Capital Area Minor Football would like to nominate Oliver (O.J.) Burnett for the Football New Brunswick Peewee Volunteer of the Year Award.

The Devon area of Fredericton is the poorest part of town and has always been where we have  had the lowest level of participation. Devon Middle School is also the smallest of the four middle schools in the city of Fredericton. It has 400 students whereas Albert and George have 650 each and Nashwaaksis has 800.

Starting teams in the three larger schools was relatively easy. All past efforts to get something going at Devon were dismal failures. That was until O.J. came along and asked if he could try to get a team going at the school.

During the winter of 2004-5 O.J. talked to the administration of Devon Middle School and convinced them that a football team would be a good thing, especially for the “at risk” kids.

First he held information and organizing sessions to let the students know what was being proposed. Then in the spring of 2005 O.J. put on a “camp” to teach the students the fundamentals of the game.

When August came, 30 youth registered and donned equipment to be part of the first ever Devon Middle School Wildcats football team. Only three of them had ever played football before. St. Mary’s Entertainment Center was recruited to sponsor both game and practice jerseys for the team. They only won two games all season but had a lot of fun and were a well  behaved football team. More importantly the coaches played all the players fairly and thus attendance remained high.

The highlight of the season was when the Wildcats played the Nashwaaksis Nordics in the first annual “Northside Bowl” in front of more than 1,000 students from both schools. Interest for next season is very high. The Wildcats are the talk of the school and are well on their way to becoming the number one team at Devon Middle School.

www.capitalareafootball.nb.ca/wildcatshome.html

Respectfully submitted

Terry McIntyre, Past President
Capital Area Minor Football