Raimondi is often covered with soccer players, but weeknights starting in August find the West Oakland venue bursting with youngsters wearing red, white and black, the official team colors of the East Bay Warriors Pop Warner football and cheer squads.

The Warriors organization is unique among youth football leagues and cheerleading programs. For one, it doesn't make kids try out. Everyone is accepted. No one suffers the trauma of being cut from a team, regardless of size or talent, said league president Frederick Pugh.

There are some tough rules to follow, however.

Players and cheerleaders are advised to treat each other and their coaches with respect. No tardies, no jewelry, no cursing, no fighting. And for the girls, no makeup or fake nails.

God is an important part of the organization. Some of the squads bow their heads in prayer as the practice session ends.

Pugh started the organization in 1998. He required his players to maintain a 2.0 GPA, which is the Pop Warner standard for eligibility. He lost 78 kids out of 140 that first year, and the one team that made the Pop Warner league playoffs couldn't field enough players to play, Pugh said. So he and his coaches started going into the schools and working with the kids, referring them to tutoring programs. They haven't lost a child since, and many do even better.

"That's just one of the things that separates our organization," said Alana Land, whose son plays football with the East Bay Warriors and probably would have gotten cut from other youth teams because he is small.

"Fred also requires that the coaches go to clinics, and we started mandatory background checks five years ago, and now it's a national requirement."

The coaches and staff must take CPR classes -- at their own expense -- and buy their own uniforms.

Joining the Warriors is not cheap, although the organization subsidizes part of the cost. Parents are allowed to make installment payments rather than pay all at once before the season starts. About 20 percent of the kids whose parents cannot afford the $190 for football or $250 for cheerleading are accepted on scholarship. No one is turned away.

"How can I tell a parent with five kids that only one of them can play because that's all they can pay?" he said. "I can't."

The youngest kids start as Mitey Mites. Next comes Jr. Pee Wee, then Pee Wee, Jr. Midget and finally, Midget. The teams sport names such as Wildcats or Wolverines.

The Warriors accept all youngsters by adding more teams in each age group. This season there are 380 children aged 5 to 15 spread over eight football squads and five cheer squads.

It's proven to be a successful formula. The year before last, two football teams and one cheer team made the nationals, Pugh said.

Belonging to the Warriors also provides opportunities many of the youngsters wouldn't get otherwise.

"We sent 90 kids to Florida to the nationals, and 75 of them had never been on a plane before," Pugh said. "On a bus trip to San Mateo last season, some of them had never been across a bridge before. They looked out the window and thought it was snowing. It was salt (referring to the salt ponds in the South Bay)."

Evening and weekend practices start in early August, and games are scattered against opponents all over the Bay Area. Cars line the street as parents watch their children practice and wait to take them home.

Kariah Scott, 10, a fifth-grade student at ACT Christian Academy, worked out one a recent week night with the Wildcats cheer squad. She first joined the Warriors as a Jr. Pee Wee.

"I don't usually do anything in the summer, just sit around, so this is fun," she said while raising her leg straight up over her head to demonstrate a move. "I'm learning things, meeting different people. ... This has taught me to treat people better. Usually, I'm bossing people around, like my brothers and sisters, even my big brother, so I don't do that as much."

Scott's favorite subject is mathematics, and she says she pulls in mostly A's and B's.

The Warriors have had four kids named to Pop Warner's Scholar-American Team in the past three years.

Fred Lawson, 14, a freshman at Berkeley High, is in his fourth year with the Warriors. This season he is on the Wolves squad, hoping to be the starting quarterback. He said he has no problem following the rules and his grades are good -- a 2.8 GPA. He is a bundle of energy despite a very physical, two-hour practice recently.

"I can't wait for the first game," he said. "We play Oak Grove (from San Jose), our rivals, the defending national champion (who knocked the Warriors out last year)."

The Oakland Tribune: Cityside
Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
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