Strong support from African American men in community makes big impact on West Side’s Pee-Wee football league

With a passion for the youth and a love for football, Gerald K. Harris, president of the nonprofit Pee-Wee Windy City Football League has struggled over the past 14 years to get support and resources for his team from the community, advertisers, politicia

“I and several other coaches have to personally finance several of the team’s needs,” Harris said. “But we only have so many funds.”

Although Harris has struggled with getting resources, he would not allow a lack of support, advertisers, political favors or anything else, for that matter, to stop him from giving the children of Lawndale, Logan Square, Garfield, Austin and the Galewood area, a quality structural program that is aimed at helping produce model citizens.

“In today’s society, children are searching for heroes,” Harris said, with tears in his eyes.

“The people who they come in contact with every day of their lives are the ones who will mold and leave the deepest impressions.”

Harris’s passion for football and youth stems from early childhood. He believes that the resources he obtained as a child–parental support, grandparents, extended family members, teachers and church–all played an important role in shaping and molding him into the very man he is today.

Harris currently has three teams that are competing from the City of Chicago in the American Youth Football National Championship Series sponsored by Under Armour. These teams competed in the Chicagoland American Youth Football League and have already won two playoff series as well as their conference/regional championships with the final team finishing second in the conference/ regional finals.

“Everybody is a 100-percent volunteer in this program,” said Jarod Cooper, branch president and coach of both the WCYFL’s-Lawndale Falcons All-American and peewee football teams.

“Sometimes we act as surrogate fathers for those whose fathers are no longer in the home,” he said.

Coach Cooper, Harris’s close friend and ally, believes that if the team can produce at a high level with scarce resources, he can only imagine what the team would do with more resources.

“I love these kids as if they were mine,” said Coach Julius Riley of the Windy City Dolphins Jr. peewee football team.

“My hope is that we can highlight the accomplishments of the children in these neighborhoods. We ultimately want to encourage community awareness, pride and participation through instruction and development of sportsmanship utilizing the fundamentals of football,” Riley said.

“These children worked extremely hard and now have a chance to do what only one team in Chicago’s history has done…win a national championship.”