By By Matthew Nascone
A meeting was held last Wednesday at Ernest Ward Middle School to discuss the merger of the Atmore Pee Wee football, NWE football and Flomaton football leagues. The three league commissioners settled on a start date for the season.
The jamboree will be held Sept. 9 and the first game of the season will be Sept. 16. The three leagues will operate as separate entities this year, but Atmore Pee Wee commissioner Murray Johnson said the plan is to have an association by next year.
"The tentative agreement we decided on last Wednesday is that we will form the Florabama Youth Football Association," Johnson said.
Other items on the agenda of the meeting were the weight limits for the players, the playing rules for the league and the age groups.
The first day of practice was scheduled for Aug. 21 and the teams will be able to put on pads as early as Aug 28, but that date is not set in stone, Johnson said.
"We are kicking along and we are doing pretty good," NWE commissioner Charles Williams said. "We are looking forward to getting started."
Williams said the idea to start a new league came about when the league NWE was formerly involved with, the Emerald Coast League, split and they were on the outside looking in.
"We decided we did not want to go down there," Williams said. "And we decided to try and form a league in the local area. Hopefully we can pull in more leagues next year and have a big league."
As of right now the league consists of leagues from NWE, Atmore and Flomaton. A league from Century was involved, but decided to drop out at the meeting, Williams said.
"Century dropped out on us, but we are hoping they will come back in," he said.
There will be four age divisions for the league and those divisions will be 5-6 year olds, 7-8 year olds, 9-10 year olds and 11-12 year olds. The weight limits and playing rules have not been decided and Johnson said all the rest of the details will be ironed out in future meetings.
Registration for Atmore will take place Aug. 12 from 10 a.m. until noon in the Atmore City Hall auditorium. NWE will hold registration Aug. 12 on the pavilion of the Ernest Ward Middle School football field from 10 a.m. until noon.
Proof of age is required for registration and for more information contact Murray Johnson at 368-4644 or Charles Williams at 327-4603.