The newly formed Team St. Louis 8th Grade All-Stars recently advanced to the Final Four of the Football University (FBU) National Championship Tournament, which is a football equivalent to the Little League World Series. The tournament began on December 1 with a 64 team national field that was structured similar to the NCAA March Madness Basketball Tournament, with Regional Finals held in Reno, Kansas City, Atlanta and Mansfield, OH.
The Final Four will be held at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio in early January, with events tied closely to the US Army All-American Bowl, the nation’s premier, nationally televised High School All-Star Football Game and Combine scheduled for Saturday, January 5. The FBU 8th grade National Championship Game will take place on Sunday, January 6 at 4:30pm CST at the Alamo Dome, with the Semifinals taking place on Friday evening, January 4. Team St. Louis won the Great Plains Regional Championship and will face Colorado, the West Regional Champions, in the Semifinals. The other Semifinal Game will have the Southeast Regional Champion team from Northern Georgia facing the Northeast Regional Champions from Massachusetts. The two winning teams will square off for the National Championship in the Alamo Dome on January 6th. Updated tournament brackets can be found at http://www.footballuniversity.org/556.
Team St. Louis is coached by Co-Head Coaches: Rick Wilson from the North County Cowboys and Tim Teicher from the Chesterfield Football Association (CFA) Bears. Both men are the President of their respective organizations and Head Coach of a local 8th grade team. Rick Wilson’s Cowboys Team won the Gateway Football League Super Bowl this year, while Tim Teicher’s Bears defeated the Cowboys to win the GFL Super Bowl in 2011. Now these recent rivals have merged together along with their Assistant Coaches to form the Coaching Staff of this team, with many players from their Super Bowl Champion teams as part of the 34 man roster of the Team St. Louis 8th Grade All-Stars. The team was officially formed over the Thanksgiving weekend and held their first practice that following Monday.
After only 4 practices, the St. Louis All-Stars went to Wichita, Kansas for 2 games on December 1-2, and were able to advance with wins in the first round over Kansas City, KS (29-21) and in the second round over Kansas City, MO (40-22). These two wins advanced them to The Sweet 16 and the Regional Great Plains Championship Round in Kansas City the following weekend. In Kansas City, St. Louis beat Southeast Louisiana 27-0, and then wrapped up the Great Plans Regional Championship and a spot in the Final Four with a convincing 31-0 win over the Texas All-Star Champions from San Antonio.
The Elite Football Academy (EFA – www.elitefootball.net) is a major sponsor of the team, with Matt Biermann and Dave Cooke from EFA serving as the local FBU Tournament Representatives who were responsible for assembling the team along with the head coaches. While many players on the roster came from the Co-Head Coach’s past two Gateway Football League Championship teams, there are actually 12 different teams from the St. Louis metropolitan area being represented on this 34 man roster of 13-14 year old Middle School students. They come from as far away as Phelps County and include players from the 2012 Junior Football League (JFL) 8th grade Champion U-City Soldiers, the Chaminade Red Devils, the Herbert Hoover Wreckin’ Crew, the Hazelwood North Panthers, the Seckman Jaguars, the St. James Tigers, and the Ritenour Huskies.
The St. Louis Rams honored the Team St. Louis 8th Grade All-Stars on Sunday during halftime of the Rams versus Vikings game at the Edward Jones Dome, with the team taking part in a fun scrimmage game against Rampage and other local team mascots as part of the celebration of Rampage’s 3rd birthday.
