Latest news with #14U
USA Today
19-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
A Jaguars flag football player stunned even Patrick Mahomes with this all-time catch
Jacksonville Jaguars Elite flag football player Brysen Wright pulled off one of the most spectacular catches you're probably ever going to see. Wright, a wider receiver for the Jaguars-sponsored 14U flag football team, made an absolutely jaw-dropping, gravity-defying circus grab during Saturday's 2025 NFL FLAG Championships in Canton, Ohio. It's the kind of catch that reminds you of Odell Beckham Jr.'s historic Sunday Night Football grab. It's that great; it's like a deleted scene from a Matrix movie. It's really not clear how in the world this kid caught this football. Unsurprisingly, Wright is actually a highly recruited wide receiver from the Class of 2028 out of Jacksonville's Mandarin High School. He's got offers already on the table from schools like LSU, Texas, Florida and North Carolina. Even Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was amazed by this unbelievable highlight. We can't wait to see this kid in college football and perhaps even the NFL one day.
San Francisco Chronicle
29-06-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
This Bay Area league serving underprivileged youth is sending a team to NFL Flag Championships
Frederick Jacobs Jr. wasn't always 'Freddy J,' the moniker most of his flag football friends know him by. His access to sports growing up in Solano County was limited. Youth leagues were often too expensive. He said he struggled to open up and make friends, until the Coach Sarna League helped Frederick become Freddy J. Founded in 2021, the 501(c)(3) non-profit has distributed nearly $250,000 in registration scholarships to ensure kids like Freddy aren't excluded. Seven of nine players on the Coach Sarna 14U team, which qualified for the NFL Flag Championships in Canton, Ohio, next month, are under scholarship, Freddy included. 'Honestly, it just really saved us — we wouldn't be able to afford it,' said Crystal Jacobs, Freddy's mom. 'It's a hard reality because we don't really have a lot of extra but for (the Coach Sarna League), being a part of this organization, they took away that disheartening conversation with our kids that they can't do something.' About 1,300 players from ages 3-18 participated this last spring season alone, and that number by next fall will balloon to more than 3,000. The league, recognized as a member of the 49ers Flag coalition in January, has reached more Bay Area families than CEO and 14U head coach Ryan Sarna could've ever envisioned. His inspiration dates to a six-month span during which Sarna, with his wife and three children, lost everything. In a past life, Sarna had built a successful career working with unions in labor management. An opportunity to lead a labor management organization in Southern California prompted him and his family to uproot their lives in Northern California. Said opportunity, according to Sarna, did not fully materialize due to complications he encountered with the company's existing leadership, which ultimately left him out of a job with no immediate recourse. Sarna's family of five subsequently slept on the floor in a relative's home for half a year in 2019. During this time, his 3-year-old daughter Kennedy wanted to play in a local soccer camp he couldn't afford. 'I'm going to get you in there,' Sarna remembered telling her. He inquired with those who ran the city program about a potential scholarship. There was no such thing. 'I don't think she knows this story that we couldn't afford it,' Sarna said. 'I don't think I ever told her that. She was 3, she probably doesn't remember, but I remember.' This past February, almost six years removed from Sarna's stomach-turning experience, Kennedy played soccer for the first time in the Coach Sarna League's inaugural soccer season (sponsored by Major League Soccer). Sarna rented out the football field at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo. Eight mini soccer fields were set up for upward of 400 kids. Kennedy, by then 8, awed at the scene, so much as her dad stood in awe of her. 'She was kind of aghast looking at the field and just how organized all the stripes were and the goals, and we were kind of far off, and I heard her say, 'Look at what Daddy did,'' Sarna said. 'That brought tears to my eyes. She's like, 'Daddy did all this,' and she doesn't know that it was really because of her.' In the interim of looking for a new full-time job, Sarna served as a substitute teacher back in his hometown of Vallejo when he said Caliber: Beta Academy, a public charter middle school in nearby Richmond, saw 'a huge fistfight' break out between a teacher and students. The specific class involved needed a new teacher. Sarna was recommended at a principals meeting, he said, and the rest is history. To connect with his students amid what proved to be a tense environment in the aftermath of the incident, Sarna coached flag football after school. It started with two co-ed teams, unaffiliated with the nonprofit he later established. While in Richmond, he was just looking to connect with his students in a low-stakes environment. Only after Sarna moved to Caliber's other middle school in Vallejo, called ChangeMakers Academy, did his efforts broaden to create the Coach Sarna League. He went from teaching computer science and math in Richmond to being a physical education teacher in Vallejo, where he couldn't help but notice countless students with notable athleticism who were not playing sports. ChangeMakers had no athletic program, according to Sarna, who decided to focus full-time on running the Coach Sarna League within the last year. 