Ever since her uncle Joe Isabella co-founded the all-volunteer North Wales-based nonprofit North Penn Athletic Association and its co-ed youth sports program North Penn Squires Football and Cheer 50 years ago, the essence of family and the goal of building better sportsmen and women into better citizens tomorrow continues to be paid forward by North Penn Squires Cheer Commissioner Joanna Long.
“Memories are paramount,” Long said. “I was a Squires cheerleader myself in from 1993 to 1996, and my brother and two cousins were in Squires. It was a lot of fun swimming all day at Fourth Street and then heading to football and cheer practice. It was good times.”
To this day, Long, who is in her fifth season coaching North Penn Squires Cheer, thinks often about her cheer friends and their experiences together.
“My daughter is in love with cheer; it was a natural thing for her. She’s going to be in the third grade, and she still wants me to be her coach,” she said. “I know that won’t last forever.”
North Penn Squires invites the local community to celebrate its 50th Anniversary with them at a community event Saturday, Aug. 6 from noon to 4 p.m. at Upper Gwynedd Township Park and Parkside Place, featuring food trucks, Kona Ice, an inflatable obstacle course, and a DJ.
While not specifically associated with North Penn School District and the North Penn Knights, the North Penn Squires – a squire being a knight’s apprentice – has fostered strong relationships with the middle school and high school football and cheerleading programs. It plays its games at Hostelley Field on Hancock Road near Pennbrook Middle School.
As its website states, “Forging squires into a knight since 1972.”
“Originally, Squires was a football organization, cheerleading organization and it also had a basketball league,” NPAA Board President and North Penn Squires Football Commissioner Chris Patton said. “We recruit from Montgomeryville, North Wales, Towamencin, Lansdale, and Ambler.”
Squires Football and Cheer is open to boys and girls from kindergarten to sixth grade, with the season starting in August and running through October. The first game is Labor Day weekend. Squires Football offers flag football for kindergarteners and first graders and tackle football for second graders through sixth graders. Cheer is open to youth from kindergarten to sixth grade.
Patton said Squires membership averages around 120 youths each year. At present, there are 85 youth registered, and registration is still open until the end of August. Patton said Squires Cheer averages about 40 youths across its junior varsity and varsity cheer squads.
While there are a handful of options for youth football in the area, the big two are Squires and National Pop Warner League’s Lansdale Cannoneers Youth Football & Cheer, which celebrates its 60th anniversary next year.
Squires, which is in the Inter-County Football League (ICFL), uses a grade-based system versus a weight-based system. According to Patton, the grade-based format gives a natural progression for the youth players and aligns teams with national trends to make a true feeder program for state middle and high schools.
In other words, participants will be with their friends and classmates at all times: First graders will play alongside other first graders that they attend class with, or play sports with, or play in the neighborhood with, he said.
“Squires is associated with Heads Up Football, and it’s grade-based versus weight-based at Cannoneers,” Patton said. “My older son, he’s in the seventh grade, he was always a big kid. He’s 12 and 5 foot 11 and 190 pounds – he won’t make it at Cannoneers. Our kids don’t have to weigh-in. It’s all fair, all grade based. You’re not playing against a kid in fourth grade when you’re in second.”
“Because you weigh the same, it allows all kids to play along with each other, and playing classmates or kids in their grades,” Patton said. “It’s a much fairer system for kids. We look at what grade you’re in, and that’s it.”
Being in the ICFL, Squires Football plays other regional teams like Perkiomen Valley, Spring-Ford, Coventry, Great Valley, and Phoenixville, Patton said.
“What we are trying to do is get people introduced to football and join football,” Patton said. “It’s about having these kids do what they do here and then going to the middle school and playing there, and then going to the high school and playing there. Cheer gets to cheer with the middle school team. It’s almost a feeder program into the high school.”
Long said Squires is big on keeping things family-oriented and treating one another with respect.
“We’re all very uplifting to each other,” Long said. “We’re women of empowerment with no negativity, and we keep the positive energy going.”
Long said she loves seeing the cheerleaders’ skills levels improve month to month. She even boosted the frequency of workouts to keep everyone on the same track. Their normal practice schedule is three days a week for a month, and then it drops to two days a week.
“It keeps us working together. It keeps the girls wanting to do it, and they see their own improvements when they do hard work,” she said. “I have grown to love my girls. It’s hard for me to get out of it. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
Long said her cheerleaders cheer at every home and way Squires game. The older cheerleaders take part in competitions, like the one last year at Hershey Park where they claimed second place honors.
“We have a strong relationship with the high school and middle school. We are invited to come to practices, and we do a high school night with the cheerleaders,” Long said. “It’s a connection of big sisters and little sisters. Some girls come help coach and the girls look up to them as well.”
Patton said the board’s goal is to keep Squires Football and Cheer going for another 50 years.
“We want to keep growing football and bring people to football,” he said.
The youth, he said, benefit from teamwork and camaraderie that goes along with the organization.
“Last year, we had a kid who cried. But we did some drills, and he jumped right in,” Patton said. “He started interacting with the kids. Our goal is to create confidence, and to have fun and create a group where kids can meet and socialize. The biggest thing is kids interacting with different people.”
The players need one another to win, he said. They cannot do it on their own.
“Squires builds confidence. It builds a friend base. From elementary school to middle school to high school – the kids will all play together,” Patton said. “They’ll play all through the years and know what everyone’s ability is. Once they get to the high school, they’re back together again and playing on the field again.”
Long said North Penn Squires Cheer is a confidence builder.
“They promote camaraderie and dedication to what they do,” she said of her cheerleaders, who must exhibit a lot of physical strength for tumbling and stunting. “A lot of the girls come in and are very shy. By the end of the season, they are out of their shell.”
Some parents, Patton said, are timid to have their child join youth football because of CTE and concussion risks.
“A lot of parents are scared of CTE – things have changed. The way we approach football is different,” Patton said. “We tackle with the head up, we make sure we have a safe game, and we keep people playing and then they get to a college level and the NFL.”
Patton encouraged parents to take part in volunteering for the organization and seeing first-hand the definition of family.
“We are always looking for more volunteers. We’re here giving up our time and doing this for the kids in the area,” he said.
Squires runs on donations and fundraisers, and the annual membership fee is around $185 a year.
“Dedication of parents is a major factor,” Long said. “We fundraise throughout the year and we work on getting donations. It’s an expensive sport.”
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