by Sabrina Salas Matanane

Guam - A new football league was supposed to give young adults a chance to return to the gridiron. But instead of making it past the 10-yard line and into the end zone, they've been left on the sidelines, waiting for league organizers to start the clock.

Like many who signed up, Gavin West is on the defensive. "It's just a league that was supposed to happen but never happened," he explained, speaking of the recently established Budweiser Football League for 18-30 year olds. But lately he's been left asking whazzzzuppp?!?!?

He said, "Several guys paid and never got a chance to play, we had a couple scrimmages on Friday night's and Saturday we were just told so many different things, we were hoping the league started but it never did, we never actually had a regular season game we only had scrimmages unfortunately."

According to league coordinator Willy Brennan, he admits they're going through some growing pains. "When you start something new for the first time there is always a challenge, people always want to find out if it's a credible league. We are very fortunate we were able to persuade and convince one of the main sponsors, Budweiser, that we are legit and we are trying to push forward with it," he said.

But players like West paid their $60 fee several months ago, and since then the league's been on timeout, West says they've been told different reasons for the delay of game. "What happened one of the issues we were having is that we didn't have enough officials so with that said kept pushing the league to the right and it ran into the youth football league and the youth is definitely going to have priority over the varsity league," he said.

Brennan says they're trying to tackle the problem, saying, "I strongly feel that the league's going to happen, there's people behind it to make it happen this year, it's just logistics and scheduling because of the limited number of officials on Guam that can accommodate all the football age groups throughout the island."

Brennan now hopes to hold kickoff by the end of the year, saying, "We really apologize and we just want everybody to be patient but we will start it up."

Despite the apology players are growing weary waiting on the sidelines, some just might not even suit up. West said, "A lot of the guys are actually discouraged. I've spoken to a couple of my teammates and I was asking if they were going to play and they were like I'm not going to play. It's not worth it."