Kids playing flag football with the Kelowna Minor Football Association.

Image Credit: Kelowna Minor Football Association

After a decades-long dry spell for organized football in Penticton the sport is making a come back.

The Penticton Minor Football Association is in its infancy, but kids aged 10 and 11 are going to have a chance to play organized tackle football in their hometown for the first time in years.

Cord Crowthers is a parent and seasoned football coach who is leading the charge on this new association.

“It’s exciting. We’ve had word of mouth buzzing around the last few months so I probably take about a dozen calls a day, a dozen emails a day,” Crowthers said. “Over the next few weeks it’s going to get crazy.”

The association has approval from the city to use McNicoll Park as its home field. Now it just needs to put together a board of directors before it can start fundraising for the $30,000 it needs to get equipment and everything necessary to facilitate a team.

“Behind the scenes we’ve talked to people, so we have no worries about getting the money. But you need to take one step at a time,” he said.

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There are going to be about 30 spots on the team and Crowthers said they are going to fill up quickly.

“Ideally we can be taking registrations by the end of April,” he said.

The team is going to be affiliated with the British Columbia Community Football Association and play in the Southern Interior Football Conference against teams from Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon and Salmon Arm.

Penticton’s association is going to follow the same pricing as Kelowna’s association and Crowthers said it will cost each kid about $325 a season.

He said the cost of starting a team and finding dedicated coaches has been a barrier for organized football in South Okanagan so kids and their parents had to travel to Kelowna for the nearest opportunity for organized football.

Crowthers has been a football coach for 16 years at a variety of levels and both of his sons started playing at 8 years old.

“The benefits for them were fantastic. It’s what you get from any sport be it football, curling, dance, anything. It’s all fantastic, the friendships, it’s about having more options and more choices all the way through high school and university,” he said.

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The association is going to follow the necessary safety precautions to make sure kids can enjoy the sport. 

“My beliefs have changed over the years and become more cautious,” he said. “It is still tackle football. I don’t think it’s any more dangerous than hockey, they’re both contact sports and things can happen but we go out of our way to follow the best safety protocols we can.”

The league is starting off with one age group but hopes to expand in the coming years.

“The goal is to have under 10 and under 14 next year, if we can get one group we can get the others. Maybe as these kids get older and years down the line we can get a team going with the high school.”

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