Sports

Friday Night Lights Will Stay on in Murrieta

The flag football league celebrated the end of its first successful year with a chance at the championship title.

With less than a year in existence, the Murrieta-Temecula Friday Night Lights flag football league is making a name for itself.

The Saints, a team of eighth-graders coached by Murrieta City Councilman Alan Long, won against the league's reigning champs from Garden Grove, 41-19, and Huntington Beach league, 55-0, to get to the championship game against Los Alamitos. They ended up losing 32-22 in the spring Super Bowl, but the achievement put Murrieta on the Friday Night Lights map for Southern California.

Mike Vaez, a football coach and English teacher at Chaparral High School who is the commissioner of Murrieta-Temecula Friday Night Lights, said the Saints' performance got the league recognized as a regional contender.

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"There's no doubt that after this one, everyone in the OC will be that much more aware of where Murrieta is," Vaez said.   

Friday Night Lights is a simple concept that is catching on in the Valley. Youth in kindergarten through eighth grades are experiencing the thrill of playing football under the lights, but not all the practice hours that go along with it.

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Long coached his 13-year-old son on the Saints, and said for a start-up organization, Vaez has done a great thing by bringing the league to the area. Long began coaching in high school, and so easing into yet another coaching position was a natural for him.

"I'm just proud of our team and that we represented the league with a very respectable showing," Long said.

In its first year, Murrieta-Temecula FNL had about 250 participating athletes and 42 teams. Seasons run in the fall and in the spring, and games are played at Los Alamos Sports Park, where the league can run three games at a time on one football-sized field. Vaez expects registration to hit 600 in the fall.

Though the league is for youth who live in Temecula and Murrieta, Vaez said 65 percent are Murrieta residents. He said the number of Temecula players could go down to about 20 percent in the fall, mainly because the league has not been able to get field space in Temecula.

Field space in Temecula is divided up among youth-based nonprofit leagues that serve mainly Temecula residents, according to Herman Parker, community services director for the City of Temecula.  An ad-hoc committee assigns field space, he said.

"There are some with established priority, and we also place a priority on seasons," Parker said. "And then once those are all allocated, sometimes others can get space."

It can become complicated, said James Wilcox, recreation supervisor for the City of Temecula. He said leagues that play in Temecula have to have 80 percent Temecula residents and 80 percent Temcula board members.

If not, then leagues are placed in a lower tier when it comes to priority. They are given the option to rent fields on a month-to-month basis.

"It can be very sporadic and sometimes families don't like it because they want to know where they are going to be every Tuesday night," Wilcox said. "It is very challenging but we thought it was the fairest way of all. Every city resident pays a community services tax and so there is a criterion that needs to be met."

With permanent field space in Murrieta, Vaez said even though flag is a different concept than tackle, the leagues co-exist peacefully on the fields.

"There are six tackle leagues and one flag league in Murrieta, so there is a big push for fields," Vaez said. "Murrieta has done us a huge favor by giving us the use of fields."

His kindergarten-aged son plays on an FNL team, and being a high school football coach, Vaez said it comes down to personal choice when choosing which route to go.

"Flag keeps them in shape. With one practice a week and one game a week, there is less mental strain. They aren't burnt out by the time they reach high school," Vaez said.

One of the highlights from this year, Vaez said, was during the championship game held on Chaparral High School's football field.

"They let us use their announcer, their tunnel for the players and their scoreboard. It was an amazing night," he said.

For more information on Murrieta-Temecula Friday Night Lights, visit MurrietaFNL.com.


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