CHESAPEAKE, VA (WTKR) — While Phoebus and Maury were making their entrances to state championship games on Saturday, a few up-and-coming middle schoolers from the area were in Florida trying to be like the Phantoms and Commodores.
"It's everything, just watching the high school teams and know one day, you might play there, might play for them, might move on and might be a local legend," said Carter O'Rourke, a young wide receiver in Hampton Roads.
The 757 Colts 14u team put the finishing touches on a 12-2 fall season this weekend, ending with another Youth Football League national championship, the program's second since the spring season of 2021.
"I've went but I've never won one until this year," said offensive lineman Chaz Morris. "Just being able to take it home in my final year of youth football is a great experience."
In their 28-0 win over Silk City Elite out of New Jersey, the Colts continued to build championship DNA, just like their heroes.
"We're all talented in our separate ways," running back Tyjae Curtis said. "Just put that together and made it to nationals."
"Some of these kids, they're already getting scholarship offers," program co-founder and coach Redd Jenkins said. "They're already communicating with big-time college coaches. There's nothing too big for them right now."
What sticks with the team the most is the bonds they're creating with teammates that will carry into high school and beyond their gridiron days.
"I talk to them all the time," quarterback Matt Williams said. "Reach out to each other, text each other, talk to each other on the phone."
"It creates a brotherhood," Morris said. "We're all national champions, we're all Colt Boys, we're like a family."
Creating dreams of leading their own high school teams onto the field for state title games and playing D1 college football.
"I grew up watching them, somebody's going to be watching me like that," Morris said.
The 757 Colts will start conditioning for the YFL spring season at the end of January.
