When looking at the youth football landscape in Chatham County from this series’ introduction, something is missing.
As previously mentioned, opportunities for youth football in the county are split between the East and the West. The East Chatham Chargers of the former feed into Northwood and Seaforth’s high school programs while the Siler City Youth Football League Jets of the latter primarily provides players for Jordan-Matthews.
But what is the main feeder for Chatham Central, the high school program in the middle?
Thanks to an unfortunate crime eight years ago, there isn’t one.
The West Chatham Bears provided youth football (flag and tackle) and cheerleading for kids aged 4-14 in the central and western parts of the county for years, playing in different leagues until joining the weight-unrestricted Central Carolina Youth Football League from 2013 to 2017. The organization, headed by current Chatham Central wrestling coach Stephen Silhan II from 2012 until its end, was a feeder for Chatham Central with kids from the county and other areas around central North Carolina participating.
“When we split off and made the weight unrestricted league, we got kids from all over,” Silhan said. “We had kids come as far as from up near Providence Grove because we were the closest team that didn’t have weight restrictions and had openings.”
Like its local high school, West Chatham was considered small by numbers compared to the larger teams in its league, yet the Bears still were competitive. The organization also made sure to remain affordable for the community, charging $50 for football players, $25 for cheerleaders and offering free participation for families that couldn’t afford the cost. But, what was once an accessible and close by opportunity for kids to develop as football players abruptly turned into a tragic story of an unrecoverable loss.
In March 2017, a trailer full of the organization’s football equipment, including supplies for running the concessions stand at home games was reported stolen from the home of one of West Chatham’s board members.
Silhan said the empty trailer was recovered in Alamance County months later, but the contents of the trailer were never found.
“I’d dare say there was a minimum of 100 helmets all less than three years old,” Silhan said. “Probably the same amount of shoulder pads more or less than three years old, jerseys and pants for four age groups and cheerleading uniforms. The only thing that wasn’t in it was some of the blocking dummies that I had bought personally.”
According to court documents, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office arrested Christopher Blake Dixon, a 28-year old Asheboro man at the time, just days after the trailer was reported stolen and charged him with felony larceny, possession of stolen goods and chop shop activity. Dixon served nearly nine months in prison from June 2018 to March 2019 and was released on parole until December 2019.
With the losses being too great, West Chatham didn’t have enough money to buy new equipment and continue football past the 2016 season. Parents were forced to take their kids to other leagues in and around Chatham County, leaving Chatham Central without a direct feeder program ever since.
However, that won’t be the case for much longer.
Silhan and Chatham Central football head coach Derrin Little have put together a board and will have a meeting this month to discuss plans to start a seventh and eighth grade feeder program for this fall. After getting the seventh and eighth graders started, Little hopes incorporate younger teams in the following years as the program builds more interest.
“I’m trying to go a completely different route than what they had before,” Little said. “Not that what they had before was such a bad thing or anything like that, but the one place that I have a lot of experience is with youth football.”
Little draws his inspiration for what he wants Chatham Central’s youth feeder to be from his time being the offensive coordinator for a 13U national team in Forsyth County, one of the counties in North Carolina that doesn’t have a county-wide middle school football program.
“Spending that time there, you look at how Forsyth County is booming with football players,” Little said. “You’ve got East Forsyth, who every other year, if they’re not a state championship contender, they’re playing in the fourth round. You’ve got Mount Tabor, you’ve got Reagan, you’ve got RJ Reynolds and all these other schools that compete in that area, and they don’t have middle school football, where their kids grow up playing extreme high level competition youth football from six years old and up.”
Said Little, “Whereas, I think what they had going on here was more of a rec ball situation. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I just think that the two can breed two completely different types of players. I want to be able to say that one, we just want to bring back youth football here, but two, I want to be able to give our kids the opportunity to be able to play high level football, so that by the time they get to high school, that learning curve isn’t as big.”
Minimizing the learning curve is crucial for Chatham Central, for the high school program hasn’t had a functioning junior varsity team in years. For kids playing football for the first time in high school, that can be a turn off due to the gap in age, size and development between freshmen and upper classmen on the field.
Not only does Little think higher competition will help foster a stronger football culture in the area, but he also hopes a feeder program will help keep kids within Chatham Central’s influence. Little worries that by having kids go to other competitive programs, they’ll build bonds with other players and coaches that they wouldn’t want to leave once it’s time for high school ball. He’s seen seventh and eighth graders in the area play football in Eastern Randolph’s program or with the Jets, which he doesn’t mind, but it opens the opportunities of losing those players.
“If we can get these kids playing at 7 to 8 years old and get them in a red hat to the point where, ‘Oh, I want to play on Friday nights. I’ve always been a Bear, I want to continue to be a Bear,’ that’s the thought process I’ve got with it,” Little said. “I just feel that at the end of the day, if we can get it rolling, whether it’s a huge success or whether it’s just one team, just the start, I think so many other people will get involved just because they see that we’re not just talking about trying. We’re actually putting forth the work to get it done.”
