By Gene Galin
Bear Creek, NC – On a late-summer practice field at Chatham Central High School, roughly three dozen young players were learning how to line up, listen for a call and move together. Some had arrived only weeks earlier without knowing how to fasten their shoulder pads. Now they are beginning to run offensive plays, recognize defensive assignments and see themselves as a team.
That progress is the early promise of Chatham Central Youth Football, a new locally organized tackle-football program for children ages 7 to 13. The first-year effort is intended to give families in Bear Creek and southwestern Chatham County a football option closer to home while introducing players to the fundamentals, terminology and expectations they would encounter if they later join the Chatham Central High School Bears.
In our conversation, coach Walter Cotton said the program had grown to about 34 or 35 players by the August 26 practice, a significant increase from its small beginning. It plans to play an independent six-game season on Saturdays, with its first home game scheduled for 11 a.m. September 12 at Chatham Central High School. The team will alternate between games in Bear Creek and Sanford, Cotton said.
The program’s first season is not being sold as a championship-or-bust campaign. It is a start-up year built around instruction, safe participation, confidence and community support. When I asked him what would make the season successful, Cotton gave an answer that reinforced the tone for everything else he had said.
“Everybody walk on the field, everybody walk off,” he said.
A program taking root in Bear Creek
Cotton said the idea grew from conversations involving Chatham Central head football coach Derrin Little and other community members who wanted to strengthen the pathway into the high school program. Cotton was invited to help lead the youth effort, bringing with him a connection to the school and the community.
He played on the line at Chatham Central, wearing No. 72, and still speaks about the experience as more than an athletic chapter. He also pastors Rose Hill Church in Moncure. On the practice field, those backgrounds come together in a coaching approach that is demanding, encouraging and openly centered on service.
“We believe in every child,” Cotton said. The same message appears on shirts made for the program’s coaches.
In Cotton’s view, Bear Creek needed a program that did not require families to drive elsewhere for every practice and game. Chatham County’s recreation landscape includes established football opportunities through Siler City Parks and Recreation and East Chatham Chargers Football. The new program is not framed as an attack on those organizations. Cotton praised Siler City’s youth-football work and said he had coached there previously.
The goal, he said, is to create another entry point for families whose sense of community is rooted around Chatham Central.
“We just want to come to Bear Creek and have the same opportunity for our students and our children right here,” Cotton said.
This matters in a county where population centers, school communities and recreation options are spread across a large geographic area. A program can exist within the county and still be difficult for a family to use if regular travel, work schedules and transportation create barriers. Chatham Central Youth Football’s pitch is straightforward: practice in Bear Creek, play home games at the high school and build relationships around a school many kids may one day attend.
Filling the years before high school
Football is not listed among the sports on Chatham Middle School’s public athletics page, which includes cross-country, track, volleyball, cheerleading, basketball, baseball and soccer. The Chatham County Schools do not provide a middle-school football program. That leaves community and recreation organizations to provide much of the tackle-football experience available before ninth grade.
During our interview, the broader absence of school-sponsored middle-school football was described as a gap in Chatham County. For Chatham Central’s coaches, the immediate concern is what happens when a freshman arrives at high school having never learned a stance, a blocking assignment, a defensive responsibility or how equipment should fit.
Cotton said that when players begin from zero in ninth grade, coaches may spend much of their high school careers teaching concepts that athletes in other communities learned earlier. By the time those players are experienced enough to contribute at a higher level, graduation may be near. The varsity program then has to begin the same developmental process with another class.
The youth program is designed to interrupt that cycle.
“At least they know the basic fundamentals of football,” Cotton said. “That way Coach Little doesn’t have to start teaching the basics.”
Cotton said youth coaches met with the high school staff to discuss what should be taught and how. The younger team is using some of the same terminology and trying to reflect the same broad philosophy. The purpose is not to install an entire varsity playbook for elementary and middle-school-age players. It is to make the next transition less disorienting.
When a future freshman hears a familiar formation, position label or coaching phrase, Cotton wants recognition to replace confusion. In his words, the language should not sound foreign.
