Undefeated Steelers Take State Crown

A goal line stand in overtime made the 30 eight- and nine-year-olds comprising the 8U2 New Haven Steelers youth football team Connecticut’s undisputed state champions.

The play took place this past Sunday when the team completed its 10th win in an undefeated season.

Since August, the 30 eight- and nine-year olds have played in searing heat, under driving rain, amid fierce winds. Sometimes they fought among themselves. Sometimes they felt like giving up.

All of it was worth it, it seems. Now that they finished the season as state champs, they are practicing for the next challenge: On Sunday, they’ll represent Connecticut when they vie with the Mattapan (Mass.) Patriots for the title of Northeast Regional champions in a national Pop Warner League showdown in West Haven.

During a break in their Tuesday evening practice at DeGale Field, some of the players, clad in yellow-and-black jerseys and pads, recounted that final play.

“Sunday was our closest game,” said quarterback Bryce Jones, one of the five team captains, as he stood under the lights in the bone-chilling air. ​“We were down in the fourth quarter, and we came back to tie, so it was 13 – 13.”

That meant overtime.

Chase King, another captain who plays both running back and cornerback, took it from there.

“We won the coin toss, and we scored first, and E.J. [William McClary] scored the extra point,” he recounted.

It was 20 – 13, Steelers.

“This was the team from Danbury, and they’re definitely the second-best team in the state, and they lost only two times — to us,” said Coach Lovale Morrison. ​“They wanted this game.”

“Then they scored,” said E.J. McClary, who plays safety. Alone among his teammates he was wearing a black jersey. He couldn’t find his practice jersey, he said.

It was 20 – 19. From the one-yard line, the Danbury team prepared to go for the extra point.

“I was surprised when we stopped them,” Damar Eddins said.

On the final play, he was on the defensive line as a linebacker.

“They played hard and we played hard but then we got more focused at the end,” he said. ​“We did everything we could, and we stopped them by listening to our coaches and doing what our coaches told us to do.”

Coach Morrison, who has led youth football and baseball teams for the last 27 years, offered a similar take.

“From the beginning of the season to here, I never expected to get this far,” he said. ​“It started like the Bad News Bears. We’ve got a lot of competitive kids, a lot of kids with different attitudes.”

The challenge, he said, ​“was to get them together as brothers, just like a family, to be more than teammates.” He gave the kids his phone number. Some of his coaches took them out to Dave & Buster’s, and to other activities outside football.

Along the way, the team adopted a rallying gesture, one that had them pressing their index fingers to their lips to simulate shushing.

“We leave it on the field,” Morrison said. ​“That’s our motto. We do our talking on the field; we take care of business on the field.”

For Morrison, it’s just as much about what happens off the field.

“Football is a game,” he said. ​“You learn a lot playing, but that’s not enough. We want to make the kids understand that playing football is a privilege. You gotta earn it. To play football you have to go to school, you have to do well in school.”

Morrison said the players are required to get regular progress reports from their teachers. ​“If they’re not doing well in school, no football. That’s a league rule,” he said.

Tynay King, one of the three ​“team moms,” saw the impact on her son Chase.

“That was big, making sure he stayed on top of his grades,” she said. ​“It taught him how to get his schoolwork done before football practice. As soon as he got off the bus, he’d be sitting at the table doing homework.”

Shatea Threadgill, another team mom (and part of the Bethea Nation Drill and Drum Squad Corps dynasty), agreed.

“I was so proud of Jay, because the whole season he struggled with math to the point that his grade three weeks ago was a D, and I told him, ​‘If you don’t get your grades together, you cannot play,’” she said.

Threadgill received a call from his teacher the next day. ​“Jay told her he wanted to work on his grade, and they came up with a plan. At the end of the semester, he was up to a B‑minus,” she said. ​“I was like, ​‘I’ll take it.’ I know he worked for it, so Imma take it.”

King said she was particularly proud of the captains, known as the ​“Fab Five.”

“They showed leadership,” she said. ​“They didn’t get sidetracked or distracted by what was going on around them. They rose above. They definitely set an example for the other kids. They see them getting along and picking each other up, it makes them want to do that too.”

By then, practice had resumed. Under the lights, players did tackle drills, danced between cones, went through offensive formations.

They have more practices planned for Thursday and Saturday leading up to the Sunday game, which will be their last of the season.

Over it all, Coach Morrison’s voice rang out in the cold night air.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” he said. ​“Buckle down. That’s alright. Try it again. You got this. We got this. We got this.”