The Santa Monica Youth Football and Cheer hosts their first game in the Pacific Coast Conference American youth football league at Santa Monica College this Saturday featuring the midget division of the Santa Monica Vikings versus the Lakewood Longhorns.
Younger divisions will be playing starting at 9 a.m. and continuing throughout the day.
The Vikings are an eighth grade level team supervised by Head Coach Nick James and next year many of its players will be going to the local public and private football programs in the Santa Monica area including Santa Monica High School, St. Monica High School, Venice High School, and Palisades Charter High School.
The Vikings have been training at John Adams Middle School throughout the summer in order to prepare for their fall 2012 season.
According to Mark Casillas, offensive and defensive line coach for the Vikings, the Santa Monica team is “the oldest youth football program in Santa Monica.”
The National Football League recently took interest in the Santa Monica Youth Football and Cheer camp.
Peter Berg, of the NFL, got involved with the Vikings this summer and helped out the coaches and team “making sure that the younger divisions were wearing the latest proper protective gear,” during training sessions.
Riddell, a popular sports merchandising company, donated forty top-of-the-line Riddell 360 Youth Helmets to the Vikings program in order to help improve youth safety on the Vikings team this summer.
The game is home on the Corsairs field at Santa Monica College Saturday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m.
