The Berkshire Badgers’ athletic programs continues to make major strides. The Berkshire football program recently was awarded the $3,000 Leo Murphy Field & Equipment grant by the Cleveland Browns’ Cleveland Touchdown Club Charities, which will go toward purchasing new helmets for the middle school and high school football teams.
“It helps a lot,” Berkshire Athletic Director Brian Hiscox told The Weekly Villager. “Helmets are very expensive. It is not like we can outfit our whole team with new helmets, but we are able to add to our inventory to make sure that we can continue to outfit our team in the required protective equipment.”
According to Hiscox, each helmet that the football program uses has a 10-year useful life cycle. When that expires, those helmets are recycled so each year the Athletic Department purchases new helmets to keep up with the helmet certification process.
In addition to the $3,000 grant, the football program will also receive a matching donation from the Berkshire Booster Club and thanks to the fundraising efforts of head coach Josh DeWeese, the Booster Club will also donate an additional amount. Hiscox estimates that with all of the funds collected from the grant and local organizations, Berkshire can afford to purchase 22 new helmets for the upcoming season.
It marks the first time that the Athletic Department has applied for a helmet grant. Hiscox explained the Athletic Department applied for the grant because of the rising numbers in the Berkshire football program. A program that recently only fielded 50-60 athletes several years ago now has approximately 100 athletes across the junior high and high school levels.
“We have a lot of kids playing youth football and I think flag football has a lot to do with that,” he added. “Kids are playing football longer and because of that we have larger numbers in our middle school program and that trickles up to larger numbers in our high school program as well.”
With the football program experiencing a resurgence, the need for more football helmets became apparent.
“When things like this come along, we are going to take a shot at applying for grants because it meets all three of those goals that we have,” Hiscox said. “I consider ourselves extremely lucky to be selected. We are excited about earning this grant from the Browns and putting it to good use.”
The Badgers will purchase Riddell’s most popular helmet, the SpeedFlex model.
“The technology that they have in that is better than a base model helmet, which would be a Speed Classic,” he said. “It is the design that we are going with.”
Hiscox noted that Berkshire already had a standing partnership with the Cleveland Browns because of their participation in the Chagrin Valley Conference, which has helped sponsor youth football and also the blossoming sport of flag football.
Hiscox added that the qualifications which Berkshire needed to meet to be eligible for the grant included being a non-profit school district that fielded middle or high school programs in the Greater Cleveland area. The Badgers will purchase their new line of helmets from their usual supplier, Riddell Sports Group, which specializes in selling sports equipment for football.
He also noted that the 22 helmets will be used across the junior high and high school programs, as the Athletic Department will be purchasing helmets of three different sizes, medium, large and extra-large.
“Obviously the middle school kids are of different sizes than the high school kids. Sometimes they are going to have bigger middle school kids that require bigger helmets,” he said. “Sometimes you are going to have smaller middle school kids that require smaller helmets, so it is always good to have a good mix of sizes.”
Of the helmets that the football program uses, Hiscox said that all helmets are interchangeable as the only difference between a high school football helmet and a middle school football helmet is the different color on the facemasks.
Hiscox emphasized that even if the football program had not received the helmet grant, the Athletic Department would still have had funds to purchase new football helmets but not nearly as many. With the helmet grant, the Badgers are poised to support the rising interest in football in Burton.
“I am excited about the potential that our program has,” he noted. “We are in a tough conference; we play tough teams, so every Friday night is an exciting night and it is something our community rallies around, I am excited for the continued growth of our program.”
