Mitey Mites learn about football, life on the way to Super Bowl

BARSTOW • Another December, another Aztecs football team headed to a championship game.

This time, however, it isn’t the Barstow High School football team.

No, these Aztecs have a lot less experience.

The Barstow Community Football mitey mite team faces the Eastside Lions at 8 a.m. today at Rosamond High School for a High Desert Youth Football and Cheer Super Bowl title.

The mitey mite players are 6 and 7 years old and playing in their first years of football. It’s been a long journey from the first day of practice in August when players were just learning the basics. Now the team is 8-0 with the best defense statistically in their league heading into the championship game.

“These guys didn’t know anything at all. Nothing,” Aztecs coach Scott Figueroa said. “Now look at them to where they are at.”

It’s been a season all about learning for the mitey mites.

Figueroa had previous experience coaching older players but never players just picking up the sport.

“I was used to going over there and teaching these guys that already had a couple years under their belt,” Figueroa said. “Even two years makes a big difference. A huge difference.”

From condition to knowledge of the game, the team is now much different than the one that began in August.

“Some guys that started, they weren’t even football players,” Assistant coach Efrem Hollie said. “Now they are football players.”

The cold, dark field at Stringham Park doesn’t bare much resemblance to a classroom, but this is where Figueroa and the Aztecs coaching staff does their work during practice Tuesday night.

Figueroa said none of the coaching staff are teachers but most come from a military background and have brought football to the kids. He even compares practices to a lesson plan.

The coaching staff needed to figure out ways to break it down to the players level. They made footbally simple and fun. They color coded running backs and explained running holes with number cards donated by Del Taco.

“We break football down to their level and make it simple for that,” Assistant coach Jamar Taylor said.
As the players picked it up, the coaches added more.

The coaching staff added new elements to plays that are months old at practice Tuesday. The players naturally pick it up and run the play as coaches make slight tweaks. When the season started the team had just three plays but that grew as the players grew.

“Kids normally don’t learn holes — the one, three, four, five, six, seven holes — until they get to the upper echelon,” Taylor said. “We taught these kids that at this level. That’s football. That ain’t  mitey mites football, that ain’t kids football. That’s football.”

They’ve also made their practices useful beyond the football field.

Players have been given homework assignments and chores to do at home. There is a a trivia question each day at practice. Figueroa asks what the capital of California is at the end of practice Tuesday. A handful of players shout, “Sacramento.” He then asks the players who is the mayor of Barstow. One players yell, “George Gomez.” Figueroa gives the player credit for getting close to the real answer — Joe Gomez — and informs the squad that that question will be the trivia question on Wednesday.

Figueroa has coached in two previous Super Bowls for youth football, losing one and winning one. During the loss, Figueroa recalls sitting in the back of the team bus sulking. A fellow coach approached him and told him to look around. While Figueroa was depressed over the loss, the players were laughing and enjoying themselves.
Figueroa realized then that reward isn’t all about winning. It’s about a process.

“That’s where I get my reward is watching them know nothing and know it now,” Figueroa said. “For me, as a coach, that is where I get my reward.”

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4124 or
mpeters@desertdispatch.com