That kind of alignment can help a small high school in several ways. It gives coaches a larger pool of players who understand the game, creates relationships with families before high school and encourages kids to imagine themselves in a Bears uniform. It can also help players decide earlier whether they enjoy football, prefer another sport or simply want the physical activity and friendships that come from a season on a team.
The program’s organizers are careful, however, not to confuse a developmental pathway with a guarantee. Youth participation does not ensure a varsity roster spot, playing time or future success. Children grow at different rates, interests change and high school eligibility carries academic and administrative requirements. The first job is to teach the game appropriately for the players in front of the coaches now.
From shoulder pads to self-belief
The most visible evidence of the program’s early impact is on the practice field. Informal workouts began in May, Cotton said, with organizers gathering interested children, helping them get in shape and measuring whether there was enough support to proceed. Regular practices began in mid-July.
At first, some players needed help with the most basic parts of participation. Cotton recalled children who did not know how to put on shoulder pads or buckle a helmet. Weeks later, those same players were lining up and running plays.
“I’ve seen so much growth,” he said. “Our defense is growing. Our offense is growing. They are starting to believe in themselves.”
That last change may be the most important. A new football player has to learn in public. A missed assignment is visible. A fumble stops the play. A player who turns the wrong way may hear an immediate correction from a coach and then has only seconds before being asked to try again.
Handled well, that cycle can teach a player that a mistake is information rather than a verdict. Practice provides repeated opportunities to listen, make an adjustment and improve. The lesson reaches beyond football: preparation matters, teammates depend on one another, and confidence is usually built through work rather than granted in advance.
Cotton described his players as determined and his staff as deeply invested. When asked what had put the biggest smile on his face, he pointed toward the field.
“Look out there,” he said. “The determination of those young men right there.”
The coach’s enthusiasm is not based on a record; the team had not played its first game. It is based on the difference between the hesitant beginning and what he now sees at practice. Players who once struggled with equipment are gaining independence. Kids who did not know a play are beginning to execute one. A collection of families is beginning to act like an organization.
Mothers become the program’s engine
Cotton repeatedly credited parents – and especially mothers – with pushing the new team forward. Organizers recruited in person, through Facebook and by word of mouth. They spoke to families in restaurants, stores and anywhere they met someone who might know a child interested in football.
The outreach often produced surprise. Families did not know Bear Creek had a youth team. Each new parent then became another connection to classmates, relatives, neighbors and church members.
Cotton called the mothers the program’s “best recruiters” and its “harshest critics.” He told the story of a mother who stopped him after practice with a direct request: The mothers had jobs and responsibilities, she said, but they wanted real work to do for the team.
They got it.
Parents are helping organize water, sports drinks and snacks. They are preparing to staff concessions, work the gate and handle the countless jobs that determine whether a home game runs smoothly. Those duties are easy to overlook because they happen away from the ball, but a new program cannot function without them.
The parents’ role also creates accountability. They see how practice is organized, whether communication is clear and whether children are being treated fairly. Their questions can make coaches explain decisions and improve the operation. Cotton joked about their volume from the sideline, but his larger point was serious: their involvement gives the program energy and staying power.
For a start-up organization, that foundation may matter as much as the number of players. A roster can assemble for one season; a durable youth program needs adults willing to register participants, raise money, maintain equipment, arrange officials, communicate schedule changes, operate concessions and return the following year.
The work will become more complex if the program grows into multiple age divisions. Cotton said organizers initially did not have enough players to field separate teams at every planned level, such as 8U, 10U, 12U and 14U. Even after reaching the mid-30s in total participation, the distribution by age remained uneven.
That is why the first season has been structured conservatively. The program is building the organizational habits it will need before expanding its ambitions.
Coaching football – and coaching life
Cotton’s own story explains why he sees football as leverage for education and personal development. He said he was not especially interested in school as a teenager. When academic eligibility standards required him to earn passing grades to play, football gave him a reason to change his habits.
“I did care about football,” he said. “So I had to buckle down because I wanted to play.”
He remembers his former math teacher and football coach, Tim Tally, for lessons that extended beyond a class or a season. Cotton said he still carries those lessons. The memory shapes what he wants his players to learn now: work hard, be determined, show up, give full effort and work with others.
