Buckeye Youth Football Association: Welcome
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This site is the internet home of the Jaguars and Jets who represent the Buckeye Youth Football Association, Inc.(BYFA). Our players and cheerleaders are drawn from the Buckeye Local School District which is located in Medina County, Ohio. We finished our 16th Season of play with the conclusion of 2011.
We started with one team, the Jaguars, who began play in 1996. The Jets were added in 2000, and the Buccaneers joined us in the 2001 season. The 2008 Season saw the creation of the Pee Wee Division for 7 and 8 year olds, and the downsizing of the JV Division to contain only 9 and 10 year olds. During 2008 we also reduced our Flag Division to 1 team and they are known as the Bucks to identify with our high school team. The Buccanneers were dissolved at the end of 2008 in order to strengthen the rosters in all divisions. There is sadness in losing a team, however we feel that the overall effect will strengthen the other 2 teams and the program in general. In 2010 we returned to our roots as the Jags and Jets both fielded a Varsity, JV, Pee Wee and Flag Squad, along with cheerleaders for each of those divisions making a total of 16 Squads.
Since the 1999 Season Buckeye Varsity teams have made 11 appearances in the Championship Game, 7 by the Jaguars and 4 by the Jets. The Jags claimed championships in 1999, 2000 & 2009, and the Jets in 2003 & 2010. The Buckeye JV teams have made 4 appearances in the Championship game, 1 by the Jaguars and 3 by the Jets. The Jags JV claimed the Championship in 2009.
We have been committed to building a successful program that helps Buckeye Bucks high school program build a winning tradition. The Bucks have made 4 State Playoff appearances in the last 9 years. Over the first 15 years there were over 450 different players, 210 cheerleaders and 80 coaches involved with Buckeye Youth Football. We feel the program has gotten better every year. We grew from 38 kids our first season in 1996, to 198 for the 2011 season. We matched our peak season of 2003 this year as we have over 200 kids participating during the 2012 season.
Our web site has a page for each of the 2 teams broken down to squads by division for players and cheerleaders. Feel free to click on any of the menu items to the left and explore the team sites, rosters, pictures, schedules, history, etc. Updates are done to the pages as we get new information. Please click on the picture and sign our Guestbook at the bottom of the page we would like to have your comments! Thanks for dropping by!
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Over the last several days there have been lots of updates done to the pages and alot of file sorting for pictures that are stored on the site. In doing this we came up with the idea to have periodic 'BYFA Flashbacks'. So we will start off with a a Jet and a Jag.
Pictured above back in the day with the Raiders of the old school Brunswick Youth Football is Jets Head Coach Steve Watkins. He was a mere lad of 12 then. Who knew he would grow up to be youth football coach. Steve will be in his 13th season coaching with the Jets, eleven of them as the Head Coach. He's put together a 55-27-0 record in that span, making 6 Playoff appearances and capturing 2 Varsity Championships.
Below is former Jaguar Ben DiMarco pictured in 1999 as a member of the JV squad. Ben played 3 years with the Jags and was on the 2000 Varsity Championship team. I thought this was a good one to post first since Ben just graduated from The University of Akron with an engineering degree and will be moving south to Columbus to begin his new job with Honda.
Every week or so we will post more pictures that haven't been seen much lately unless you look at the picture pages on the individual team pages.
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Below is information on the youth football camp that will be held at Buckeye High School this summer. The camp is run by former Jaguar and Buckeye graduate Darren Cereshko. You can down load the flyer/registration below by clicking on the link.
PEAK Sports Training
Handout: 2012 PEAK Youth Football Camp
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Former Jaguars Danny Lough (1998-2000) and Ben DiMarco (1998 -2000) are both engineering students at the University of Akron and have been involved in the Zips racing team there. This article was from the Beacon Journal. Ben is going to be working at Honda in Marysville after graduation this spring and Danny is Co-Oping at MTD.
UA Students Show Off Zippy ‘ZR12’ They Built For Racing
By John Higgins
Beacon Journal staff writer
The University of Akron Zips Racing Team unveiled the race car it built for international competitions later this year in a ballroom ceremony Monday at the UA Student Center.
“On behalf of the 25 students that it took to make this car possible, with 20,000 man hours invested over the past nine months, I’d like to present to you the ZR12,” team captain Dan Lough said as team leaders removed the black covering to reveal a sleek open-wheel race car about a fourth of the size of an Indy 500 car.
The ZR12 (Zips Racing 2012) is painted blue on top with a white stripe and black below the stripe.
“It will do zero to 60 in about three-and-a-half seconds and reach a top speed of 120 ... theoretically,” Lough said.
Theoretically, indeed.
When the team begins the race season next month in Michigan, student drivers won’t be allowed to drive faster than about 55 mph, said faculty adviser Richard Gross.
“They do not want students – some who are very good drivers, some who are not – doing anything foolish, so they try and keep the speeds under control,” Gross said.
Since 1990, the University of Akron has competed annually in the Society of Automotive Engineering’s Formula SAE design competition. Students design and build a race car, which they enter in competitions that test acceleration, cornering ability and, finally, the ability to run 22 kilometers (just over 10 miles) without needing any adjustment. About halfway through the endurance race, the teams switch drivers and the cars are inspected for safety.
“If they find a bolt starting to come loose, you are done for the day,” Gross said. “If they find a little drop of oil on the ground or something, you’re done. It’s extremely strict.”
After the competition in Michigan, the team will race the car in Germany and Austria in August and in Canada in October. Local fans can watch the team race in Akron at the Goodyear Testing Grounds on Sept. 22.
The students make 90 percent of the car’s parts, improving on the previous year’s car.
Team leaders were Ryan Kruse, suspension; Maddy Mann, composites; John Buchanan, drivetrain; Michan Limbacher, chassis; Ben DiMarco, brakes and Dominick DeMasi Jr., engine.
The car runs on a 4-cylinder, 600cc Yamaha R6 motorcycle engine with sequential fuel injection. DeMasi, a fifth-year senior majoring in mechanical engineering, needed a better way to get data and use to it make a powerful car.
DeMasi took advantage of a paid internship with MoTeC, an Australian-based firm that creates computer systems to control and collect data about engine performance, to improve the Zips Racing Team’s testing and data analysis procedures.
DeMasi worked last summer at MoTeC’s facility in North Carolina, or as he puts it, “NASCAR country.”
“I learned so much more from being there that I figured out new ways to implement their products in ways that would help us,” DeMasi said. “Down there, I was working with a lot of professional racing teams, helping them solve their problems, and I started realizing ways to solve my own.”
Meanwhile, DiMarco worked on making the brakes lighter and the cockpit more comfortable for the driver. Last year’s car weighed 446 pounds and the team wanted to shave that down to 430. He helped them get it down to 425 pounds.
DiMarco and DeMasi already have jobs lined up after they graduate this year with Honda R & D Americas near Marysville.
“We’re going to live together,” DiMarco said. “He’s doing engines and I’m doing brakes. That’s what we did here. It really carries over.”
