2006 SEASON
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The Pop Warner Little Scholars, and the Pop Warner Little Panthers are looking forward to another great season in 2007.  This year will mark the 77^th year for Pop Warner and the 51^st year for the Little Panthers’ League in the Charlotte area.  Visit the National web site at www.popwarner.com and the local web site www.popwarnerlittlepanthers.org for more information on the Pop Warner program.

The mission of the Pop Warner Little Scholars, Inc. is to enable children to benefit from participation in team sports and activities in a safe and structured environment.  Through this active participation, Pop Warner programs teach fundamental values, skills and knowledge that children will use throughout their lives.

Objectives:

• To encourage and increase youth participation in football, cheerleading, and dance.
• To ensure a safe and positive playing environment for all participants.
• To instill life-long values of teamwork, dedication, and a superior work ethic in the classroom and on the playing field.

Positive Experiences:

• Pop Warner programs have no tryouts or cutting of rosters.
• Everyone participates under mandatory rules of play.
• On-field coaching is allowed for younger age levels.
• Individual awards are given only for academic excellence, not for on-field activities.

Safe Playing Environment:

• Players are placed on teams by age and weight levels.
• There are strict mandatory equipment requirements.
• Pop Warner provides Coaching Clinics and Risk Management Training.
• An enforced national rule book incorporates time-tested rules.
• A full-time executive staff supports all local associations and assists in sound policy creation.

History:  Pop Warner football has been around since the inception of the league in 1929 by founder Joseph J. Tomlin as a four team conference in Northeast Philadelphia.  Since then, participation has steadily increased to today’s record numbers.  Over 260,000 youths participated in Pop Warner sanctioned programs in 2006 and those numbers continue to grow.

In 1957, the Mecklenburg Optimist Club, a civic group of men in Charlotte dedicated to supporting youth activities, started the local Pop Warner program.  In recent years the program has been growing by approximately 17% a year.  In 2006, there were 144 football teams with approximately 4,000 players and 40 cheer squads with approximately 600 cheerleaders.  It has always been the goal of the program for the children who participate to have a great experience.

Safety First:  Kids compete with kids of similar age and size.  Pop Warner is the ONLY youth football program (local, regional, and national) that sets and enforces a strict Age and Weight matrix that reduces the risk of injuries 

Associations:

Neighborhood associations are responsible for registering players and cheerleaders, recruiting coaches and volunteers, locating practice and playing fields, and putting teams together.  For information on an association in your area, check the web site www.popwarnerlittlepanthers.org and click on Associations.  If you need to speak to a League representative, contact Ron Newton at 704-214-1816.

Formation of Teams:

One of the primary goals of the League is have games as competitive as possible.  There are several ways the League tries to make games more competitive.  (1) Players are placed on teams by age and weight so that teams are competing against other teams with players of similar age and weight.  (2) The League has two conferences, the Regional Conference which has teams that are typically very competitive and compete to go to regional and national competition, and the Non-Regional Conference which has teams that are formed with competitive balance in mind and which do not compete to advance to regional and national competition. (3) There is a team formation process for all associations in the Non-Regional Conference.  These associations are required to follow a team formation process that is intended to give the coaches a fair opportunity to select players so that all teams in that association are competitively balanced.

Schedule:

Practice for the 2007 season may begin on July 30^th.  The League limits the number and hours of practice for each team.  The first regular season game is normally the first Saturday after Labor Day, and the season normally ends the last Saturday of October.

The game schedule is put together after all teams are certified by paperwork and weight requirements on August 18^th.  Because of the number of teams, playing fields, and complexity, the schedule is normally published the Tuesday before the first game.  The intent is to publish as much of the schedule as possible on that Tuesday (or earlier if possible). The last three weeks of the season are considered “playoff weeks”, and the schedule for these weeks is published the Monday before the games on Saturday. 

Where possible, teams are placed in conferences by geographical area.  Teams play all other teams in their conference and depending on the number of teams in their conference may play one or more non-conference games.  At the end of the regular season, the playoffs begin for the highest seeded teams, and for the lowest seeded teams, games are scheduled against opponents with similar records from other conferences.