Whither Jamboree?

We had our preseason jamboree yesterday. We were a bit worried about two of our players – our two best running backs – weighing in overweight. There is an 80-lb. maximum for ball carriers and players who line up in the offensive backfield. One of our running backs, TiShun, the faster of the two, came in just under the limit, at 79 lbs. That's a precise weight, since when someone is close, they take them to a separate, more accurate set of scales to get an exact weight. The other RB, Johnny Morris, who really is a great fullback, and whose father, head coach Johnny Morris, had had him on a starvation diet to to keep him below the limit, came in well under, at 72 lbs. He didn't even have to be reweighed.

Because of our high number of 8 year-olds (15), we consequently had a lot of "stripers," players over the weight limit, so-called because they are required to wear a stripe on their helmet to indicate their status.  Our heaviest player came in at a massive 150 lbs, three times the weight of our starting QB!

After the weigh-in, we play a short scrimmage game 30 minutes running time.  We played against Foley Blue, and defeated them 13-7. Our team still needs a lot of work. Our conditioning was poor (it was hot), and even the communication and substitutions between the sidelines and the field had some problems.  That will come in time.

When I was growing up in youth football, we didn't have a jamboree or any kind of preseason game. Yet I look around south Alabama, and preseason jamborees seem to be standard practice. I may well have had an unusual upbringing, playing in the Singapore American Football League, but it does make me wonder what is the point of the jamboree?

Jamboree For Money

The first thought of any cynical American must be that it all has to do with money. After all, we were invited to an invitational jamboree in Fairhope two weeks ago where they charged both admission and parking, and, of course, for concessions. I dare say that that was a good moneymaker for Fairhope athletics. Even though we were not making money on the deal, it was still in our best interests to attend for the additional experience our players would get from playing. Spanish Fort had the same opportunity to put together an invitational jamboree of our own, but we didn't, so Fairhope reaps the benefits of their initiative and effort.

However, the official Baldwin County youth football jamboree in Foley charged neither for parking nor admission, and as far as I could tell, they were not even selling concessions, so I don't see money as the motivating factor.

Jamboree For Experience

The jamboree does, however, offer the opportunity for all teams to get a little game experience prior to the regular season. But if this were the motivating factor, then why not have a real preseason game? Unlike the Fairhope invitational, we only faced one opponent in one short “gamelet.” The league could have just as well scheduled the weekend as preseason games played in accordance with regular game rules and time. This would have been better preseason experience for our players than the artificially short “gamelet” they had us play.

On the other hand, why have a preseason game at all? Why not schedule the jamboree weekend as week 1 of the regular season? That would give the players even better experience and every team an extra game.  Since all teams make the playoffs, your regular season record only affects your seeding in the postseason, so if it takes your team a week or two to get to prime form, it is no matter.  All that really matters is that a team be at its best at the end of the season.  If a team wanted to, it could treat its first few games as preseason and not worry about whether they win or lose, and instead concentrate on firing on all cylinders at the end of the season.

In the grand scheme of things, youth football records don't really matter at all. It's all just “preseason” for higher levels. I don't think there is really any reason to have a preseason in youth football, and I don't think it would be a motivating factor behind having an official preseason jamboree.

Jamboree For Logistics

That leads me to conclude that underlying purpose of the jamboree is the other thing we do there: weigh the players. Logistically, it may just be easier for the league to weigh all the players at a single place and time, allow anyone to be present to observe to ensure that it is fair, and get it over with and get on with the season. There certainly are other ways to do it, and while arguments could be made for the superiority of one method over another, I don't think there is any method that is unarguably better, so the jamboree is the traditional way that has evolved to get the logistics of the weigh-in done and so get the season underway with a minimum of problems.

I shall have to write another entry sometime about how I feel about the weight restrictions of our league (preview: I don't like them), but just because the weigh-in is the primary motivation of the jamboree doesn't mean we coaches and teams can't make the most of it and get some valuable experience out of what would have otherwise been a waste of a trip to Foley. For the same reasons we benefited from the Fairhope jamboree, we still benefited from the official jamboree. At the end of the day, the players benefit, and that is what is important.