by Dave Delgado
Guam - Yigo native Daniel Cruz relocated to the mainland and is in charge of running a highly successful Pop Warner youth football league in Southern Georgia. "We have been coaching for about eight years with the recreational department and the opportunities for the kids were really just minimal," he told KUAM Sports. "We just pretty much played football and we have been talking about Pop Warner and the opportunities that we can offer the kids through Pop Warner and this year we finally just said let's do it and went for it with Pop Warner."
"With the recreational department you just have your season and then maybe have 1 tournament, with Pop Warner our goal is to try and get down there with the Pop Warner Playoffs, the Super Bowl. We just got with coaches with the same long tern goals and pushed forward and made this thing happen. We brought it to the state and we are the first ones in the state, South Georgia Pop Warner," Cruz added.
He also talked about the support from the local community, the business community and the parents, saying, "As soon as we found out that we were officially the first Pop Warner League in Georgia the buzz just started rolling. We got calls from the congressman of Georgia asking if we needed any kind of support from them and they wanted to come down to our meetings. We had the high school in our city offer us to play our home games at their stadium on Saturdays. We've had commissioners, some of the recreational departments calling and finding out what we need and letting us know that any kind of support that they're right there for us. The parents just from them knowing us they call us every day asking when do we sign up or are they too late. They want their kids to be a part of this thing."
He also said, "With us being from Guam I think one of the biggest strengths we have as coaches is we teach these kids how to be proud of their team and how to be proud of their family. They are like our family, you know how we do on Guam, and so these kids are like our family. They draw to it, the parent's draw to it. We even had kids that came out and want to play, 2-3 weeks into practice they go home and their parents are telling us that they went home and draw "W's" and stars on their shirts just to let them know that that's the team he plays on. Or I had kids putting their report cards on my Facebook letting me know that they made the 2.0 minimum to play Pop Warner. We just give everything to them and teach them how to be a family and teach them how to be young men and their drawn to it and the parents love it. The parents want their kids to hang out with son's everyday so my wife always says we have like 150 kids.
"I definitely want to take the top kids, athletically and academically to a good trip like to Guam and see where we come from. There are 4 of us, me and my brothers and we have touched thousands of kids in these last 8 years. They know where we're from, they come to our house and barbeques. If I can take a team or a bunch of kids to Guam and let them see where we started playing football that would be an ultimate step right there."
