids that come from Dunloggin [Middle School], so we're thinking about how we're going to expand and try to get over there with our resources and see if we can't keep it growing."

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