Armstrong Indians Youth Football Set to Celebrate 50th Year

Practices continue for the Armstrong Indians youth football program as they prepare themselves for their 50th Anniversary Celebration on September 24th when they face off against Burrell starting at 9:00 AM.

by Jake DeLuca

The Armstrong Indians youth football program has been giving kids an outlet to play football and learn the fundamentals of the game since 1966, and on September 24th they will be celebrating their 50th year anniversary.

The 24th will be like any other Saturday set of games. The Redskins will kick things off at 9:00 AM, followed by the Braves at 11:00 AM and the Warriors will play at 1:00 PM. The only difference will be a ceremony held in between the Braves and Warriors games to honor players of today and years past.

Started in 1966, the Armstrong Indians have prepared their fair share of players for high school football, including current River Hawks star running-back Zane Dudek. A representative from the program said that he has probably seen thousands of kids in the 50 years of the program’s existence.

“The 50th anniversary of anything is a milestone, a golden anniversary. We have been around for 50 years, so you got to figure thousands of kids have benefited from this, boys and girls both. You got to think that there’s probably 100-150 players and cheerleaders that are involved each year, so if you count that up over 50 years it really adds up.”

A lot is still up in the air about the event, but the Indians are looking forward to bringing back some alumni.

“We are planning on having hopefully a lot of the alumni come back. We are planning on having an alumni tent where they can come, sign in, and say what year they played, then we are going to announce them during the games. In the tent we hope to have all the trophies in there, some memorabilia and team pictures from way back,” said the representative.

There are some exciting potential surprises that cannot be disclosed at this time, but the representative said that it would be worthwhile for any former players, cheerleaders, or coaches to come out and support the program and celebrate 50 years of youth football.

The first team to play in the Indian youth program was in 1966, and the Indians representative said that a big goal for this celebration is to track down and invite as many members from that first team as possible.

“Hopefully we can get some names from that 1966 team and invite them. I have talked to two people that were on (the 1966 team) and they can’t seem to remember anybody (that played).”

The representative went on to let people know how they can get involved and learn more about the event.

“People can always give donations, we would love to see alumni give back; that would be awesome. What we want to do is get the word out that it (the celebration) is going to happen. We have a Facebook page just for alumni, there’s a website for the team and a Facebook page for the team, but not everybody is on Facebook.”

The leagues website is at www.LeagueLineUp.com/ArmstrongIndians ; you can also find out more if by following the Facebook pages for the alumni or team by searching for Armstrong Indians.