As President of SMPW for the past 20 years, I want to share why I believe your son or daughter should play football with SMPW.   I also had 3 sons play at SMPW who started out playing at Flag and went through our program, played in high school and two went on to play in college.   This feedback also is from the perspective of my 24 years of head coaching in SMPW and at high school.

While we are not perfect, I believe we provide the following that you will not find with other options:

1. Safety matters at SMPW.    We don't just say it, we demand it of every volunteer and coach.   Every volunteer must take a safety course every year.   Every coach must not only attend a mandatory conference training, but at SMPW we require our coaches to attend 2 additional sessions that SMPW requires.   All coaches attend and participate or they don't coach.   Every coach goes through a background check that SMPW conducts in coordination with local law enforcement.  Every coach goes through an established interview protocol no matter how many years they have coached. We have a safety manager that does an investigation on any and all incidents.  At SMPW, coaches are monitored regularly.   If they don't follow the rules, they don't coach.  
   
2. Coaching - I believe SMPW has the best coaches.   Many of our head coaches have been high school coaches.   Many do not even have kids on the teams.   There are 3 mandatory coach clinics that SMPW coaches must attend.  We know that coaches make the difference in how your athlete develops and has a direct reflection on the fun, safety and future success that they will have.
3. Life Lessons - I believe that SMPW reflects the video link at the top of the home page.   That is what we want to be and I think we are close across the board.   Please watch.  Character matters at SMPW and that is required of our teams and coaches.   You get what you earn......you must work hard for what you want....and if it does not go the way you want all the time(it won't) what we teach is "WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT" and provide the support.   We are talking LIFE SKILLS here that are hard to get sometimes in other activities.  
4. More than Athletics - SMPW has had over 7000 players go through the system.   We have had 4000 play high school football and over 700 play in college but it is more than that.   I know so many SMPW alumni that are doctors, lawyers, business owners etc.    SMPW is a vital component in leadership development.   The push for every player to be a leader on the football field transitions to the classroom and life.   One of my best personal examples of success beyond the game field was from this past year where the team I was fortunate to coach not only got to the Championship, but the most important success is that they EARNED the conference SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD.   Character matters, life lessons matter!  

I don't know of any other youth program/class/seminar/school that you can sign you son or daughter up for and get the above.

Sincerely,
Mark Graves
SMPW President