Fred Chaney drove to Amherst for three years to give his young son the opportunity to play organized youth tackle football.
That led the elder Chaney to form the Sandusky Bulldogs. He then teamed with Shonsai Aaron, another parent who drove his son back and forth to Amherst, to get the program off the ground 15 years ago.
“I’m not a coach who’s win, win, win,” Chaney says. “We don’t need that. We need to have the proper techniques first and once you have the proper techniques and the proper procedures on how to run a play, then you’ll see the results.”
The results have been impressive.
The Bulldogs operate in the 9U and 11U age divisions and have won multiple state titles, including the 2023 state championship that was run by the Ohio Athletic Committee, an organization formed in 1999 to promote youth athletics across the state. In addition, more than a dozen Bulldog alumni have gone on to play football collegiately.
“The main thing that we stress is that they are student-athletes, students first and athletes second,” Aaron says. “If we don’t take care of business in school, we can’t go out and play football. A lot of kids buy into that, their parents buy into that, and that’s what we really stress.”
The Bulldogs play in the
North Coast Youth Football League, a conference made up of teams from the Cleveland area.
“We play teams from Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Canton,” Aaron says. “We play some of the best teams in the state, all-star teams, elite teams. We go out there and we compete. Some games we win and some we lose, but we never get blown out.”
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Kevin LeeCoach Zay Dickerson works with athletes during practice.Getting It Started
It was decided right from the beginning to charge families that wanted to participate in the program a $100 fee to cover equipment costs, league and referee fees, and insurance. The non-profit group continues to only charge families $100 per athlete to participate, covering shortfalls with grants, and sometimes out of their own pocket.
“We don’t say anything,” Aaron says. “How can we say that just because a parent can’t pay, the kid can’t play."
The Bulldogs do not recruit either. The two teams are open to both boys and girls throughout the area and have had participants from Sandusky, Perkins, Huron, Castalia, Norwalk and Willard. The group does rely on
its Facebook page and word-of-mouth to get kids to sign up.
“We don’t recruit, we don’t tell kids to play for us and not their home school,” Chaney says. “A lot of kids play for their home schools when they get to fifth and sixth grade, and I encourage that, but a lot of kids start with us at eight or nine years old.”
The teams practice across from the old Madison Street school in Sandusky, beginning in July, and play a seven-game schedule with playoffs to follow. Their home games are played at Zierolf Field on Saturdays, with an occasional Sunday date.
Practice sessions begin with weeks of non-contact drills to get the youngsters used to running around in a helmet and shoulder pads. Then, the teams break into age groups with one team practicing for 90 minutes on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other doing the same on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“It’s always safety first,” Chaney says. “The number one thing for us is our fundamentals. I tell the kids and their parents that I’m not so hooked on winning and losing; I’m hooked on teaching the kids the proper techniques. I’m hooked on teaching the kids sportsmanship. I’m hooked on teaching the kids that sense of being on a team and not being an individual athlete.”
During the 9U games, a coach is stationed behind both offensive and defensive lines to provide coaching and encouragement.
“Sometimes I think I’m overprotective because we go a week with helmets and then another two weeks with helmets before we start contact, but it’s our process so the kids feel OK and are not scared of making contact,” Chaney says. “I try to ease them into it. At 9-and-under, I teach, no matter what.”
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Kevin LeeAmir Aaron is now a standout on the Sandusky Blue Streaks football team.Safety First, with Fun
Football is a contact sport and kids do get hurt. Concussions are often the top concern for parents who have children interested in youth football.
“Before we have any kind of practice, I’m taking the kids and going through all types of drills to let them know the proper procedures on how to tackle and I’m overemphasizing the shoulder pads,” Chaney says. “I’m overemphasizing to not lead with the head and overemphasizing the different techniques in tackling. It’s almost non-contact at 9U. It’s several techniques that we use before we ever get to a full-go practice.”
The easing-in period of conditioning before contact drills begin is just one way the Bulldogs address concerns. The coaching staff also takes part in the USA Football Coaches program, which teaches the use of defibrillators and the proper techniques of tackling at every level of the game. In addition, the program stresses that coaches become mentors for the youngsters, something Chaney sees as a very important part of the Bulldogs’ success.
“We go through programs that teach you how to communicate with the kids on their level so you’re not only being a coach,” he says. “If a kid needs to reach out and talk about almost anything, you want to be available for that kid. That’s another reason we started this program, trying to give these kids an outlet.
“I think that’s what our kids need today. They need mentorship to steer them down the right paths and give them an outlet other than just school and home. We give them an outlet to burn the energy they have and, if they get frustrated, they can come here and talk to a coach.”
The Bulldogs do run plenty of football drills during practice, but so is running relay races during the session.
“Our No. 1 goal is to have every kid say they had fun on our team,” Chaney says. “Relays are part of our practice because that’s where competitiveness comes into play, but we’re running back and forth and it’s not football anymore. It’s like we’re playing on the playground.”
Emphasizing the fun aspect is a key element to keeping the kids coming back. It also helps that the coaches are always encouraging each child.
“It’s constant praise,” Chaney says. “We’re always building the kids up at every level. It’s correct, with praise. Everything is done with praise because if you make it fun, they will want to come back.”
“We might dig into the kids a little bit, we might yell a little bit, but there’s no cursing,” Aaron adds. “We don’t curse at the kids at all. That’s something we never do. We’re always preaching physical toughness, mental toughness and just being fundamentally sound.”
Signing Up
The 2024 season began on Aug. 24 with 40 participants between the two teams. Interested kids and their parents can start looking for information to sign up for the 2025 season on the team’s Facebook page—
Sandusky Bulldogs Football. Sign-up information appears the first week of May, the first week of June and the first week of July just prior to the beginning of season practice.
But that’s the only place to find the information. The organization has had its 15-year run without any other form of advertising, other than kids telling other kids about how much fun they had playing for the Bulldogs.
“We’re at every (high school) game and our kids are wearing out jerseys,” says Aaron, who has stepped away from some of his coaching duties to be able to watch his son Amir play for the Blue Streaks on Friday nights and Shonsai Jr. participate on Saturdays for Bluefield State University in West Virginia. “And we have some of the nicest jerseys you’ll ever see.”
It also helps when an alumni of the program winds up playing on the collegiate level. Noah Caston, a member of the 2024 Sandusky High coaching staff, went through the program, as did current Bowling Green State University star Terion Stewart, while Omari Evans, now playing at Penn State, participated in the program before returning to Texas to complete high school.
“We’ve had several of those guys who pop up and we have them talk to the kids, telling them that as student-athletes, student comes first and athlete is second,” Chaney says. “We tell them how important school is, but that football can be an outlet to get to college.”