Building a pee wee football dynasty in Eastlake

A football dynasty has been built at a Chula Vista park, next to the playground and basketball court with its metal chain nets.

For four days a week, two and a half hours a day, the Eastlake Panthers Junior Pee Wee Black practiced here on MacKenzie Creek Road from late July to Labor Day. After then, practice was reduced to three days a week, two hours a day, no different from every other team in the American Youth Football and Cheer.

It is how the Panthers practice that has led to three straight San Diego Championships and three National Youth Football western titles in the last four years, the latest coming on Nov. 27 for the 10- to 11-year-old players and their coaching staff.

“For us, the conditioning is definitely the foundation,” said head coach Clark Moses, whose team also won the national championship in Florida in 2008. “From there, it’s the intensity and the competitiveness of the practices.”

A sight to see.

Next to the basketball court, a grassy hill slants down into a modestly sized field. The hill’s incline isn’t Everest, but it’s steep enough when running up and down it for 15 to 20 minutes at the start of every practice.

That is only the beginning.

Suicides. Sprints. Snakes. Up-downs. All closely supervised by a close-knit, eight-man coaching staff.

“We can go into the 10th overtime, and we’re not going to get tired compared to all the running we do in practice,” said Kyle Moses, the 11-year-old son of Clark.

Added Max Schwenke, who also is 11: “It’s like we’re nonstop.”

His father, Lomax Schwenke, is the team’s strength and conditioning coach, a duty he shares with coach Ike Owens.

Lomax practices yoga and incorporates certain poses — plank, half moon, downward dog — into stretching.

The work at the MacKenzie Creek Park comes in handy off the field, too.

“For me, for my son, it’s not just football,” Lomax said. “I can see that the work ethic he puts out here, it’s the same work ethic he’s doing for his schoolwork, which is good. Don’t just be one those jocks out there but a knucklehead in the classroom. It’s the same for the rest of the players. You can just see it in the way they walk off the field. They’re confident.”

They have every reason to be, especially on game days.

At San Diego’s Junior Pee Wee Football Tournament, Eastlake avenged its one regular season loss to Skyline with a 20-6 semifinals win.

Skyline’s touchdown came on the opening kickoff return, and it was the only allowed by Eastlake in the four-game tournament.

It won the county title game, called the “Super Q Bowl” at Southwest College, defeating Point Loma’s Coastal Blue 18-0.

In Las Vegas, the Panthers defeated the Solano Warriors 21-0 to win the Western Division.

“I feel excitement for the kids to see how hard they’ve worked and to see it pay off,” Clark Moses said. “Just to see the correlation of hard work and results. It’s good to see them get the accolades.”

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Posted by Eastlaketimes on Dec 18 2010. Filed under Community of Eastlake, Eastlake Sports, Family, Football in Eastlake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry