Palatine Mayor Cancels Season For Flag Football League He Founded

PALATINE, IL — A kids' flag football league created by Palatine's mayor has been canceled this year, and its founder, a former NFL player, thinks it's because of parents' increased concern over the safety of the sport, according to the Daily Herald. The decision not to hold the 2017 season for the Northwest Flag Football League came after the league received a low number of registrations by its early August deadline, the report added.

Mayor Jim Schwantz — whose time in the NFL during the 1990s included playing stints with the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers and winning a Super Bowl ring with the Dallas Cowboys — launched the NWFFL in 2012 as a flag football league for boys in kindergarten through eighth grade. Along with not letting the players tackle, the Palatine-based league also had a unique vision when it came to participation.

"Our philosophy is not to pigeon hole players," the league's website states. "We believe in equal playing time and giving kids the opportunity to play every position regardless of size or ability." (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest Palatine news. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

That approach allowed the NWFFL to foster the creation of multi-sport athletes, according to the website. The NWFFL employed paid coaches with years of college and high school experience, and it stressed no weekend commitments for its players, who practiced and played at Harper College, one of the league's partners.

The NWFFL started with around 90 boys in 2012, but that decreased to about 60 last year, the Herald reports. And while a summer football camp at Harper's had good attendance, registration for the flag football league dropped off enough for Schwantz to cancel this year's season, the report added.

Schwantz told the Herald he attributes the lack of turnout to a nationwide concern over the physical affects of football, particularly the damage caused by concussions. Even though the NWFFL is a no-contact league, he thinks many parents still associate it with tackle football.

"Inherently, [football is] a dangerous game, there's no doubt about it," Schwantz told the Herald. "And I don't know that people were able to separate flag from the tackle. I think there's a natural progression in the minds of parents that if you play flag, eventually you will end up playing tackle. I think there were decisions being made that we just don't want our kids involved in the sport of football."

But no NWFFL in 2017 doesn't mean it won't return next year.

"It's not anything that we think is done forever," Schwantz told the Herald.

More via the Daily Herald

Image via Northwest Flag Football League | Patch archives

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