His central message is that “everybody is somebody.” A football team is a practical test of that belief. Players bring different sizes, abilities, personalities and experience levels. The sport assigns highly visible jobs to quarterbacks and ball carriers, but it cannot operate without linemen, defenders, substitutes and players willing to learn less celebrated roles.
“We don’t have to think the same, look the same, act the same,” Cotton said. “But we still should be able to come together on common ground.”
Cotton’s phrase about believing in every child gives families a clear standard by which to evaluate the program. It asks coaches to see potential in the player who is already athletic and in the player still learning how to buckle a chin strap.
The same standard applies academically. Cotton’s experience shows how sports can motivate a student, but football cannot replace school. A sound youth-to-high-school pathway should reinforce attendance, effort, behavior and eligibility, not treat them as obstacles to getting on the field.
Why the first season is independent
Chatham Central Youth Football will play independently rather than join a league in its first year. Cotton said he did not believe the new group was ready for a full conference schedule. Instead, organizers arranged six games to give players practical experience without pretending the foundation was complete.
The current plan alternates Saturday games between Chatham Central High School and Sanford. Cotton said additional games could be added if the team is ready and opportunities arise, but the six-game schedule is the baseline. A seventh game could also be required to resolve a three-way tie under the arrangement described in the interview.
The first home game is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, September 12, at Chatham Central High School. Playing Saturday morning gives residents a chance to support the youth team after attending high school football on Friday night and before many college games begin.
The independent schedule serves several purposes. It gives new coaches a manageable number of game days, allows players to learn without immediately being measured against an established league’s full structure and gives organizers time to evaluate equipment, staffing and age-group needs. It also limits the temptation to define success solely through wins and losses.
Cotton does hope the program can enter a league and compete in 2027. To do that responsibly, it will need returning players, new recruits, enough participants to create sensible age groupings and a stronger equipment base. It will also need volunteers who understand that year two begins long before the final game of year one.
This season, every practice doubles as program construction. Coaches are teaching blocks and tackles while adults are learning how to run registration, communication and game-day operations. The players are developing football instincts; the organization is developing institutional memory.
Equipment, money and the next layer of support
The players I saw on the August 26 practice field were using borrowed equipment, Cotton said. The program needs its own uniforms and additional gear, along with financial support for the many expenses that accompany a season.
Equipment is not simply a matter of appearance. Helmets and shoulder pads must be appropriate for the player, maintained and fitted correctly. Uniforms help create a recognizable identity, but protective equipment and safety procedures are the higher priority. As the roster grows and children change sizes, a borrowed inventory becomes harder to manage.
Cotton invited residents to support the program through donations and volunteering.
Community members can also help by attending home games, volunteering for concessions or gate operations, asking organizers what equipment is most needed and sharing accurate schedule information. Businesses and civic groups interested in sponsorship should request details about how funds will be used and how the program is organized, standard due diligence that helps both donors and the team.
What comes next
Chatham Central Youth Football enters September with more than a roster. It has a local purpose: to give Bear Creek children a nearby place to learn the game, help future Bears arrive at high school with a foundation and create another gathering point for a community that takes pride in Chatham Central.
It also enters the season with the ordinary vulnerabilities of a first-year program. The age groups are uneven. Much of the equipment is borrowed. The schedule is intentionally limited. Volunteers and donations remain important. Safety procedures must be communicated as clearly as game times. Whether the effort becomes a lasting pipeline will be determined over several seasons, not six Saturdays.
Still, Cotton sees enough progress to believe the roots are taking hold. He sees children who can now manage their equipment, understand a call and trust a teammate. He sees mothers organizing the work behind the scenes. He sees coaches aligning fundamentals with the high school program. Most of all, he sees players who are beginning to believe they belong on the field.
“We’re here,” Cotton said. “We’re here to stay, and we’re going to do everything in our power to build a powerful program right here.”
For families and residents who want to learn more, the next step is simple: follow the program’s Facebook page for schedule updates, message organizers with questions about participation or volunteering, and attend the 11 a.m. September 12 home opener at Chatham Central High School.