The hardest part? “Oh, practicing every day, especially when it’s hot,” says Stephen. On the other hand, he mentioned “having fun” more often than most kids his age say, “like, you know.” He was enthusiastic about the annual banquet when awards are given out. But it is glory on the field that really got his attention. He recalls vividly one of his first plays, “when we scored our first touchdown. The ball was snapped and I was blocking and the quarterback ran right next to me. It was a great moment.”

Mike Tetreau was pretty clear about why the league works as well as it does. “Our coaches are passionate about teaching the kids skills and they do a great job. But everyone—from the Board members to the coaches to the parents—are clear that we want the kids to be safe and to have fun.”

“The kids learn lots. They learn accountability for their fellow teammates because if you mess up, everyone suffers. They learn commitment because they have to show up. They learn that not every play goes their way and they have to deal with that.”

Steve Finnegan emphasized that the league attracts youngsters of all different abilities. “I remember one kid who was not the greatest player and frankly, I wondered if he was enjoying himself at all. But the next year he was back because he liked being part of the team.” And if a kid just doesn’t like it? “We say it’s just too big a sacrifice if you don’t want to be here. If you tried it and don’t like it—hey that’s okay.”

But so many kids do like it that the roster is full for this year. “I remember one kid, a seven year old, looking up at an eight year old, who had graduated into actually having equipment…he looked up at him and said with a voice full of awe, ‘You’re Kyle and you play with the Mitey-Mites.’”

As with any organization, there has to be problems: the occasional hot-headed parent, a kid having a bad day, a coach stretched thin by work and the Pop Warner schedule.

But for all of that, there persists such a sense of joy—even an ebullience —about the program in everyone we talked to that it would have required a complicated conspiracy for the sheer goodness of this program not to be true. Veronica O’Connell, however, put it best in her letter to Steve Finnegan: “This child’s life has taken a 360º turn around. Thank you for all you have done for my boy.”