KYFL Families-

I hope you are all having a great start to 2019. As some of you are aware the KYFL board has been established for this upcoming season and we are working hard to prepare for another great year. The 2018 season presented a great deal of challenges for our league. We were put in a situation where we had teams spread across three different conferences. (MYFC, TCYFL, and Pop Warner)  This was done so that all of our levels had a place to continue playing Knight Football.  After the season was completed the board unanimously chose to leave the MYFC to find a home that would give our league a chance to all play together and continue our growth.  After extensive meetings with coaches, board members, other leagues, and conference reps we chose to move KYFL into the TCYFL (The Chicagoland Youth Football League).  KYFL was officially voted into their league on 1/15/19.

TCYFL is the largest conference in Illinois and will be home for over 50 communities. The board believes the values and structure TCYFL has created fit our current needs and future growth. Some of the key factors in choosing this league included:

*TCYFL has multiple levels, competitive and instructional, giving every kid a place to learn and develop their love for football with peers that have similar skills and goals.

*Playing environment. TCYFL promotes a safe and family style environment much like what KYFL has been building over the last few years

*Safety measures and weighted schedules. TCYFL has implemented baseline testing for all athletes 10 years old and up, trainers at every game, age/weight matrix style of play, and a system that is proven to place teams against similar skill level teams.

*Highly structured and respected organization

 To find out more about the TCYFL you can visit their website at www.tcyfl.net. The website has everything from rules and regulations to various events they host.

For many of you the first question is, how does this affect my player and his team from last year? At this time the KYFL board has formed a subcommittee to create our new by-laws and format how we will structure our teams. As previously mentioned the TCYFL operates under an age/weight matrix to outline a player’s eligibility. Each league can create their own guidelines within this matrix on how they want to form their teams. KYFL’s ultimate goal is to place kids in a situation to succeed and learn all the great values that football has to offer.  We will have a shift from using terms like 8U through 8th grade to Featherweight, Middleweight, Lightweight, JV, and Varsity.  Terms like “playing up” or “playing down” will be thrown out by people that don’t understand or are not used to the matrix style. There is no playing up or down. There is playing with kids at a similar physical and skill level as your player.  There will be “tryouts” to help establish what team your player should be playing at. There will also be teams formed at the younger levels that are geared more towards instruction and development. I am extremely excited about these teams. Within TCYFL they are referred to as the Pac 10 division. The rules for this division are different and the focus is on equal playing time and has a much more laid back approach.

The KYFL board has a goal of 6 weeks from now to get our new structure laid out and ready to explain to our families. During this time I am sure you will hear plenty of speculation on how things will be run.  Until we have everything finalized and approved the rumors will be just that… rumors.  The board takes this change very seriously and will discuss every scenario we can think of trying to formulate the next generation of Knight Football.

There will also be changes to our cheer program. There is a committee designed to address this restructuring and a separate e-mail will be sent out to highlight where we stand on that.

Stay warm and Go Knights!!!