By Brian Klinger, Dave Flynn and Mike Flynn
We are happy to announce that the Junior Colonials Football club and the Morristown Wildcats Football club have mutually agreed to combine their youth athletic programs.
The children in the Morris School District will now have one football and cheerleading program in town, focused on friendships and athletics. This combined organization will take effect immediately so we can quickly prepare for a successful 2013 season.
Brian Klinger of the Wildcats organization will be serving as club president of the combined organization. Dave and Mike Flynn of the Junior Colonials will be contributing to the organization in a senior level coaching capacity for the older kids in the tackle program. Combined Brian, Mike and Dave bring 50-plus years of youth coaching experience to the organization.
Jennifer Curnow and Chrissy Croonquist of the Junior Colonials organization will have ultimate responsibility for managing the Cheer program. Over the last seven years, Jen and Chrissy were responsible for building the Junior Colonials cheer program from the ground up to 100-plus girls on an annual basis.
Why combine clubs?
Both organizations feel it is in the best interest of the kids to have one program to practice effectively, learn the fundamentals, and be competitive in a league. From a historical perspective, Morristown has always had a very strong football and cheerleading program when the town had a unified organization. Over the past seven years both clubs have struggled just to be competitive, at best, in their respective programs.
How will this be accomplished?
Both clubs worked hard to find a simple, cost effective way to combine the programs for the benefit of all the families involved. The challenges include: Accounting, legal issues, costs involved, logistical challenges, physical equipment inventories, uniform conditions, etc.
As a result, the mutual decisions agreed for the combined organization are as follows:
The combined team will be called the Morristown Wildcats and will wear the maroon and white colors to follow the high school.
For the 2013 season, the 3rd-, 4th- and 5th grade tackle teams will continue to wear the existing blue and white Wildcat uniforms.
The 6th-, 7th- and 8th grade teams will receive new uniforms reflecting the maroon and white high school colors. Cheerleaders will continue to wear Maroon and White cheer uniforms with an updated Morristown Wildcats logo.
The combined team will play in the NJ Suburban Youth Football League.
Third-grade players will have an option to play on an in- town flag football team or on a travel tackle team. (NEW option for Wildcat players.)
The Junior Colonials travel flag program will be eliminated and flag football players will all compete in the in-town program.
PLEASE NOTE
ALL CHEERLEADERS AND FOOTBALL PLAYERS MUST BE REGISTERED BY JULY 29, 2013, TO PARTICIPATE IN THE 2013 SEASON. DUE TO THE NUMBER OF REGISTERED ATHLETES ANTICIPATED IN THE COMBINED CLUB THERE WILL BE STRICT CUTOFF ON THIS DATE!!!
(If you have already registered with the Wildcats or the Junior Colonials you do NOT need to re-register.)
New Registrations
Effective immediately. the Wildcats web site will be used for any NEW registrations at the current pricing reflected on the web site.
Prior Registrations
Anyone previously registered for the Junior Colonials or the Wildcats Cheer or Football programs will have their registrations and payments honored by their respective clubs. Any price differences between programs will be subsidized by the club at no additional cost to the families this year. The Junior Colonials and the Wildcats will subsidize as appropriate and reconcile registrations between the organizations.
Refunds
If any of the organizational changes negatively impact you to the point where you cannot participate or do not wish to participate this year, the respective club you originally registered for will provide a full refund of your fees paid to date as long as it is requested via email by July 29, 2013.
Send any refund request emails to the following: Junior Colonials request: info@jrcolonials.org.
Morristown Wildcats request: brianklinger@morristownwildcats.org
Junior Colonial apparel orders, etc.
Anyone who has a current Junior Colonial apparel order will be contacted to review their apparel order options.
A pre-season cheer camp for all cheerleaders is scheduled for July 29, 30 and 31, from 6pm to 8:30 pm. More information to follow.
All tackle football games will be played on Sundays. See the Wildcats website for the tentative schedule.
Tentative practice fields for the combined club
The following outlines the program levels and tentative practice fields for the combined club. Third-, 4th- and 5th grade tackle football will practice at the same location on a weekly basis starting at Woodland Field for the week of August 19.
Sixth-, 7th- and 8th grade tackle will practice together at Morristown High School starting the same week. Each week these teams will alternate practice fields between Morristown High School and Woodland Field.
The in-town flag teams practice locations will be determined by the flag head coaches. The flag practice field options are Woodland, Veterans, Ligerwood, Larue, and Twin Oaks. Cheerleading will practice in Morris Plains. The field is to be determined. Additional Information about practice times and game schedules are available on the Wildcats web site.
All current and prospective coaches, please take note
We would like to ask any Junior Colonials current or prospective coaches who are interested in working with the combined organization to please contact Brian Klinger via email ASAP. Please include your name, email, cell phone, desired program level and short summary of your coaching experience.
Even if you have already registered for Junior Colonials with a request for coaching, please re-submit your information to Brian. Mike and Dave Flynn will be working with Brian to coordinate coaching positions for the combined organization. If you are interested in helping out in the cheerleading program please contact Chrissy Croonquist at morristownwildcatscheer@gmail.com
Closing comments
We are asking for your understanding in advance as we know there will be some families affected by the changes which are being made. Conflicts may be due to practice field locations, game day schedules, or original expectations of the program you registered for. We would like to thank you in advance for your cooperation, understanding and patience during this transition period. Please recognize that is being done in the best interest of the children in our community.
Kind Regards,
Brian Klinger, Dave Flynn and Mike Flynn
Junior Colonials Athletic Club
42 Fairmount Ave
Morristown, New Jersey 07960
Horrible! This was done without parent input or parent involvement. These people went behind our backs and instead of unifying our children as they claim, they are splitting these kids up worse than before. The bullying, name calling and unfair competitiveness between these kids has escalated in public spaces and among friends this past week since the merge was announced! When is it going to stop? Tim Heaton says they suffered enough, how about now at the hands of these supposed leaders of our football program that is doomed to fall apart more now than ever?! These boys and girls from the Junior Colonials lost a great part of town history that already had a great connection to the High School colors. Their parents are outraged that their team name was taken away yet they are just too afraid to stand up for their kids and their community. For what, fear of looking bad in their social cliques? What a darn shame. We are the ones who shape their future not anyone else. Child involvement in anything is based on parental support first, not that of outside influences. My faith in people has certainly changed, that’s for sure. 🙁
Many of the parents from the Jr. Colonials feel this merge was done in haste, done in poor taste, and also a slap in the face to the Jr. Colonials. The Wildcats should have just merged INTO Jr. Colonials. After all, MHS is home to the Colonials and there is definitive history there. So now all kids need to be a Wildcat for years then change team spirit when they hit high school? Dumbest idea ever, whoever came up with that. Shame on the Flynn family for allowing this. A disgrace to the family member who created the Jr. Colonials Athletic Club. Not to mention, no parents of either team were brought in on the decision to merge nor were they consulted about the name change. Poorly done, Morristown. Poorly done.