Cerciello 1

Anthony Cerciello
Professor Podhurst
10 April 2019
Sociology of Sports 215
Personal Sport Experience
My paper is going to be about the journey through NJFFA. My journey starts off as a
kindergartener flag football player, then I talk about playing in the Giants practice bubble and
playing in Giants stadium as a kid, then as I got older we upgraded quarterbacks and had an
undefeated season and now I continue my journey as a flag football referee. For people who
don’t know what NJFFA is, it is the New Jersey Flag Football Association.
The NJFFA is available to children grades kindergarten all the way up until 8th grade.
Flag Football is played on Sundays, sometimes Saturdays in Wayne, near route 23. The season is
ten games long including 2 extra consolation games or 4 playoff games for the teams who were
most successful during the season. “The game features the much of the same strategy and skills
used in tackle football, but without most of the contact. The style is very similar to the "passing"
leagues and tournaments that the HS teams play in during the summer, but flag football offense
includes running plays as well” (NJFFA.org).
My journey started off when I was in kindergarten playing for the Bears. The team
consisted of me and eight other friends. One of my buddy’s dads was the head coach, another
one of my friend’s dad was the defensive coordinator, and then my dad took care of the
substitutions, to make sure everyone was getting a fair chance.
After a very successful season we got a chance to play in the old Giants stadium practice
bubble. We played against the Dolphins our first game. One of the kid’s father played in the
NFL, Will Allen. I will always remember that name because one of my friends made a diving
play to grab his son’s flag to prevent a touchdown. The NFL star congratulated my buddy, we
talk about it to this day. We won three games and then advanced to play in Giants stadium. I am
a Dallas Cowboys fan, but man was it awesome to be five, six years old and to stand on an NFL
field, that’s one feeling I will never forget. We ended up losing in Giants stadium, I don’t want to
point any fingers, but one of my friends burnt his hand on a fire pit the night before and wasn’t
able to compete with us.
 Cerciello 2

One year once we got older we upgraded coaches. It was around 6th or 7th grade. My
buddy’s dad who was the defensive coordinator met this quarterback coach one day, who just
moved to our city. Flag football came up in conversation, and this coach offered to coach our
team, and even better, he was going to see if his “stud” quarterback wanted to come play for us.
The coach was a quarterback coach at Overtime sports. We were a very fast and athletic team,
we were filled with skilled players, but none of us was better than the other at throwing the
football. This was exciting news.
The quarterback happily accepted and showed up to our next practice. He looked much
taller and bigger than us, but it turned out he was actually a year younger than us. We lined up to
run our usual route tree. Our first route was a slant. My buddy ran the slant and our new
quarterback pegged him in the chest. Route after route our skilled position players’ hands turned
into cement. We decided to speak up as a group, and we told him he needed to throw a little
lighter if he wanted us to actually catch it. We understood he had to throw it hard enough to get it
to us, but if we are unable to catch it, that’s an even bigger problem. We ended up working out
the issue within minutes. Everything was back to normal, but this time we had a stud
quarterback. We ended up going 10-0 that year easily, this quarterback was a freak, he lead us
perfectly when we were open, when we were covered he threw us away from the defender and
made us open, and most of all this kid was QUICK. In this Flag Football league the quarterback
can’t run the ball. Our brilliant coach came up with this loophole though. We would put our
quarterback at running back. Every play started as a half back toss, which gave our stud
quarterback the option to run or pass, because he would be considered the running back. This kid
would scramble twenty yards behind the line of scrimmage and then throw a 30-yard bomb down
field. He was unstoppable at this age. He gave the receivers all the time in the world to get open
if we were covered. I remember one game he kept scrambling around and just heaved a bomb to
my friend, he caught it and scored a touchdown. I went to our quarterback, “How the hell did
you complete that pass?” He looked me dead in the eye and said, “I don’t know bro, everything
started to look the same, to be honest, I just chucked the ball as far as I could.”
We went 3-0 in the playoffs with ease. In the championship game the game was much
closer than it should have been. We were playing the second best team, who was this tackle
football team that was younger than us. We knew them from school, so they were our rivals.
There were many controversial calls throughout the forty-minute game. We got some calls are
 Cerciello 3

