In-School Fitness Program

The Sacramento Sirens organization is committed to teaching children in the community about the importance of physical health and fitness. The "In-School Fitness Program" was established for this purpose with players reaching out directly to children while they're at school. Players explain about football, safety, conditioning and the importance of studying, both on and off the field. Pads, helmets and gear are passed around during the presentation and the children are brought out to the school field to participate in a few drills that players themselves go through.

The Sirens would like to personally thank Mr. Spinner and his 4th grade class for their wonderful participation during this program. Please click here if you would like to view more pictures from Mr. Spinner's class and the In-School Fitness Program at Frontier Elementary.

If you are interested in this program for your school, please send an e-mail with your contact information to: programs@sacramentosirens.com.

PRESENTATION DETAILS
Sirens players discuss the importance of "persistence", "cooperation" and "competition" as it applies to trying out for the team, working hard during practice and always trying to improve.

The Game: Football is a competition between 2 teams that both want to move the football to their end of the field to score a goal. Football can be a pretty rough game so we wear a lot of protective equipment to help keep us from getting hurt. There are a maximum of 53 players on each professional football team. There are 11 players from each team on the field at one time. Those 11 players cooperate with each other to do their job. So we cooperate with the other players on our own team but we compete with the players from the other team. Each team is divided into 2 parts, offense and defense, and each part has different jobs.

The offense is the part of the team that takes the ball and tries to get it to the end zone to score a touchdown for the team. The defense is the part of the team that tries to keep the other team from scoring.

When the Sirens offense is on the field, the other team’s defense is out there to try to stop us. When the other team has the ball and their offense is trying to score, our defense is trying to stop them. So offense and defense are opposite parts of the team.

On the offense, there is a Quarterback who decides how we are going to try to get the ball down the field. She will usually throw the ball or give it to another player to run. Then there are 5 players who protect the Quarterback from the other team and we call them the offensive line. Usually these are the biggest players on the team. And then there are 5 other people who can run with the ball or catch it if the Quarterback throws it to them. These are the fastest runners and best catchers.

The defense has the same number of players as the offense but their only job is to try to stop the offense from scoring. Sometimes they do that by not letting the offense catch or run the ball down the field. Sometimes the defense takes the ball away from them instead. But the main job of the defense is to defend their end zone so the other team can’t score. Defensive players need to be fast, strong, and tough.

Preparation: Playing football is not an easy sport. First, we have to keep in shape so we do stretches and warm-up exercises. This is very important so that our muscles are loose and ready to move during practice drills and scrimmages. This helps prevent injuries from muscles that are tight and can easily be pulled and hurt without stretching.

Drills are specific exercises for the positions we play on the team. Offense and defense do different things in these drills. The offense may do running and blocking drills while the defense does hitting and tackling drills.

Players' Homework: In addition to what we do on the field, we also have to do homework. We don’t just run around and hit people on the field at random - we learn football “plays”. Our coaches give us plays on paper and we have to study and learn them just like you all learn things here in the classroom. The X’s and O’s represent players on the field and other lines indicate where they are supposed to move. This will help us better compete against our opponents.

After we have looked at the plays on paper, we try to make them work on the field. This is where cooperation becomes so important. Every player needs to cooperate with each other to make the plays work. If only one person out of the 11 on the field does their own thing, our play doesn’t work correctly and we don’t achieve our goal.

Teamwork, preparation and perseverence are all keys to success both in the classroom and on the field. The Sirens organization wishes all the children we visit tremendous success in both your sports and life careers!

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