The spring football season is over in Westlock.
On May 31, the Westlock Thunderbirds football team hosted its annual jamboree, bringing in teams from Vegreville and Whitecourt to get some game action in before the mandatory summer break.
Although coach Jon Kramer didn’t keep score in the four mini-games the T-Birds played – instead focusing on getting a handle on the plays and what kind of players he has – the day was nonetheless a success.
“Today was important,” he said after the final game. “We got to see how much the players learned in the spring camp.”
The spring camp started in early May, and was a way for experienced players to refresh their muscle memory, and for new players to learn football.
“It was neat to see their football IQ go up up up every week,” Kramer said.
But for as much as they learned during the camp, a game is something else entirely.
“Playing in a game, we see how much they’ve really learned,” Kramer said.
A mini tournament like the jamboree is also a learning experience for the coaching staff, no matter how many times they participate in one, he added.
“We watch and reflect on how to coach better,” he said. “And we’re also watching how the players manage and perform.”
Since football is such a co-operative game, with every player needing to do his or her job properly for the team to have success, Kramer said playing in the jamboree helps the players gel more than they already had during the spring camp.
This year’s team has players from Westlock, Barrhead, Jarvie, Flatbush and Morinville. With such disparate origins, and the fact a lot of the players have competed against each other in other sports, getting them to work and play as a team before the regular season starts is paramount.
As successful as the jamboree was, there was a scary moment during the final game of the day between the T-Birds and Vegreville.
As a Vegreville player carried the ball towards the endzone, he was taken down with a clean tackle. However, the nearly immediate screams of agony coming from the downed player proved it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill play.
In being taken to the ground, the player suffered a compound fracture to one of his legs below the knee. It was at least 15 minutes until EMS arrived and carried the player away. As he was being loaded into the ambulance, he waved to the crowd with both arms as the crowd applauded.
Kramer said the injury was an unfortunate event, especially because he understood it was the player’s first time playing football, and had really pushed his coaches to let him handle the ball. Ultimately, he said it was a good football play that went wrong.
