O’FALLON, MO – With parents spending ridiculous amounts of money hoping their kids get scholarships right out of the womb, Reality TV shows, and concussion issues… youth sports has become a multimillion dollar business. In St Louis it’s no different, but this season a 7th grade team called the Christian Junior Eagles had a great season on and off the field.
The Eagles (coached by Mike McMullen, a former professional baseball pitcher and current arena football quarterback for the River City Raiders) had a season that hopefully other youth programs will follow. The Eagles had a record of 10-1. Their quarterback threw for over 1700 yards and 24 touchdowns and their running back rushed for over 1100 yards and 12 touchdowns, but that’s not what coach McMullen was most proud of.
“School comes first on this team,” said McMullen, “We had 25 young men on this team and 22 of them were on honor roll at their schools. I require every player to produce a progress report and report cards when they come in.”
In fact, one of McMullen’s coaches would pick up a player from after-school tutoring that the coach forced the player to attend.
“A kid was struggling in school and turned it around. That was my most important victory.” McMullen said.
On the field the Christian Junior Eagles were just as successful. The Eagles are a part of the Gateway Football Conference and were the undefeated conference Champions and played in the league Championship game. The Eagles played 11 games recording 8 shutouts while averaging 33 points a game and were ranked 5th in the nation by gennexxt http://mygennexxt.com/page/nat-l-team-rankings.
On offense the team was led by quarterback Kaden McMullen who completed 69% of his passes for 1,702 yards and 24 touchdowns with only 2 interceptions. McMullens favorite targets were receiver Keijuan Howard 22 rec 540 yards 6 touchdowns and Matthew Omoresemi 19 reception 457 yards and 7 touchdowns. The Eagles could run it as well led by running back Amar Johnsons 1,150 yards and 12 touchdowns. The O-line, which led the way for the offense, was anchored by 245 pound Collin ‘Hot Sauce’ Hutson and Dominic Edwin.
The defense was just as impressive with 4 players recording 50 or more tackles (Alex Heitmann 56 , Keijuan Howard 56, Cole Wunderlich 54 and Chris Futrell 50) with Howard leading the team with 4 interceptions as well.
With the Eagles season being over, they are trying to get Snoop Dogg’s team (Diamond Valley Steelers) to agree to play a game next season in August.
“Snoop put on twitter that he wanted to play the teams in the top 5,” said McMullen, “He went down and played the #1 team in Florida so why not come down and play us in August during the preseason? I look at it like a Nelly vs Snoop Dogg game, maybe they both can be involved.”
Here is the teams website http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=mreagles&sid=797419754
1 comment
thanks for the write up. Anyone know snoop or nelly ?
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