'Most kids are low income (at ChangeMakers), they're super athletic, and there just was nothing, nobody would serve them,' Sarna said. 'And so, I did (the league) for them and my own children. I was like, 'Cool, I couldn't afford other sports so we're going to do it ourselves.'' Freddy J, a ChangeMakers student at the time, jumped at the opportunity to play flag football. He said he 'never really played sports like that' when he was younger, and it was as much a chance to try something new as it was to find friends. The league opened with 120 or so players in its first season. 'Before the league, I didn't really talk to nobody,' Freddy said. 'Now I can talk to a lot of people. … Every time you see somebody, you most likely know them from the league.' One of Freddy's closest friends, Antonio Velasquez, also a teammate of his on the 14U team headed to Canton, joined the league in the fall of 2022. Antonio wasn't a ChangeMakers student. His mom, Rosa, saw a Facebook flyer, and Antonio pleaded with her to let him play. She paid for the first year out of pocket but found herself in between jobs the next year, unable to afford the registration fees on her own. Sarna assured her so long as she could volunteer at community events, including some hosted by Levi's Stadium, the league's top fundraiser, a scholarship would be available for Antonio, whose confidence as a player and person has only grown with Sarna as his coach. Antonio becomes like a second son to Sarna, alongside Stephen Sarna, the 14U team quarterback, when the weekend arrives. 'Antonio just loves the sport, and I give credit to Ryan, I give the credit of how he's coached and how he's helped me raise Antonio,' Rosa said. 'I call him his second dad. We joke about it. I always say to Ryan, I was like, 'Where's your other son at?'' Rosa likened the league to that of extended family. Any given 7-on-7 Saturday and 5-on-5 Sunday takes a village to pull off. And of approximately 170 coaches who've regularly lent their time and energy, Alonzo Brown has done his part to foster a safe environment that transcends socioeconomic differences. Brown in his first season with the Coach Sarna League came across a 'gifted' player, in Brown's words, who occasionally struggled with communication. Over time, the two would see eye-to-eye in a way that left the child's parents stunned. 'After the third week, I'm over there talking to him, I said, 'Here, man, when you hike the ball, I just want you to turn around and open your hands,'' Brown said. 'I had my hand on his shoulder in talking to him, and he's like, 'OK, coach,' and he goes, 'OK, did I do good?' 'He went up to me and gave me a hug, and his parents came over, they said, 'What did you do to my son?' … (His dad) goes, 'If someone touched his shoulder, he would punch him. I don't know what it is, but he loves you as a coach.'' The kid still plays, and Brown, no longer his coach, has relished in watching him succeed. Sarna said the league handed out 49ers championship rings, as provided by the 49ers Foundation, to 300 players, give or take, across all age groups in the boys and girls divisions for winners in the 5-on-5 playoffs last Sunday — played in accordance with the Olympic-style 5-on-5 format. Among the recipients was Brown's former player, who accepted the bling like a pro. 'Everybody was thinking, 'Oh, we're professionals because the 49ers, we're a part of their league,' and it just touches my heart to be able to see that,' Brown said. Nezam Etemadi, head of 49ers Flag, added via email: 'The Coach Sarna League has done an exceptional job using flag football to teach youth important life skills, such as leadership, teamwork and self-confidence.' The NFL, which held a consensus 32-0 vote among team owners in May to allow its players to compete in flag football at the 2028 Olympics, will have all 32 franchises represented at the flag national championships. The Coach Sarna 14U team came up short in the 49ers regional with a 4-2 record, losing twice to High Intensity, a top San Diego-based program, before sweeping the Seattle regional in a second chance at Canton. In its first year funding a travel team, the Coach Sarna League, named after Ryan's late grandfather Ed Sarna, a Notre Dame football alumnus and longtime athletic director at Hogan High School in Vallejo, will rep Seahawks gear from July 17-20. Not that it's any consolation for the Bay Area club. Sarna and his boys did whatever it took to punch their ticket. And best believe Freddy J, who has won multiple championship rings courtesy of the Coach Sarna League, will be looking to add to his homemade trophy case. 'Right now he has his own shrine going on in his own room,' Crystal said. 'But once we come back from Canton, I think he'll have to move it into the living room.'
