The Aliquippa Youth Football League was voted off of the Beaver County Youth Football League (BCYFL) Board. The reasons for this decision include Aliquippia’s parents being too aggressive, and Aliquippa not meeting proper requirements. One reason why they got voted off was, according to WTAE news, that most of the Little Quips’ parents failed to require birth certificates, residency requirements, and also report cards. Another incident that led to this decision happened at a game with Aliquippa Little Quips versus Central Valley Little Warriors. (from WPXI) A pregnant mother from Central Valley was assaulted by some spectators from Aliquippa. After four days of investigating this incident, Aliquppia’s Youth League was voted off of the BCYFL just before the semi-finals.
Freedom’s fifth and sixth graders who are Freedom Little Bulldogs playing football and cheer are a part of BCYFL. BCYFL stated an official statement on the issue quoting “Their removal is not attributed to this one incident (the fight with the spectators), but it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. They had a history of misconduct. Eight people didn’t vote them out. Eight organizations that have over 150 families all voiced their opinion and said enough is enough.” Many spectators from Aliquippa got charges against them, and Central Valley’s team did not get any charges against them because the board believed the woman who claimed to be the victim was just acting in self-defense.
In Aliquippa’s Little Quips code of conduct listed on their website, , there’s a rule that the parents have to sign that states “I will never use profanity or physically or verbally abuse any players, coaches, officials or spectators by name either in person or social media.” As seen in the code of conduct, the spectators and or parents didn’t follow this rule in their code of conduct.
“While it is unfortunate that the kids from Aliquippa were punished, the Aliquippa organization and parents knew that they were on a zero tolerance behavior policy. They knew that based on previous incidents, that if anything else happened, they would be removed from the league. There is a lesson to be learned here. That people need to be held accountable for their actions and that everyone needs to follow the rules. Parents need to realize that youth sports are about the kids and not the parents’ agenda.” John Malsch, Freedom Little Bulldog coach, stated.
