HERE COME THE PATRIOTS!

Thanks to Don McPherson and his committed group of volunteers, organized football finally returns to Winnipeg's West End.

Scott Taylor
October 2009

Patriots linemen coach (and former Blue Bomber) Jeff Henry works with the offensive line prior to their game vs. North Winnipeg.

Elijah Caparros had never played football before. He's a good young hockey player, but for this youngster from Brooklands, football was a brand new experience.

Of course, it was a brand new experience for everybody else, too. So when the first practice of the expansion Valour Patriots of the Manitoba Peewee Football League was held, there weren't many potential players who had any idea what position they would play. Many had no idea what the rules were.

"At our first practice, the coaches talked about the cadence, you know calling signals at the line of scrimmage," said the confident 10-year-old. "So the offensive coach said I had a good cadence and he asked me to throw the ball around. He said I could throw and I was smart, so he made me quarterback.

"But since the coaches made me quarterback, I don't get to play defence. I do like quarterback, but I also really like tackling."

For Caparros, football is about as much fun as a kid can have. For his parents, Soriaya and Jeff, it's just another opportunity in a neighborhood that, for the longest time, didn't have a lot of organized opportunities.

However, to be fair, it just took awhile for some of the "old guys" who grew up in Winnipeg's hardscrabble West End, to make the commitment to go back into the old neighborhood and rebuild some of the institutions that were around when they were kids.

Coach McPherson (centre) says of his squad: "We've come a long way in a very short time."

"I grew up in that neighborhood and I went to Daniel Mac," said Don McPherson, one of the people responsible for the return of organized football to Winnipeg's West End. "I'd been helping out at Daniel Mac when they got football back and through that I got together with the old Maroons Football Alumni and we thought we might be able to bring football back to the kids.

"So we all got together – don't worry, I didn't do this single-handedly – and put together a couple of proposals, Frank Zappia and Joe Buccini were instrumental in putting our presentations together, and we took them to the Manitoba Minor Football Association and Football Manitoba. We got approval in May and here we are. We have a football program."

In fairness, it took a lot more work for McPherson and his gang to bring football back to an area that hadn't had an organized team for almost 20 years than anyone of them will admit. Much of the work centered on the presentations the group had to make to the football organizations, but it was also because of the kids.

You see McPherson, Zappia and Buccini didn't want to start one team. No sir. The guys organizing the new Valour Patriots -- a club that now practices out of Clifton Community Centre and plays its home games at Minto Field -- wanted to bring back three teams: A "Terminator" team for kids aged 7-8, an Atom team for kids aged 9-10 and a Peewee team for kids aged 11-12.

Patriots quarterback Eli Caparros eyes a receiver and gets some key blocking from running back Bob Umar (#55)

McPherson coaches the Peewee Team and Caparros is his quarterback, but when you watch the team play you can't help but notice big No. 55, Bob Umar, the running back, and little Matthew Gilbert, a receiver, defensive back and kick returner who is always around the football.

"Big Bob is our Jerome Bettis," said McPherson proudly. "What you need to understand, I guess, is that of the 28 players on the roster, only five had ever thrown a football around, even for fun. When we started, most of the kids knew nothing about the game. We've come a long way in a very short time."

And for all the right reasons, too.

"Matthew just loves football although baseball is still his favourite game," said Matthew Gilbert's aunt, Kim Dill. "But he never played football. To Matthew, what we call ‘soccer' is his football."

Matthew is from Bermuda, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good little athlete who absolutely loves to play this strange new game. While he'll tell people that baseball is still his favourite sport, he's fallen in love with Canadian football and wouldn't dare miss a practice or a game.

"He's a really good athlete, he's like a spider," says Matthew's aunt proudly. "This gives him a great opportunity to have fun, meet new kids and learn something new. I'm just impressed with the way the team is run and with the way the players try so hard. They won their first two games. That was very impressive to me."

Granted, the Patriots were blown away 44-6 by Geordie Wilson's well-coached Charleswood Broncos team, but while the Pats bent, they didn't break. They were back at it the next Saturday afternoon and the kids were as enthusiastic as ever.

"Win or lose, these kids always seem to enjoy themselves," said McPherson. "The majority of them -- I think 23 of the 28 players on the roster -- had never played organized football prior to this year, so each outing is still a new experience for them. They have really taken to the game, and are truly out there for the joy of the sport, the competition, and the camaraderie that has developed on this team.

"Football is a difficult game to learn, and as coaches, we are all very proud of how quickly they have developed into a real team."

That's something that still impresses Football Manitoba's executive director, Rob Berkowits. After all, this team started the 2009 season with nothing and in just a few weeks became a hard-hitting, skilled and competitive unit.

"Don McPherson is like an angel to us and to all those kids," said Berkowits. "He's the guy who got everyone together to re-start the Daniel Mac program after it shut down in 2000. He's the guy who got everyone together to get the Valour program started.

"And he does it for all the right reasons. His own kids no longer play. He isn't out there trying to be political, getting his son a better spot on the team or anything like that. He's doing it for the good of the game and to help these kids. He's on the board of Football Manitoba, he gives most of his free time to the game. It would be a pretty great world if there were more Don McPhersons in it."