VA Lions – Youth Football Ministry

We are a non-profit, all-volunteer football program started in 2007 by Vince and Le’Shon Owens. Simon and I joined them in 2007 in their endeavor for the same two basic reasons they started it: to provide a football program for Joshua (and for them, for their son Vince, both of whom had no other varsity football program available to them), and as a ministry to offer a good football program to high school boys in the area whether attending homeschool, private school or public school. The vision is to provide a competitive football program not only for homeschooled high school boys, but to provide a positive, constructive sports program for many in our community who cannot otherwise participate through their public or private school, and who need positive role models in their lives. Vince and Le’Shon work with many, many players almost daily to encourage them to continue in their school studies, return for their school studies and to give them hope that college is not out of reach. Now that we’ve wrapped up our third year, we can look back and see a number of young men who were, and continue to be, impacted by this program in a very positive way. Most of these guys are very much like adopted sons to the Owens and to our family … and we often bug the daylights out of them just as we would with our own children!

We run the program with funds received primarily through registration fees and fundraisers. We are always looking for sponsorships to help subsidize the costs because many of our families cannot afford the full fee, so we work to subsidize those families. We have, historically, had a number of players whose parents weren’t involved at all in their participation (and perhaps not in their lives in general). We try to keep the registration fee low ($250 per player) in order to accommodate as many families as possible. This fee covers their participation in 2-3 pre-season camps (historically run by ex-NFL players), rental of all equipment and uniform items except cleats, mouthguards and game socks, field and referree fees (for the Turkey Bowl game and also if we have a regular season home game), end-of-season Turkey Bowl game, end-of-season celebration costs, team insurance, first aid supplies, etc. The cost to actually outfit a player exceeds $250/player, but we have been blessed with donations of shoulder pads (big dollar items), practice pants and slot pads (all from LLBFL). Last year we had a large cash donation which allowed us to increase the equipment inventory and double our team size (from 20 at the end of the first year to 40 at the end of the second year).

This past season aside, because it was too weird for words … we typically have a full 10-game schedule against other homeschool teams, primarily in Maryland and Central Virginia, and  private school teams in Maryland, Virginia and DC. With the exception of our Turkey Bowl game, we are a travel team and have not been able to have home games because of lack of fields in this area and because of budget constraints (field fees and referree fees can run about $1,000 per game).

There’s so much to say about the program … but then you’d soon grow weary of reading …

We do have a website … it is www.valions.net … which is in the process of being updated, but please look it over.

LIONS Football Program
On the Web www.VALions.net
Via E-Mail INFO@VALions.net
Via Telephone (Team) (540) 751-9343