The South Siskiyou Knights Youth Football program continues to face a player shortage that could cause its teams to be dropped from the Northern California Federation of Youth Football, Inc.
Knights board president Frank Holminski said many attempts are being made to recruit players, including a scholarship program for any eligible student who wants to play on the Midgets team.
The scholarship will pay the $75 fee for new Midgets players in order to make it easier for families to get children involved in Youth Football.
Midgets are considered athletes between 11-14 years old who aren’t in high school.  They also have to be between 110-190 pounds.
Any interested parents can contact. Holminski at 926-6648 or email him at knights@nctv.com.
Lack of participation, especially on the Knights’ Junior Midgets and Midgets teams, has led NorCal Fed to consider terminating the program. 
The end of last season saw both those Knights teams forfeiting the last few games due to players quitting and dropping below 16 players per team required to participate. 
NorCal Fed also has an issue with attendance by Knights fans at away games,
NorCal Fed head commissioner Bill Fox said Youth Football programs depend on gate fees and concessions to help support their teams. If teams are forced to forfeit or have a bye, it hurts the opposing programs also. 
“If nobody is coming then nobody is buying, and this is a losing proposition for everyone,” Fox said. “There are two things towns hate: forfeits and byes.” 
Fox said NorCal Fed had no option when it initially dropped the Knights from the federation for the 2008 season.
But after newly appointed Knights president Frank Holminski and several other board members met with the NorCal Fed board, it accepted a hardship waiver on two conditions:
The Knights board agreed to do everything possible to improve athlete participation, including advertisements in the newspaper, visiting schools, flyers and community calenders.
The second condition is that if participation doesn’t improve and the Knights are forced to forfeit games, the program will be cancelled. 
Holminski said he is doing everything in his power to keep the program going. During this past year, he said the players, coaches, parents and board members raised an unprecedented amount of money to promote the program.
The money will be spent more on getting players to play this year rather than unneeded equipment like new water dispensing systems. 
Holminski said he went to schools at the end of last year and reopened registration to attract players who may not have known about the program. Sign-up booths were located at local businesses in Weed, Mount Shasta, and Dunsmuir. 
Finding players has been a problem for the Knights. Most other teams in the Northern Conference average over 35 players per team, while the Knights average only 21. 
The Knights are still having trouble with numbers despite the incentives.
As of last week, four players had already quit the Midgets team, leaving it with only 14 athletes.
The other Knights teams are holding on, but only by a thread. Junior Midgets and Junior Pee Wees have 17 players each, and the Pee Wees have 20.
Robert Sebastain, the Northern Conference deputy commissioner, said player participation on all teams will be down this year, making the hopes of keeping the local program alive a lot harder. 
Holminski is planning to revisit Weed, Dunsmuir and Sisson elementary schools in order to recruit players. He will also recruit from summer and youth programs for students who aren’t participating enough.   
His plan is to promote the benefits of football, such as friendship, sportsmanship, and physical conditioning. 
“I’m trying to build skills that will help them later in life,” Holminski said. “Winners never quit and quitters will always quit.”   
In an attempt to reach kids of a younger age for future teams, Holminski started a Mighty Mights team, or Bobbleheads, as he calls them.  But this team too was unable to keep its numbers up and had to be disbanded. 
When the team was cancelled, the federation needed to re-do its schedule.  Fox said this wasn’t a good sign for the Knights. 
If more players are not found soon, the Knights program could be terminated, which would force south county athletes who want to continue to join the Yreka team.
Holminski says this potentially could be a problem because Yreka usually isn’t hurting for players.   
Another option is for the Knights to join a Pop Warner league in southern Oregon.
If that happens, the added travel could make things more difficult for parents to allow their children to participate in football.
“Everyone in the league respects us,” Holminski said.  “We play iron man football, which no other teams do.”         
The South Siskiyou Knights are looking for anyone who wants to play football. Both girls and boys are welcomed to come out and participate.