of Brian Urlacher and Hines Ward combined. The Santa Monica Vikings — a youth

sports organization comprised of five football teams ranging in age from 7 to 14 years

old — will kick off its 2007 season today at the Santa Monica High School field, hosting

conference rival the Montebello XTreme.“We have a lot of returners,” said Jake Ford, the coach of the

Vikings’ Midget squad. “The outlook this year is we’re a playoff team.”

The 150-member Santa Monica Vikings organization is one of 22 youth football

leagues in the Pacific Coast Conference, including such foes as Buena Park,Lakewood, El Segundo

and Palos Verdes.The Vikings are scheduled to play eight games this season, culminating the 2007

campaign with a showdown against divisional rival Culver City before heading into the playoffs.

Following a 2006 season in which the Vikings were ranked sixth in winning percentage

with playoff losses for two of the squads — the Mitey Mite and the Jr. Pee Wees — falling short

of the ever-so elusive title, the boys are ready to come out strong.“We have a good couple of kids, veterans

coming back and a lot of our new kids are fast and good tacklers,” said 11-year-old Jordan Detamore,

the quarterback for the Pee Wee squad. “I think we are going to do really well this year.”

For Detamore, a sixth grader at John Adams Middle School, there is no feeling like running out on the

field with more than 200 fans cheering him on.“You’re just focused on football,” he said. “You can’t wait for

it to finally start.”The Santa Monica Vikings and the Pacific Coast Conference were once part

of the national Pop Warner youth football league until a divorce between the organizations

about five years ago. The conference then joined American Youth Football, breaking off into its own organization

last year, said Hank Lopez-Ona, the athletic director for the Vikings. With youth football players from the

Westside, the Santa Monica Vikings was founded in 1996, producing stars such as current Samohi starting quarterback

Ryan Katz, who is expected to head to Oregon State University next year.The kids are introduced into the system

at about 7 years of age, starting their football careers with the Mitey Mites and gradually working their way through the

league as they get older to Jr. Pee Wee, Jr. Midget, and Pee Wee before concluding their stay on the Midget squad.

The youngest of the crop usually have no problem grasping the fundamentals of football,said Rick Regalado, the coach of

the Mite Mites. It’s a matter of drilling the same routine in their heads, running the same plays over and over again, he said.

More than half of the students that finish with the Santa Monica Vikings go onto play high school ball, Lopez-Ona

estimated.

Pee Wee Coach Michael Erlich paid a visit to the Santa Monica High School freshman football practice a few weeks

ago, counting 16 kids on the field who once played on his squad. “Ryan Katz who is a stud is a Division one prospect who

came through this program as well and was coached by Regalado,” Erlich said. The coaches all seem optimistic about

the year to come, though each see a different set of challenges. Allan Hanckel, the coach of the Jr. Pee Wee, will oversee

a team with only 19 players, meaning that several kids will play both offense and defense.“The outlook is going to be

dependent on how well we do with the very small squad,”Hanckel said. “We don’t have a lot of kids, but we have a lot of

good kids.” The Jr. Midget squad on the other hand has 35 players total, at least 17 of whom are returning players.

“Everybody is ready,” said Coach Tim Hayes. “These kids are stoked.” The Pacific Coast Conference requires

every single team member be involved with at least six plays, prompting coaches to get creative.Erlich said he tries to

fulfill the minimum requirement by the end of the first half so that in the second half, he can have the strongest 11 players

on the field. The Vikings program has been credited with steering the youth football players in the right direction, keeping

them off the streets and instead focused on the game. In the four years that Ryan Sedighan has played for the Vikings, his

older sister Leila, who has been president of the organization for two years, has seen quite a difference in

her younger brother, not only progression as an athlete, but as a young man. The program has not only boosted his

self-confidence, but his focus on academics, the elder Sedighan said of the 11-year old football player. “It’s not all about

winning or what star athlete you are,” she said. “It’s being part of a team.”