Canton welcomes world junior football event
NORTH CANTON, Ohio — The exhausting 37-hour trip from home was down to its final seconds when New Zealand's team bus pulled off a road in America's football heartland, where summer means picnics, pool parties and two-a-day practices aren't far away.
After the travel-weary Iron Blacks staggered off the charter Tuesday, they walked toward a sun-splashed football field where the U.S. junior national team — comprised of prized college recruits from every corner of the country — was sweating through an afternoon of drills.
Sleep no longer mattered to the Kiwis. They pepped up quickly.
This was why they came.
"Welcome to the United States," said U.S. coach Chuck Kyle, who stopped his team's workout to have his players serve as ambassadors in shoulder pads.
One by one, players and coaches from opposite sides of the planet shook hands, shared smiles and wished each other well.
Football, American-style football, has gone global.
This weekend, the International Federation of American Football is holding its inaugural Junior World Championship, an eight-team tournament for players age 19 and under that could spread the game beyond anything Pop Warner or Pete Rozelle ever envisioned.
Top-seeded Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Japan, Germany, Sweden, France and New Zealand will compete at Fawcett Stadium, just a Joe Montana-to-Jerry Rice pass away from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, a shrine that's more familiar to foreign football players than one might think.
"Some of the guys don't understand why we're in Canton," said Swedish offensive lineman Sebastian Johansson, one of several international players who has played high school football in the U.S. "And some of the guys see it as the most important place in the world."
For the hosts, this is a chance to expand a made-in-America game that youngsters around the world discovered using TV remotes and video-game joysticks. Though the U.S. team is favored to win the title, the Americans are a No. 2 seed because this is their first foray into junior international football.
Kyle, the highly respected coach from Cleveland-area powerhouse St. Ignatius High School, wasn't sure what he was getting into when he was first approached about heading the national team about a year ago. This was a first, so it was going to take some hard work.
"They didn't hand me any manual," Kyle said. "This was the first time. It was like, write the manual. I haven't written that much down."
But after Kyle, who has guided Ignatius to 10 state championships, spoke with Ohio State's Jim Tressel, South Carolina's Steve Spurrier, Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer and other top coaches, the U.S. had a star-spangled American roster for the event, which will conclude with a gold-medal game on July 5.
Sweden coach Jan Jenmert doesn't boast hand-picked stars, but, like Kyle, he does have players who have been tossing footballs around since they were toddlers. In 1985, Sweden was the first European country to start a Pee Wee League and American football has a growing, passionate base of 7,500 players in 76 football clubs.
Jenmert was introduced to the game more than two decades ago by a friend who suggested he take up football to get back into shape.
"I put a helmet on, shoulder pads," he said. "I knew the first hit I got, that this was something interesting. I love this too much. I wanted to continue, so coaching became natural."
Eager for knowledge, Jenmert, who became a Nebraska fan while watching the Cornhuskers on TV in the 1980s, went to Lincoln to learn.
Earlier this week, he and Kyle agreed to a joint practice, a moment Jenmert had trouble imagining just a few years ago.
"It was international history," Jenmert said. "Sweden has never had a chance to compete with a North American team, ever. The kids had a lot of respect for Team USA and that kind of changed a little bit during the practice because they saw that, 'Hey, we can actually make a play here and there."'
