Fall Rec Programs Gearing Up For Season

A lot of exciting programs are lined up in Madison for this fall. There are many extracurricular activities for youths, such as football, cheerleading and soccer for both boys and girls from kindergarten to grade eight.

Cross country is being offered for boys and girls grades three to eight, and field hockey for girls grades five through eight.

Some of these activities are already in progress.

“Football and soccer are already up and running,” said Zach Ellis, the recreation director. “Junior football practices at Madison High School on weeknights from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Soccer practices at Memorial Park on Rosedale on weeknights from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.”

Madison Junior Football, which is a travel team founded in 1962 by coaches Tony Ariano, Lou Romano and former Madison High School Coach Ted Monica, along with help from Madison Football enthusiast Al Chiarlanzio, had its first practice of the season Aug. 8.

Age levels include flag, pre-clinic, clinic, super pee wee, pee wee, junior varsity and varsity.

According to Madison Junior Football coach Scott Spelker, Madison has a real football tradition, and this tradition seems to stem from childhood.

“These programs are feeder programs for the high school,” Spelker said. “We use the same defense used in the high school.”

Many kids who participate in these junior leagues continue the game in the high school.

On Sept. 1 at 6 p.m., all levels of the team will have a scrimmage against Hackettstown. The team plays at Dodge Field on Central Avenue.

Coaching Madison Junior cross country is Mike Bradley. Practices were planned to begin this week and are held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday evenings at Loantaka Brook Park off Kitchell Road in Morris Township. Meets occur on Sundays at Greystone Park in Morris Plains. These will take place Sept. 11 through Oct. 30. The races start at 11:30 a.m. and the whole meet is complete by 1 p.m.

According to the Madison Recreation Department website, “The program is open to children born in 2003 through 8th graders (no high school runners allowed, regardless of when they were born) … The age of a competitor will be determined based on the year he or she is born. (December 31, 2011).”

Levels include sub-bantam, bantam, midget and youth.

For more information about the junior football and soccer teams, please visit the Madison Junior Football website: http://www.madisondodgersports.com/footballhome.html and the Madison Soccer Club website: http://madisonhardingsoccer.org/. For more information about cross country, please visit http://gov.rosenet.org/agencies/recreation/pages/cross-country. For the registration form for Madison Junior Cross Country, please click http://gov.rosenet.org/uploads/13/registration_release_20010_xc_season_1_.pdf.

To learn more about recreation in Madison, please visit http://gov.rosenet.org/agencies/recreation.