Whether you are looking into joining the Wheaton Academy Football program or already committed, this page is designed to give you information to help you navigate this important transition.
It all begins with Admissions
If you have interest in joining the Wheaton Academy Football program and you are a rising 8th grader, the first step in this journey is to contact the Wheaton Academy admissions office and indicate that you are interested in playing football. Once admissions makes the coaching staff aware of your intentions, we can at that point directly contact you. This also allows our admissions department to guide you through the required enrollment process.
Commitment philosophy
Wheaton Academy Football is a “no cut” fall sport, which means there is a place for anyone who wants to be a part of the program. However, just because there are no tryouts and all athletes are accepted into the program does not mean players can choose to come and go as they please. Being a part of the Wheaton Academy Football program requires a commitment at the beginning of the regular season in August that all players will complete the entirety of the season through October or November, depending on playoff schedules. If coaches are going to commit the time necessary to building up the skill level of a player, we need to know if the player is committed to the program for that season. Players can reevaluate their commitment to the program for the next year following the conclusion of the season.
Team philosophy
There are many reasons that compel an athlete to play the game of football. These reasons more or less motivate the athlete to endure the grind of learning the system, countless practices, off-season speed and performance and weight lifting sessions, countless film sessions all while balancing a rigorous academic load. One reason, though, must become a core consideration of a Wheaton Academy Football player: The Team
Individual decisions on the part of a Wheaton Academy Football player not only impacts oneself, but it impacts the other 70 or so members of the team whom rely on that single player. This is a core teaching of leadership that we instill on day one: that a player on this team is not only considering themselves in their actions, but their teammates. A Wheaton Academy Football player will not advance far in this program if they are making decisions solely based upon their own needs and not of the team as a whole.
Annually we as a coaching staff individually sit down with and have our varsity players sign our Code of Expectations document, which further highlights our team philosophy at the program’s higher level.
The season schedule and the importance of Summer Football Camp
The annual rythym for the football program looks something like this:
June-July: Summer Football Camp, Monday through Thursday mornings for 8 weeks
Second week in August: Regular season practices begin, Monday through Saturday
End of August: Games begin, practices Monday through Thursday, games on Friday (with some Monday games for JV)
End of October/November (playoff schedule dependent): Season ends
January through May: Off season speed and performance and weight training
Multiple sport athletes will follow the schedule of their in-season team and are exempt from off-season football training.
We cannot emphasize enough how important the Summer Football Camp is. Summer is the time when we install the entire offensive and defensive playbooks while taking the time to develop fundamentals for first-year players. Rising freshmen who attend Summer Camp naturally have a leg-up on others who did not or could not attend due to conflicts. While missing Summer Camp should never dissuade an athlete from joining the team in August (we WILL coach you up), you can help yourself out tremendously by attending the summer sessions, even if a family vacation interrupts a portion of your attendance.
The fee for the 8-week Summer Football Camp runs approximately $250 and includes training gear that the athlete will use throughout the regular season.
Balancing multiple sports
Wheaton Academy encourages athletes to play multiple sports if desired. There will be inevitable conflicts during the summer and possibly throughout the year depending on school or club sport tournaments, practices, games, etc. It is imperative that the athlete who competes in multiple sports communicates with their coach at the onset of the summer or regular season their availability and to work out an agreement as to when they will or will not be present. What is detrimental to a team, be it football or the other sport in question, is when an athlete fails to show up to practice and it wasn’t communicated beforehand. All coaches can arrange practice differently if they know in advance when a player will not be present.
First-year expectations
I will not sugar-coat it: the first year of high school football is difficult. Regardless of if an athlete comes from having youth football experience or not, the demands of practice, training, the learning of a high school football system and more intensive position training all contribute to a first-year player at some point wondering if they made the right decision in playing. It’s not easy, but the challenge makes successfully enduring through the first year all the more satisfying.
Add to this challenge the fact that Wheaton Academy has two levels of competitive play: Varsity and Junior Varsity. Our JV program competes against other programs who are effectively fielding sophomores, which means freshman will likely see limited playing time in their first year. I would encourage all freshmen on the team to come in with the expectation that their first year is a building experience developing the skills, size, strength and experience necessary to compete at the sophomore level. It’s not to say that there is not a chance to play as a freshman, but in so doing you will have to show that you can perform at a level equal to a second-year player.
This comes back to some of the reasons one remains on the Wheaton Academy Football Team: the ability to be a part of something bigger than yourself, the influence you make on others on the team and others make on you, and the what the lessons of steadfastness and patience yield down the road. It’s worth it, ask our seniors!
Safety, issued equipment and season fees
One of the main reasons parents withhold their athletes from playing football is around the issue of safety. As coaches and as an athletic department, we take this issue very, very seriously.
The game of football at the high school level has evolved significantly in areas of player safety in the past 20 years. At Wheaton Academy, our practices are structured in ways in which contact is limited to only the sessions in which it is critical to teach a particular skill and the vast majority of contact occurs within a few feet from a teammate. Such practices are in line with the volumes of research conducted that indicate culmulative levels of contact play more into the overall health of an athlete than anything else. Our athletes have less than 50% of the contact today than previous generations of players while maintaining the same level of competitive skill.
Add to this that Wheaton Academy is one of only a handful of programs nationally that employ the use of the highest rated Vicis helmets, Shutt F7 2.0, and Ridell SpeedFlex helmets, all used at the collegiate and NFL level and are rated at the very top of the safety spectrum. These revolutionary helmets have a compressible soft shell exterior and extensive buffering system that eliminates impact significantly. Concussive injuries on the football team have lowered below several other Wheaton Academy sports, a testimony to just how powerful these helmets are to the game.
In addition, when concussions are suspected and working in conjunction with our athletic training staff, we operate according to a strict concussion protocol that ensures a player is isolated from practice and returns to play only after successfully completely the entire protocol.
In addition to the issued helmet, a player is issued shoulder pads, mouthguard, practice pants and pads and practice and game jerseys. Workout shorts and shirts are provided as well. Parents are responsible for providing football cleats and it is highly recommended to purchase an integrated hip girdle that greatly simplifies getting dressed each day for practice.
Season fees are $500, which covers the costs of the annual helmet reconditioning and certification process, workout gear, team meals and special team events.
Relationships that will last a lifetime
Wheaton Academy Football Alumni return to Performance Trust Field all the time to witness what the next generation of WA football players are doing to carry on the legacy they set years ago. Our players keep in touch with each other for years after their graduation, all because of the shared experience of serving together in excellence on the football team. Our alumni play and played at all levels of college football, or chose not to play at all. Regardless, what they experienced here at Wheaton Academy and the teammates they played with over four years of being a Wheaton Academy Football player is part of the fabric of their life forever. It’s what make Wheaton Academy Football set apart from playing football elsewhere.
Becoming a part of Wheaton Academy Football will shape your leadership and form relationships that will last a lifetime.