Two years removed from the canceled the 2020 football season, both Newburgh youth football programs, while not back to where they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, are in at least better shape than they were last year.

The Goldbacks Youth Football program, which serves the Town of Newburgh and New Windsor, will place five teams in four divisions with a total of 118 football players. The Goldbacks will place one team in each division Mighty Mites (6-7 years), Division I (8-9), Division II (10-11), and Division III (12-13), and will place an additional team in Division II.

“It’s going great,” Goldbacks President Rick Ceglio said. “We’re hoping the weather allows us to practice (Friday – it didn’t). We weren’t able to practice (Thursday due to heat index). Of course, August you’re dealing with weather being too hot or thunderstorms.”

The Goldbacks have 38 players of Division II age and when they reached 36 players, decided to split the team.

“The whole objective to playing is the kid want to play,” Ceglio said. “So, if you have 36 kids and you don’t get to control the game flow as when you’re going to be on offense going to be on defense. We just felt as a league, we wanted to give those kids the best experience and the most time playing.”

The Goldbacks were one of only five programs in the Orange County Youth Football League to have a team in all four divisions.

The City of Newburgh Steelers fielded only two teams last year (Division I and Division 3), but this year the program looks stronger in numbers as they will field a Mighty Mites team this year, a Division II team and a Division III. The Steelers had some players who signed up for Division I, but not enough to put a team together.

After not having any cheerleaders the past two seasons, the Steelers will have a small cheerleading squad.

“I think this year we’re in better shape,” Steelers Vice President Barry Stith said. “Last year, we only had two teams and we didn’t have any cheerleaders, but this year, I think we fared much better. I don’t want to say it’s where it was before the pandemic, as before that we didn’t have any problems putting all four teams.”
But there are additional challenges.

The Goldbacks are facing equipment shortages, as Ceglio said the helmets he ordered in March aren’t expected to arrive until September. The Steelers, meanwhile, seem to be OK in that regard. At least, so far.

Ceglio said various leagues are in the same position and they’re reaching out to each other for swaps if one league has a size the other needs.

“We’ve all been reaching out to each other seeing if a town has a helmet you can swap if I need small sizes and they need larger sizes. I think it’s going to be a colorful year because I think you’ll see some kids wearing different colors and different color helmets because our goal is to get the kids to play. However, we can do that.”