DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. -- Hard work and dedication are what a group of 7 and 8-year-olds said it took for them to earn a golden ticket to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s world youth football championship.
A team is a group of people working together to reach a goal, but the DMV Knights said what they have is so much more.
“I mean you can say team, but we form it like it’s a family,” Horace “Coach Swag” Riddick said.
Each player has their own talent and story.
“I play football for my grandmother,” Aidan Thompson told WUSA9. “Because she got hit by a car.”
The 3rd grader joined the team – or the family -- after his grandmother died last year.
He said, “she would be cheering me on the benches and saying, ‘go Aiden.’
“Oh, it hurts. It hurts,” Alicia Lewis, Aiden’s mother, said. “It really hurts not to have my mother here to watch him play. It really hurts.”
“Kids go through a lot of things before they even get to the football field,” Coach Swag explained.
Coach Swag not only teaches the boys how to play football but also gives them the tools needed to succeed in life.
The DMV Knights youth football team won back-to-back state championships in Maryland, and the players were surprised with an invite to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s youth football competition in Ohio.
“It felt so good man. It felt good,” Coach Swag recalled.
The problem the team is currently facing is that some of the families do not have enough money to go.
“I know the kids have been working so hard all year for them to come up short for financial reasons — you never know how kids these days will take it,” Johnny Brooks said.
“Some coaches can’t make it. Some parents can’t make it, but we’re trying to make sure everybody gets there,” Coach Swag told WUSA9.
The team is working to raise $7,500 before the championship in December which would give the children an opportunity to get something they’ve worked hard for.
“I know that this is very important for them. This is something that they are really looking forward to,” Lewis said.
If you want to help the team make it to the national youth football championship, CLICK HERE to visit their fundraising site.
