Above all else, football is an American tradition.
Every season, youngsters throw on their shoulder pads, buckle their chin straps and reacquaint themselves with the familiar feel of fresh pigskin - but with our past as evidence, the world around that routine is always changing. Still, while its environment may differ from generation to generation, from decade to decade, from year to year, football in its purest sense remains a constant.
"The game itself hasn't changed," Mason Clark said. "Equipment and modern technology have changed an awful lot, but the game itself is very, very similar. The people that are basically the most disciplined, the one who executes the most, the most accurate are the ones that are going to win, not always the super athlete. It has a lot to do with the mentality of the game. In that sense I have not seen a great deal of change."
Two USA Football Members who are seasoned youth football administrators and volunteers - one from the West Coast, the other from the East Coast - have had front-row seats to the game's grassroots development for dozens of player registrations, equipment fittings, league meetings and postseason awards dinners. Joe Tobia, president of Peninsula Pop Warner near San Jose, Calif., and Mason Clark of Washington, D.C.'s Woodridge Warriors Youth Organization have seen it all and know how important youth football has been to their communities.
"Football is the basic starting point for anybody to plan their future in the business world," Tobia said. "Football teaches you time management, teamwork, cooperation. It teaches you interpersonal skills, how to deal with people and fellow players on your team. It builds character, things of that nature."
While Tobia highlights football's effects on his players' futures, Clark focuses more on what the game can represent for youth players.
"My biggest thing is it's not just the idea of football as much as having the kids involved in something that is positive, teaches team play," said Clark, who was there for the inception of the Woodridge Warriors in 1963 and continues to work as the program's athletic director. "The biggest thing is taking a kid where he is and getting him involved in something positive and learning discipline, self respect, focus. That's basically where I come from and what I think, and it's the reason why I'm still with it into my 48th year now."
Unquestionably, football's positive impact on the overall development of America's children and young adults would not be as far-reaching without volunteers like Tobia, Clark and their fellow coaches and administrators. And by definition, volunteers make sacrifices.
"I leave my family on Thanksgiving to go do what I have to do," said Tobia, whose league has grown from 64 teams and 14 associations to over 200 teams and 32 associations during his almost 30 years of service. "I leave my family on weekends. ... I haven't coached in eons, but you go right from work to practice. You meet the kids there, especially in August, basically the training camp for Pop Warner, and it goes five days a week and you go two hours. You get there at 6, and by the time you pack up and get out of there and make sure all the children are taken care of, it's 8:30-ish and you get home, you eat, you go to bed and you start the day again the next day."
From Clark's perspective, every coach he has encountered has made sacrifices for the benefit of their players.
"Anybody that's going to be successful with [coaching] has got to be devoted toward kids," said Clark, whose league has groomed the likes of Cleveland Browns wide receiver/kick returner Joshua Cribbs and Denver Broncos nose tackle Jamal Williams. "It's a huge sacrifice for anyone under the high school level, and I would even say the high school level because most of those coaches don't get paid that much. So it's got to be a devotion to work with kids - even if some are there for their own personal glory, but it's still a sacrifice of time and energy."
For many coaches throughout the country, those sacrifices affect husbands, wives, children and grandchildren. In Tobia's case, his commitment to Peninsula Pop Warner is very much a family affair.
"[My wife's] been [involved with the league's cheerleaders] since the mid '80s," Tobia said. "Oh, it's beautiful. I've been married 45 years, and I love every minute working with my wife. I can say nothing wrong. She's a great person, and she supports me in everything I do. I'm very satisfied as far as our personal relationship, as far as our relationship in Pop Warner. Don't get me wrong, we have discussions on various topics where we might not see eye-to-eye, but she's fantastic.
"I have a few younger [grandchildren] coming up in another couple years, and I'll still be around," he added. "One year we had four generations of Tobias that have been around Pop Warner at the Super Bowl in Orlando, Florida. I coached my son, I'm now an administrator and my son coached and his children were playing at the time. Both my sons coached."
With Tobia and Clark as witnesses, youth football has the ability to bring families and communities closer together. Proven by the continual growth of their leagues through the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the game has transcended any and all historical limitations.
"I would say that we have had a tremendous positive impact on an awful lot of kids down through the years," Clark said. "If it's anything I personally appreciate more than anything else: when you see kids that were uncoordinated, unskilled, couldn't do anything in the beginning and see them develop into a more well-behaved, polished individual, that's just a winner. We have been a winning organization for quite some time."
As Tobia and Clark have experienced, no matter who is in the White House, which type of music is popular or what changes our society endures, it is a near certainty that American children will continue to pick up a football for generations to come - and that dedicated volunteers will be there to serve them.
