North Pop Warner marks 50 years of pride
The ultimate tribute to a Pop Warner program is when those who played for it as a child either come back to coach it or bring their kids to play.
That is what has made the North Fort Myers Pop Warner football program so special.
Men and women who can remember the good old days when they played at a now-defunct park and weren’t even called the Red Knights, now coaching a new generation of children who may one day bring their kids.
Beside Nate Allen and Tommy Bohanon, few will make a career out of the game. High school is likely as far as they will go. But if the children who play today become productive citizens from the lessons they learned on the field, it’s a victory.
Humble beginnings
The North Fort Myers Pop Warner program was the brainstorm of Ray Wildman, who started the team in 1964.
He and his wife, Mary, had moved here from Englewood, where Ray had coached baseball and thought that by starting a team in North Fort Myers, it would keep them out of trouble.
“He loved kids, and it was in the best interest of the kids here to get something to keep them busy,” Mary Wildman said. “If you kept them off the street, they stayed out of trouble. He was a great man. Nobody ever said a bad word about him.”
The team started in the city league and played its games at J. Colin English Elementary School, practicing at Tice Elementary, according to Mary. Wildman applied for a charter with Pop Warner in 1965 and received it the following year, when they found a park at Waterway Estates to play their games. The park was turned into a football field and a concession stand was created out of a trailer and some wood donated to them, Wildman said. The teams also practiced for a time at Tice Elementary School.
Ray Wildman recruited players, some of which he would pick up and bring to practice and games.
His children, who were barely more than toddlers, would even dress up in miniature football outfits and lead the team onto the field before the game, Wildman said.
Before long, other associations began to form teams. Wildman decided they should all be under one roof. Thus, the Peace River Conference was started. Today, 21 associations in six counties are part of the PRC family.
In the beginning, there were two teams, the Spartans, the younger team, and the Dragons, which Wildman coached. Later, the Trojans were added.
The program would adopt many other names, such as the Raiders and Chiefs. The Red Knights wouldn’t come along until the late 1990s.
“When you talk about the people behind the scenes, Ray was that man,” said current Junior Midget head coach Bill Cartmell. “He was such a great guy. He did so much for kids that people don’t understand. He got us in the right direction.”
The More Things Change
The equipment wasn’t anything like today, with Styrofoam-padded helmets replaced with water and gel filled.
The coaching methods have changed, too. Current Red Knights Pee Wee coach Tim Malone remembered as a young player having to try to tackle telephone poles at practice, and heaven forbid if you stopped for water.
“Those telephone poles wouldn’t move, and there was no such thing as concussions back then,” Malone said. “The coaches used to grab you by the facemask and drag you along. Today, you have to be easier on the kids.”
Cartmell came to coach in the mid 1970s. He said he remembered starting coaching at Waterway Estates before moving to Hancock Park.
While the equipment and coaching techniques have changed, the basic ideology has not, Cartmell said.
“The kids come to play just like the coaches to get in shape to make sure they’re safe and most of all have fun,” Cartmell said. “It doesn’t matter what the record, if we make them better people and teach them football, then we’ve done our job.”
After the Dragons and the Spartans, a Pee-Wee and junior Midget squad were added, with the Mitey-Mites and Tiny-Mites coming along in the mid 1980s, Cartmell said.
The program moved to Hancock Park (now, Kurt Donaldson Park) in 1977 and stayed until 2002, when it moved to its current location at the community park.
Malone said many of the kids today are in much better condition than they were in his day, when they would have to duckwalk and do crabs around the park.
“A lot of kids today are different. They play different sports now as opposed to back then, when one sport was all you could afford,” Malone said.
Donaldson has coached the Red Knights since 1985 and has seen hundreds of his players come through his program. He said while location has changed, much of the program has not.
“It’s still football. We still get great kids and great parents. Football hasn’t changed much except for some of the rules, but football is football,” Donaldson said. “We have a better facility and better training methods. It was a good program then and it still is.”
The real legacy comes from having the coaches coach the kids of the kids they coached years ago.
Smells like Team Spirit
Officially, Pop Warner football didn’t begin a competitive cheer program until around 1978. However, Wildman said cheer and dance have always been a part of the North Fort Myers program.
Mary Wildman coached the cheer squad for 11 years beginning in 1964 when it had a cheer squad and the Dragonettes dance squad. The team practiced at J. Colin English Elementary School, among other places.
“If you didn’t make cheerleading, you were on the Dragonettes and did a dance performance at halftime,” Wildman said. “We practiced wherever we could practice.”
Today, the legacy of cheer is being passed on by those who took part then to the kids today. The cheer program has always been strong, taking many trips to nationals (including three last year) and being a force on game day.
Kari Hardwick, an assistant coach whose husband, Chuck, is president of the league and whose daughter she coaches, has been involved in the program since 1984 and has seen the sport evolve from its rah-rah days to stunt-filled spectacles.
“North has always been a competitive cheer squad. Although back then we competed on the field instead of in (Germain Arena), and everyone competed against everyone else,” Hardwick said. “Today, we are divided by level and experience. Back then it wasn’t as advanced with the stunts.”
Hardwick said that to be able to coach her daughter is exciting, having been able to see her and her friends progress through the ranks for the seven years they have been on the squad.
“It’s nice when we have kids come through our program and go through high school and start coaching,” said Andrea Martin, assistant cheer coordinator, who has been involved for 21 years, since her son and daughter participated. “We have girls who have little girls who come out at 5 years old. It’s neat.”
And today
Wildman stayed active coaching baseball, and gave his moral support to the Pop Warner program after he stopped coaching there, bringing his grandkids with him, who started playing themselves.
Wildman passed away in 2005.
Mary Wildman still attends Pop Warner games and high school games. For the past 42 years she has run Miss Mary’s Day Care on Barrett Road, where one of the cheerleaders she coached now works for her.
There has always been a sense of family at North. For those kids who may not have a great family life at home, they find a family in the program and keep the tradition alive. Kids who went through the program years ago still stop and say hello to the team moms, coaches and teammates they run into at the store.
Fifty years later, the goal hasn’t changed. While the wins are nice, the two big goals have always been to teach players life skills through football and make sure they have fun along the way.
“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs in our 50 years, but more ups than downs. It comes from the coaches who take pride in making North Fort Myers a better program,” Cartmell said. “We don’t get paid, but we want to make young kids into better men.”
“It’s been an honor to coach with these guys and be on the board. We have great coaches and people running the league. We’ve always been well organized,” Donaldson said. “The big thing is teaching discipline and being a better person at the end of the season than at the start.”
“This league has always been a big family. We travel well and we always get big crowds here,” Malone said. “We have a lot of pride here.”