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The Seahawks Board and Football Committee have carefully reviewed our "Seahawks Values" (please read our “Values” page carefully on our website) as they apply to the structure of Seahawks teams. We believe a slightly changed structure for the Senior division (7th and 8th grade) teams, as described below, will best serve these values.
Our league, the Seacoast Junior Football League, has created a "mid-week" schedule for the Senior division, in order to accommodate more playing time for all players. These games will all be JV games. Exeter will have one set of teams (i.e., Varsity and JV) playing on the weekend and two or three teams (i.e., JV East, JV West, and possibly JV North) playing mid-week.
NOTE: All details will depend on exactly how many players register for the Seahawks AND on exactly how the SJFL sets up the schedule, so some unforeseeable changes may occur!
All Teams will be selected by the coaches in August
All teams will be selected in August, based on all the information available to the coaches, including performance in 2009, at the Blue Hawks Twilight Camp (in late July--this is particularly helpful for new players), and at pre-season practice.
Junior Division (grades 5 and 6):
In the Junior Division, we want to end up with three equally strong A Teams and three equally strong B Teams.
1. Summary (almost identical to last year):
- three A teams (East, West and North) made up primarily of 6th graders
- three B teams (East, West and North) made up of 5th graders and new 6th graders
- practices will begin Monday, August 16th, at 5 - 7:30 pm.
2. All teams (East A & B; West A & B; and North A & B) will participate in the Seacoast Junior Football League (SJFL)
3. Last year’s B Teams will be kept mostly intact as this year’s A Teams, EXCEPT that some players will be drafted to make up the new A North Team.
4. New 6th graders will be evaluated and assigned to either A or B Teams according to the following:
- some new 6th graders will be assigned to fill out A Team rosters by position as needed
- some new 6th graders will be assigned to B Teams based solely on weight (lighter)
- overall, the new 6th graders will be allocated to make the total number of A Team players equal the number of B Team players.
5. All 5th graders will be assigned to B Teams, after evaluation by the coaches, with the objective of making up three teams equal in strength and with enough players to fill all positions.
Senior Division (grades 7 and 8):
In the Senior Division, we want to have teams which can compete in their respective schedules, so the teams will be selected with that in mind.
1. Summary:
- One Varsity and one JV team will play in the weekend games of the Seacoast Junior Football League (SJFL). These will be our most competitive teams, in order to compete in this league. The Varsity team will be primarily 8th graders but may include 7th graders. The JV team will be exclusively 7th graders.
- Two or Three JV teams (East, West and North), including 8th and 7 th graders, will play in the mid-week games, Seacoast Junior Football League (SJFL). These teams will be kept as small (low numbers of players) as possible to maximize playing time for each player.
Note from the Seahawks Board:
The coaches will work together to select these teams as early as possible, based on all information available to them. Placement on the week-end Varsity and JV teams will be competitive.
We feel that this structure will benefit all our players by offering significant playing time and a competitive football experience (i.e., an opportunity to be involved in games in which our teams have a chance to succeed).
Thank you.
2. Our weekend teams will be limited to about 25 players each. They will be expected to play at a challenging level. They will play a Jamboree on Saturday, August 28th, at Sanborn, and a first game on Sunday, September 12th.
3. Our mid-week JV teams will play the same league teams as the weekend teams do. The team composition will include 8th and 7th graders on all teams.
Varsity and A Team players can't play "down".
According to SJFL by-laws, every team in the Seacoast Junior Football League (SJFL www.seacoastjrfootball.com) will submit, prior to the second league game, as part of its rosters, a designation of at least 18 varsity and 18 A team players, who will then NOT qualify for JV or B team participation. This will ensure that JV and B team players do not end up playing against opposing teams which have been strengthened by varsity or A team players. This will not change anything that the Seahawks do but will assure us that our JV and B teams are on a level playing field!
We will try to have all the teams be small enough (in numbers, ideally between 20 and 25) that each player gets a reasonable amount of game time.
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