RYSI Football Family:
On behalf of our conference, I wanted to reach out to all of you to let you know about the exciting new step the Jr Skyland Football Conference (“JSFC”) will be taking in 2018. As the High School Head Coaches for a sending district currently represented by a program in our Jr. Skyland Football Conference, you are probably already aware of our conference’s goals, vision and objectives. But to refresh you…
The JSFC is an unlimited weight, high-school aligned, intermediate level football league founded as an extension of the local High School program. It is our league’s objective work in partnership with their respective high school coaches and use the same teaching techniques, terminology, and fundamental concepts used by the high school programs so our young student-athletes are best prepared for the next step in their football career. For this reason, the JSFC requires that all players play on teams aligned to where their primary residence is and/or for the program of the high school that they attend. Additionally, we strive to ensure that teams are playing opponents of comparable talent depth and skill level. We require all of our coaches to be USA Football safety certified. We were early adopters and have been partnering with USA Football and their safety programs going back 7+ years.
This vision and these goals are important to all of our member programs. Unfortunately, the external pressures we all are experiencing related to the perception of football has minimized the number of participants among our respective programs. This has directly impacted each of the teams affiliated with the JSFC. Recently, we’ve had several programs fold, others convert to 100% flag for all ages and others decide to move to other conferences where they feel they can get more favorable scheduling. Because of these events and in order to best position ourselves to achieve our goals listed above, we have decided that our conference will join the American Youth Football (AYF) starting with the 2018 fall football season.
Under the AYF National Track program: • We will become our own conference under the AYF umbrella • Our name will change from Jr Skyland Football Conference (JSFC) to Greater New Jersey AYF (GNJAYF)
• We will continue to provide unlimited weight, tackle football
• We will continue to have our programs tied closely to their High Schools and HS Head Coaches
• We will continue to ensure the kids play for their sending districts and affiliated High Schools • We will continue to play football based on the NFHS rules and guidelines
• In the short term (2018), we will improve our ability to have full and equitable scheduling for all our programs through crossover games with other AYF conferences
• In the near & long term – provides a conference for other, existing AYF programs in our region an opportunity to realign to our conference and play more locally; as well as improve our ability to attract additional programs to our conference based on the platform AYF offers.
As we go through this transition, you will continue to get status and progress updates from me. The partnership between our youth programs and their high school programs is paramount to what we have built here and what we continue to build upon. I’d like to also offer that myself and the rest of our executive leadership are available to meet with you to discuss this transition, how we can partner to energize your communities around youth football, how we can assist in any multi-program challenges and what we can do to teach and prepare our youth players to be as ready as possible for your high school programs.
JSFC Members -
Georgio Vuolde
Mark Saharic
Jamie Moore
Jim Hanisak
Bob Edmund
Chris Galusha