Fife All Stars: Olympic Games aim for young flag footballers
Hopes are high that some current under-15 and under-17 players from the Fife All Stars American flag football team – which was only formed last year – could end up forcing their way into the Great Britain squad competing at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Club founder and coach/manager Jason Bezuidenhaut, a 46-year-old South African, said: “I think these kids are really buzzing about the fact that some of them could end up competing at the Olympics in three years.
"The bulk of those kids have only been playing the sport for two years.To go from where they started to where they are now, and to literally even be in a position where they're making a Scottish team or a team GB team, and under consideration for working towards the Olympics is a rare opportunity.
"And a few of them are trying to grab it with both hands. I would tend to think that probably 2032 is more likely, you know, for most of them, because they'll be in their young to mid-20s.
"Although I do think there'll be a couple that will be there in 2028. As a collective, I think the girls have got more chance of being at the 2028 Olympics than the guys. Purely because I think that, not that it's less competitive, I think that they mature and develop a bit quicker.
"I think the guys’ physical change from 18 to 21 compared to 21 to 25 is substantial. So I think that the females will probably get a quicker crack of the whip and that the guys will probably lean more towards 2032.
"There are one or two that stand out physically, but at GB level, when we take our youngsters down there and you see some of those kids, at under-17 they look like fully grown men, proper athletes.
"And a lot of them go to the NFL academy. So you see them running around playing flag football and they are units. They make our guys look like kids.”
Bezuidenhaut – whose son Levi also plays flag football – was speaking in the wake of seven All Stars U17s and three U15s being selected for Scottish Flag Football Association’s Team Scotland, with five U17s and two U15s being picked for Team GB at British American Flag Football.
The Team Scotland trials concluded at the end of March, while the trials for Team GB took place in Loughborough during February, March and April. His daughter Skyla has been picked for both Team Scotland and Team GB.
Fife All Stars – who play home matches at the Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre’s 3G indoor facility in Glenrothes – were only created last August, after Bezuidenhaut had departed a role at the Dunfermline Kings flag football team, where he coached the under-11s.
Their development since then has been incredible, with head coach Julian Holburn-White, of Lochgelly, backed up by others including coach Ian Lonie and strength and conditioning coach Jay Forbes.
Bezuidenhaut added: “I was the first to actually put the Fife All Stars together initially. I have zero administrative skills so we found ourselves as a group of parents with a sort of space.
"We had to either have our kids go to different teams or try and form our own. So I reached out to one of our fellow coaches at the team that we'd just left and said: ‘Hypothetically if we were to put a team together, would you be interested and keen to come on board and run this thing with me?’
"Ian said: ‘Let’s give it a bash’ and that's really how the All Stars were made.
"We had to come up with a team name and give our kids a place to call home and then I suppose rebuild.
"I think we had our first official practice in September and there were maybe14 kids at our first session. That went up to 20 kids within that month and the rest I suppose is a very short history.
"We played in an under-17s winter league, a Scotland-based initiative. Our team had the best showing of any new team in any of the leagues thus far.
"We ended up third in the play-offs and had an extremely strong representation.
"We recently started the summer league and won our first two games, so we're off to a good start.
"I’m extremely proud of what we have achieved so far.
"Without Ian Lonie, this really wouldn't be possible. He's the one that gets it all done on the back end, makes sure all the paperwork, registration, certification, time slots, schedules and bookings are done. He's been the backbone of this whole thing.
"All of the coaches and people involved in the club have kids that play. And they all give up their own time to try and give our kids the platform and the environment to be able to grow.”