We have come to the end of the 2021 season and are proud of another successful year. Casper Midget Football has been committed to the youth of Casper and providing all kids with a positive experience centered around the fundamentals of the game, sportsmanship, teamwork, and safety for the last 53 years. As with any sport, sometimes competing programs enter and leave our community; however, as a staple of youth sports in Casper, we are proud of our lasting legacy and of the number of Casper youth who we have impacted over our 50+ year history. We are excited to continue providing the youth of Casper with a positive experience.

We would like to share a bit about our program and the values that continue to guide our work.

Accessibility

We provide scholarships each year for families that are struggling to keep up with the cost of youth sports. Our scholarship program has been very successful and has allowed us to avoid asking players and families to do any type of outside fundraising.

Quality and Continuity

We have officials who have refereed at every level of youth sports and are mainstays in our program. The experience they continue to bring to the field is truly invaluable and one of our greatest assets. They draw on their experience in training new referees each year. Many of those new refs have moved up to work junior high and high school games thanks to their experience with CMFA.

Our coaches also reflect our belief in continuing a quality program with long term commitment. We retain nearly 90% of our coaches from year to year, and this year was no different. This continuity in coaching truly reflects the passion our coaching team brings for the game. Each year we are also happy to have parent coaches who bring their talents to the team for the years their child plays with us. Paired with our volunteer coaches, we value their work in helping our youth learn the game.

Partnership

In 2021 we continued our longstanding partnership with Natrona County School District. This partnership allows us to assign teams by school which promotes an atmosphere of teamwork, school pride, and community.

Safety

CMFA coaches will continue their commitment to our children following USA Football’s Heads- Up football practices. We will continue promoting USA Football's Heads-up Football programs and continue our work with the NHSFA (National High School Football Association) and Wyoming High School referees to ensure our volunteers are prioritizing safe practices during games and practices.

Communication

We are happy to answer questions, concerns, or suggestions through our board of directors. Parents can contact us through various methods including Facebook, the CMFA web site, our phone answering machine, and face-to-face. We are committed to communication and continually improving our practices. We are always striving to improve communication and will continue to update our website regularly and dedicate an increased number of board members to respond in a timely manner. In addition, at the start of each season coaches are required to hold a mandatory coaches meeting to share our practices and to clarify how to best contact us with questions. A board member will attend each team’s mandatory meeting. We also realize that parents are busy and sometimes cannot attend this meeting. To facilitate communication for those who cannot attend, all information is also posted on our website.

Reflection and Improvement

Over the years we continue to reflect on our practice and evolve to improve our program to better serve the youth of Casper. This year was no different. We are thankful to benefit for using the City of Casper’s fields and realize our continued responsibility to the city to maintain the quality of those fields for all sports. Each year we also learn that in Wyoming we are at the mercy of the weather. As a result we sometimes must adapt and ask our families to be flexible. For example, mother nature threw us a curve ball at the end of the season resulting in overly saturated playing fields. Because the fields were unavailable, we had to make some hard decisions on the fly. This included electing to cancel the last week of games to start the playoffs on schedule. This also allowed us the opportunity to try and reclaim one of the games we lost. We tried a suggestion from some coaches, and used a modified round robin style playoff - a new concept for our program. The intent was to have more competitive games to end the season. We felt this was necessary to give players on all the teams the opportunity to go out on a high note instead of a blowout. This is not necessarily the path going forward and presented some unique and sometimes unforeseen challenges, but we gained valuable data in the process. We will use this to get even better!

Casper Midget Football works hard to put a superior product on the field year in and year out and the responses we receive regularly from our participants reinforce those efforts. We look forward to continuing to build a love of football, a sense of community, and a value for teamwork in Casper’s youth.

We look forward to seeing you on the football field next fall!

Thanks,

Alan Dugan

CMFA President