LET'S START with the good stuff: The Enon Eagles are one heck of a kids' football team.
After just six years in operation, the Eagles' junior midget team of 135-pounders - part of a Pop Warner community league sponsored by Enon Tabernacle Church in Cedarbrook - made it all the way to Pop Warner's 2011 Super Bowl Championships last week at Disney World.
Credit goes to Coach Ray Wright, whom families praise for coaxing stellar effort from his players (listen up, Andy Reid!).
In Florida, Wright's Eagles nailed their first game against the Cedar Crest Comets, from Texas. But they fell, in their second game, to the North Raleigh Bulldogs, out of North Carolina.
The loss ended the kids' pigskin participation, but not their fun. Along with Enon staffers, coaches, cheerleaders and family members, the team watched the remaining games, explored Disney World and bonded at a dinner dance highlighted on the team's Facebook fan page.
"What happened in Disney stays in Disney!!! Lol," posted one woman.
Others used words like "blessed," "awesome," "proud" and "thankful" about a weeklong trip that sounds like it was a blast from start to finish.
No wonder it was so tough for 14-year-old Jarrett Walker to read the Facebook fan page. He kept seeing all he was missing.
Jarrett joined the Enon team in August. He'd never played football, though, so he was told that, along with two other kids, he would be on the "practice" squad.
Jarrett's mom, Jessica Shaw, says she was assured that "practice" members are still full-fledged Enon Eagles. They're expected to attend every training session and suit up for every game. But they can't play in official games until their skills improve enough to be able to prevent injuring themselves.
"I really liked it," says Jarrett, an eighth-grader at AMY Northwest (Academy for the Middle Years), in East Mount Airy. "I made good friends."
When the Eagles clinched a spot in the Super Bowl, the families attended a meeting at church to learn the particulars of the Florida jaunt. According to Shaw, they were told that Enon would help pick up the tab for the players, with a big assist from private donors tapped by the city (which also helped three other youth football teams attend national-championship competitions).
"It was a great meeting; everyone was really excited," says Shaw. "We were even told to make sure the children got school assignments to take to Florida, because there would be homework sessions all week."
