Genesee Sun

Garland's Glance: Local Flag Football League for Those With Disabilities

The idea behind this column first came to me in the summer of 2008. I had just returned from a trip to Alaska to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins I had not seen in years, it was during this trip that my life changed forever after spiritually connecting with a pastor there. Shortly after I had a dream where I saw myself on a football field with a bunch of other disabled people. I took this as a sign that I was to use my love for football to help better other peoples lives with disabilities. Just like my brothers and teammates on the football team at Livonia that helped me. So in this column I will share with you my vision for a league of either flag or touch football for people of all ages and severities of different disabilities. Unfortunately due to my commitment of finding myself a job and fixing some bad family relationships in my life this idea had to be put on the back burner but now it is my feeling that the time is right for it to happen.

Now I know there are a lot of activities for people with disabilities and you're probably saying what makes this different. My dream program would be similar to flag football and the big brother big sister program. We would not only have weekly football games but also have a few weekly team building and self-esteem building activities. This could include  team practices, dinners or even community based service projects to help reach the non-disabled people in the community. My hope is to reinforce the concept that anything they want to do is possible if they put their mind to it.

I'm writing this to see if there's enough interest in this region to support something like this. My target date for the start of the program is the fall 2012 because I still need to lock down a lot of the logistics. First of all I must find a location that would be ideal for disabled people to play football; I would love to be able to get clearance from some of the local schools to use their gymnasiums when available. I must say though I'm not familiar with the logistics and if that our insurance issues that come with using school facilities, that is why I will attempt to get in touch with school officials athletic directors coaches to see if they are willing to help me out with getting this program off the ground. Another big step that I need to do before this program can happen is find coaches who are willing to give their time to help improve the lives of disabled people in any way possible. The final and seemingly the most insignificant part of the program I must do before it can start is I would like to get all the league players uniforms you may say but Scott the uniform is not important but I would say you are wrong, but let me tell you one of the greatest feelings and moments of my life so far is when I put that Bulldogs jersey on and I want other people to know that feeling.

So if you have any interest in serving as a coach or helping in anyway in helping to get this project of mine off the ground please feel free to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .  Also if you see any potential hurdles that I have not seen or know anything about the logistics that would go in this please feel free to help me out it would be greatly appreciated. I believe that the program was go's off like I hope it will we will not just be having football games but we will be changing the life of many in our society both disabled and by developing a new level of understanding amongst us all