Coach Sarna Flag Football League gets positive win – Times-Herald

Football concussions have been on the rise in the U.S. recently, and head impacts associated with the game are often the cause of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known in football and beyond as CTE.

Those three letters raise a lot of red flags for parents who are already torn about letting their kids play violent sports.

With this in mind, Ken and his son Ryan Sarna decided to focus on a different kind of flag.

Vallejo’s NFL Youth Flag Football League, also called the Coach Sarna League, concluded its second existence Saturday with a championship tournament that coincided with Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. Local officials from the Vallejo Police Association and the Vallejo Police Activities League arrived to throw the “First Passes” of the day.

In the short existence of the Coach Sarna League, the organization has grown more than Pat Mahomes’ passing stats.

“Ryan and Nina Sarna have done so much as volunteers to help this league grow,” Ken Sarna, Ryan’s father, said between tears of joy. “Ryan approached me with this idea a few years ago that Vallejo needed to have a quality youth league. He drew my attention to the growing sport of flag football.

Just two years ago, the NFL-sponsored league featured 120 athletes, about 25 percent of whom were women. This spring, the league had over 540 registrants, making it the largest youth league in Vallejo. The league has 54 teams and 90 volunteer coaches, and last year was named by the NFL as one of the top five new youth leagues in the United States.

According to Ken Sarna, the non-profit league has donated $17,000 in scholarships for people to play flag football. Not only are there more female players, a larger number of special children have also played the sport.

Ryan Sarna has also been invited to speak at the 2023 NFL Youth Sports Conference to discuss the league’s rapid success. The NFL Flag Football Summit will be held from the 19th to the 22nd. July in Atlanta. The conference will feature coaches and league organizers from across the country to gain insight into the direction of youth flag football and discuss ideas for growing the sport across the country.

Ryan said he doesn’t spend too much time thinking about the league’s growth.

“Sometimes I stop to smell the roses,” Ryan said with a laugh. “But I’ve been so busy. I’ve been designing games 100 to 110 percent of my life. But I think of all the kids the same way. I always think of their smiling faces.”

Ryan Sarna said his favorite part of the league is seeing all the families come together each week to cheer on the kids while making new lifelong friends and enjoying a good barbecue.

“I love watching all the emotions the kids have,” Ryan Sarna said. “I mean kids talk about these games all week, not just today. They are having so much fun.

“We try to reach everyone. We try to reach the homeless. We have a few players who might live in the car during the week, but then they come out and get to play with all their friends these days. So it’s really a blessing.”

On Saturday, six games were played at the same time. Although points were kept for every fourth class that passed, that was not the case on Saturday.

“Our message is more about sportsmanship and mentorship,” Ken Sarna said. “We’re keeping an eye on the culture of this program on and off the field. As Ryan often tells everyone, “We’re not just coaches, we’re shepherds.” We want to send these kids on the right path.”

Flag football will begin in high schools this fall at some schools in California and across the country. More and more Ken Sarna says his parents have come to him saying they won’t let their kids play tackle football, but flag football is fine for them.

“Oh, it happens all the time, and I think the NFL is well aware of that,” Ken Sarna said. “They’ve done a great job promoting flag football.”

Ken Sarna said that when high schools start implementing flag football, he’s not too worried about the sport becoming too competitive. In the Coach Sarna League, the coaches of both teams are often on the field. Instead of a player getting chewed out about a mistake, the game is sometimes stopped so that the coaches of both teams can have a teaching moment with the kid to correct the mistake he made. At the end of the day, the league is about having fun and learning the game.

The league’s biggest day of fun may have come earlier in the year when coaches and young athletes were invited to play at the Oakland Coliseum and Levi’s Stadium – home of the San Francisco 49ers. Athletes and coaches are often on hand at these locations to help with sales promotions.

“See the kids out there on the field with their arms out like they’re flying, that makes all the difference,” Ken Sarna said. “You can see their eyes grow to the size of silver dollars. It makes all the hard work worth it. We try to create good memories here that will last a lifetime.”