Hello Mustang Families,
First and foremost, I would first like to thank everyone for a great 2016 season. We had 12 teams make the playoffs and one featherweight team made it to the Super Bowl. Congratulation to Rick Michael and his Featherweight PAC White team!For our members who are new to the program, welcome! We are glad that you have chosen to join us and we are confident that you and your player are going to have a great experience.
The board has already been hard at work putting together ideas for the upcoming 2017 season and I wanted to take a moment to inform you about some things that will be happening this season, as well as answer some questions that have come up.
Meet Your HYF Board of Directors: We have a fantastic bunch of volunteers who commit a great deal of time to making Huntley Youth Football one of the best football leagues around, while also working full time and raising their families. Our league wouldn’t be able to operate without the efforts of these generous individuals.
President: Tom HogyDirector of Football Operations: Chris Behles
Director of Finance: Josh CunninghamRegistrar: Dave Rysavy
Secretary: Jamie SweeneyFundraising: Dawn FreitagImpact: Chris Grannis
Equipment: Matt Hochmuth, Chris Bakes, Jeff Kramer and Jeff Gassner
Fields: Tom Wiley and Pete ConsidineHead Team Mom: Gretchen Hogy
Get Involved:I would like to personally invite anyone who is interested to attend any of our monthly board meetings to get some insight on how HYF operates behind the scenes. We also welcome any ideas and would love to hear what you have to say. If you ever want to address the board, please email me with your questions/concerns and I will have you added to the agenda for our next board meeting. The HYF board meets on the second Tuesday of every month at Kostas at 8 pm. You also may want to considering coaching or becoming a team mom/manager. Online coaching applications will be opening next week, so check it out. And we are always looking for volunteers to help out at our many events and with our fundraising efforts.
Fundraising: As a not-for-profit organization, we rely heavily on fundraising to keep our registration costs down. We are once again doing Charity Mania for our mainfundraising effort for the year. Everyone did a great job selling the cards last year and we increased our sales by 40% from the previous year. We would like to see a similar increase in sales this year. Once again every kid will be given 10 cards to sell when they pick up their equipment. The expectation is that all players sell their 10 cards. We are also working on changing up the prizes this year! In addition to Charity Mania, we will be holding a Pre-Season Bowling Tournament Fundraiser and other small fundraisers throughout the year. This year we will also be partnering with many local restaurants for Dine and Share Fundraisers. Finally, HYF will once again be hosting a multi-league Scrimmage Fest prior to opening weekend of the 2017 season. We will have raffles, food trucks, vendors and of course FOOTBALL. Stay tuned for more information on all of these exciting events!
Why We Are Capping Numbers This Year: This year we have decided to cap the number of athletes at each division. We have done this for a number of reasons. First, TCYFL has changed their by-laws stating that any division with more than four teams will have to field two B10 teams. HYF has had 2 Big 10 teams at divisions in the past and this was not a successful experience for the players, coaches or parents. Having 2 Big 10 teams means that the top 36 athletes will be placed on the 2 Big 10 teams before the rest of the players can be drafted for our remaining PAC teams. We have found that this depletes our talent pool for our PAC teams, especially since we are often playing towns with only have 1 Big 10 team. While HYF’s primary focus is teaching athletes football fundamentals and having fun, not being competitive enough to win any games, makes for a long season for everyone. Secondly, capping our numbers allows us to keep the number of players per team to a manageable number, which insures a good coach to player ratio, allowing for the best possible coaching for your child. We are not in the habit of turning down any athlete who wants to play football, but we also want to give our athletes the greatest chance to have a fun and successful football season. Please rest assured that we will make every effort to accommodate any athlete who wants to play football, but with that being said, please login to our website and get your child registered for the 2017 season ASAP. Our featherweight and middleweight divisions are rapidly approaching capacity!
Tom Hogy
President of Huntley Youth Football