{"id":10945,"date":"2016-11-07T09:02:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T17:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/bethel-to-start-football-team-with-boost-from-seahawks\/"},"modified":"2016-11-07T09:02:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T17:02:23","slug":"bethel-to-start-football-team-with-boost-from-seahawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/bethel-to-start-football-team-with-boost-from-seahawks\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethel to start football team with boost from Seahawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHEL \u2014<\/strong> Bethel is on its way to having its first football team, and it\u2019s getting a little help from the Seattle Seahawks.<\/p>\n

All Bethel Regional High School needs is funding, equipment, players, a coach and approval from the state, Bethel radio station KYUK reported.<\/p>\n

But administrators at the school in this largely Yup\u2019ik Eskimo hub community in southwest Alaska are confident the Warriors will field a team next year.<\/p>\n

Bethel Regional High School Assistant Principal and athletic director Dr. Doug Boyer started the plan in motion in August.<\/p>\n

The plan, he said, is to get approval from the state to have a football team, find a conference in the Anchorage area, raise money, order equipment, hire a coach and purchase equipment.<\/p>\n

Those plans are getting a boost from the closest NFL team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Seattle Seahawks have said that they will send their old tackling dummies, their old tackling, blocking sleds as long as we pay for them to be barged up in the summertime,\u201d Boyer said.<\/p>\n

The school anticipates it will cost about $41,000 to buy shoulder pads, helmets and uniforms for 50 players.<\/p>\n

The Seahawks Foundation has agreed to pay part of that cost, and Boyer anticipates the other half will come from fundraisers and donations.<\/p>\n

If everything goes as planned, the Warriors\u2019 first game would be played at the end of next July, likely in the Anchorage area. Games will be scheduled against junior varsity squads as Bethel players improve their skills, and they might start a flag football team at Bethel\u2019s middle school to start feeding the high school program.<\/p>\n

The possibility of having a football team is creating a buzz in Bethel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had a ton of students who\u2019ve come to me this year and say, \u2018I want to play football. I think this is great. I\u2019m excited,\u2019\u201d Boyer said. \u201cThe funny thing is, we\u2019ve even had some seniors saying, \u2018Is there any way I can do a fifth year of high school to play?\u2019 We\u2019ve told them no, obviously, but a lot of students, males and females, have been really excited for the opportunity to try this new activity at BRHS.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BETHEL \u2014 Bethel is on its way to having its first football team, and it\u2019s getting a little help from the Seattle Seahawks. All Bethel Regional High School needs is funding, equipment, players, a coach and approval from the state, Bethel radio station KYUK reported. But administrators at the school in this largely Yup\u2019ik Eskimo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10945"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}