2023 Fall Flag Season

The fall season is our competitive season only in the sense that there are playoffs and the winners of the division will get a beautiful trophy that they can cherish forever, or if your kids are like my kids, until they break it and develop a strange belief that I’m some kind of glue master and can fix anything.

Having said that, flag football remains a rec sport. This is not travel. The coaches know that every kid plays offense and defense. Win a championship, but do it with every player on the team.

Now I can’t guarantee every kid who walks off the field will walk off a winner, but the goal is that every kid can walk onto that field feeling like they can compete. To achieve this, coaches provide evaluations after the season. We also do a preseason evaluation and coaches draft their own teams. Since we’ve begun this process, we’ve really minimized the amount of mercy games. In fact, last season a 2-4 team won the championship and a ton of postseason games came down to the final play. Hopefully this trend will continue.

We will hold a preseason evaluation the Sunday before school starts, which is August 27. This will be held at Irving Robbins Middle School here in Farmington. Here are the times:

Grades 7-8 & Grade 4 | 8:30am

Grades 6 & Grade 3 | 9:30am

Grades 5 & Grades 2 | 10:30am

Grades K-1 | 1pm

This evaluation is valuable, so if you are in town, please try to get your player there. Please arrive a half-hour early to sign in. It’s important we begin on time. This process should take 60-90 minutes. Please remind your kids, this is not a tryout, but just an evaluation so the coaches can get some eyes on the kids.

If you cannot make the evaluation, please give me a heads up (especially if you are new to this league or haven’t played in a while). It’s important we get some type of numbers on your kid as we continue to make the league a balanced league.

For those coming, as the date approaches I’ll send out a reminder. I’ll also be asking for volunteers to help out while your child is being evaluated.

We ask the coaches to hold their practices on Friday. We do this day because we try our best to stay out of the way of other sports. The fields we provide to the teams are Iriving Robbins and Union School. For the most part, all teams will be at one of these two locations. The coach decides the location and time.

Now, coaches do have permission to move practice off of Friday. However, the rule is, they can ONLY do it if every single parent agrees to the change. If a coach wants to practice on Thursday, but one kid can’t because of soccer, the coach is out of luck.

As always, our fall games will be played at Farmington High School. Games are played both on the turf and on the upper grass field. The regular season begins September 10 and goes through October 22. Then the playoffs begin. Every team makes the playoffs, so officially, every team plays seven games. Championship games will be played on November 5.

The schedule is in the process of being made, but traditionally, the older kids play first and the youngest last. My best guess is that Grades 7-8 will be at 8:30 or 9am, Grade 6 will split between 8:30-9:30. Grade 5 and Grade 4 will be between 9:30-10:30, Grade 2 and Grade 3 will be between 10:30 and 11:30 and K-1 will probably always be 11:30.

This is a projection, so don’t hold me to it. However, if these times look back and it seems like flag football might conflict with another sport, please reach out to me and we’ll try to figure it out. Flag football rosters pretty much only have eight players per team, so it’s important to have full participation. Of course, folks are going to miss games, but missing half the games would be bad, especially if you’re missing a playoff game. That’s a no-no.

The coaches…they’re volunteers. The referees…they’re teenagers. Don’t yell at either of them. Come to the game, enjoy a snack, cheer on your child’s team and gossip with Mrs. Farkas. I really have no patience for parents who yell from the sideline or try to coach from the sideline. If you wanted to coach your kid, you should have volunteered.

Just like NFL refs and college refs and high school refs, our refs are going to screw up. In time, one of them will make a mistake that will convince you that they’re on drugs. The fact is, it’s not an easy sport to referee. See for YOURSELF. We have every rule an NFL team has to deal with, plus another two dozen “flag specific” rules. I’ve been here since my son was in first grade and I still don’t have it all memorized. Thus, mistakes will happen and being frustrated by that is normal. Still, don’t yell at them. Don’t even talk to them. It is the job of the coach to deal with the referees.

If you want to complain about them, just find Katie Staron. She loves talking about our referees.

Having said all that, if you see a major problem with a referee or have concerns about a player on the field or a coach, you can always email me and I will look into it.