As fans walk through the tunnels on the home side of the Buddy Echols Field and take their seats, the horn blows as the Coppell football team leads a group of excited youth players through a banner to take the field.
The Coppell spirit is alive in every corner connecting the community through football.
A show of that spirit is seen in the Coppell Youth Football Association with its players decked out in Coppell jerseys. Their faces glow with excitement, darting around the sidelines.
They are cheering on their high school heroes beneath the Friday night lights.
Since 1999, the Coppell Youth Football Association (CYFA) works closely with Coppell High School to develop young athletes’ skills and deepen their understanding of the game.
“As with any community organization, anytime you bring a community together for one common cause or one common goal it just creates a stronger bond and bigger support system for the youth of a community,” Coppell coach Antonio Wiley said. “When you see them walking around wearing those jerseys it builds that sense of pride for your community.”
CYFA not only emphasizes the importance of developing football skills but also fostering teamwork and sportsmanship among young players, allowing for focus on improving discipline and skill.
“One way is teaching the mechanics; slowing down the game and really teaching them the fine tuned parts of the mechanics of football,” CYFA vice president Ashley Riley said. “This works because we can slow things down and we can stop and talk about it in the middle of practice.”
The program focuses on intricate details of the sport to create field awareness and skills, while encouraging players to celebrate each other’s successes.
“We also try to foster teamwork, that it’s not always about you, and it may be about your teammate, to celebrate your teammates successes such as touchdowns or a teammate being able to stop a potential touchdown or make a block,” Riley said.
Coppell football works year-round, both in and out of season, to connect the programs and develop the skills that will one day contribute to their own success.
The emphasis is always on the future; cultivating not only strong athletes but also individuals who take pride in representing Coppell on and off the field. This dedication to long-term development ensures when CYFA athletes don the high school jersey, they are already well-versed in the values and traditions that define Coppell football.
“Playing for Coppell now, it feels great a lot of people have helped me grow my knowledge of the sport,” senior running back O’Marion Mbakwe said. “I know where I came from and who taught me how to play the game and being able to give them credit. It just feels amazing to see how I grew with the help of the community and now I get to represent them.”
In the spring, Coppell coaches hold a coaching clinic with CYFA players, helping to improve their skills and assess the athletes’ progress and dedication. This hands-on approach not only improves performance but also allows the coaches to build relationships with future athletes.
“A lot of my teammates I had back then are still my teammates now and we are more like brothers than just teammates, which translates onto the field,” Mbakwe said. “We played in the state final and we lost, but it was such a good time and we made awesome memories because we played at the Gerald J. Ford Stadium.”
By collaborating with high school coaches, CYFA instills a sense of pride in wearing the Coppell star, fostering a deep emotional connection to both the sport and the district from an early age.
“Playing for CYFA leads to them taking pride in being a Coppell Cowboy,” Wiley said. “From the time they first picked up a football, through CYFA, through junior high, and now through their high school football career, they take pride in being one unit. They take pride in saying they are Coppell Cowboys.”
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