way, and we got screwed by some calls too. We ended up winning the game, because I got a
game sealing interception at the end . We were so upset with the refs after the game for
making the game much closer than it should have been. There were so many blown calls and my
teammates and I the whole game just kept complaining, “How do you miss that? Are you
kidding me? How do you not call that?”
After you finish the Spring season your 8th grade year, you are no longer able to play in
the league. I was going into high school at the time and did not have a job. My dad looked at me
and goes, “Don’t you want some extra spending money for high school? Why don’t you ask
Dave Stys (NJFFA commissioner) for a job? We used to play softball together, I’m sure he
would hire you.” After thinking about it, I figured why the hell not, how hard could it be? I
emailed him later that week and he told me I could ref for him. Dave did not tell me anything
besides, “Show up on time, bring a whistle, a stopwatch, and buy a referee shirt from a Sporting
Goods store. I showed up that Sunday morning ten minutes early, Dave welcomed me and gave
me a little tennis ball, a rubber band and a ripped yellow shirt and said, “Make a flag with this,
you’re on field two.” I grabbed it in confusion and walked towards the nearest field. “That’s field
one!” Dave yelled. I was already screwing up and the games didn’t even start yet. One of the
other officials helped make my flag for me, while I set up the field for him. I was one of three or
four refs on the field that day. The head referee told me, “Just stand on the sideline, make sure
the parents are stay off the field, don’t throw a flag unless I do, and blow your whistle loud!”
That was my fall season in my first year of officiating, I was a freshman in high school at
the time. I am now a junior at Montclair State University and I am still officiating flag football.
Throughout the years I have recruited numerous of my friends to ref too. This is my 7th year. I
have officiated 13 seasons. I am now one of six head refs, very high in seniority list to get the
hours you want. There are usually three refs on the field and about 90% of the time, it’s me and
two of my best friends, all officiating the same games which is awesome.
In my opinion officiating flag football was one of my best decisions. I am in love with the
game of football so it keeps me close to the game. I grew up in the NJFFA, so for me to be in
control of the games I am very appreciative. It is really fun to watch the older kids when they
play, because you can easily tell which kids are much better than others. It’s even funny with the
little kids. Sometimes they run the wrong way, and just keep running. Other times they just run
 Cerciello 4

directly out of bounds while they have the full field ahead of them. I really like trying to help and
teach the little kids, I feel really happy when I get to interact and teach them a thing or two.
One of the best parts of the job in my opinion is watching the parents on the sideline.
Every parent thinks their kid is the next Tony Romo or Deion Sanders. The majority of the moms
are beautiful, so that’s always good too. The dads take their kindergarten games very serious.
They are not afraid to get into a college kids face simply because two kindergarteners bumped
into each other, and the parent thinks it should be a tackle. The way I handle these situations are,
I try to be as calm as possible. The reason I try to be calm is because I know I used to freak out
on the refs when I played too. I thought they were crazy when they missed calls, but it happens a
lot more than expected. I have had to throw a couple parents out for getting too involved in the
game or for inappropriate language. I also had this one parent follow me to my car addressing me
about the game.
In conclusion, the NJFFA has helped me become the person I am today. I am so thankful
to have a community where I was able to play flag football from kindergarten up until 8th grade.
For players who like football, but don’t feel comfortable playing tackle yet, I highly recommend
flag football. NJFFA has taught me the basics of football and helped me with teamwork since I
was a little kid. The opportunity to stay in the league as a referee is something special to me too.
I love the opportunity to help kids, coach them, control parents and just be outside watching
football and getting paid to do so.