It’s back.

Red Rock Youth Football is returning to Sedona, provided at least 20 local, pre-high school athletes ages 12 to 14 can get out to Posse Grounds Park for a free instructional camp Saturday,
Aug. 1.

The new head coach, Tod Christensen, hopes and believes they will.

“We’ve been dormant for a year, which is a killer,” said Christensen, a local realtor and Sedona Elks Lodge member. “So we need to resurrect it and I want to get as many kids out there as possible to the camp our first big day.

“It’s critical that we get some numbers within the first week of August. There’s still time, but we can’t put them in pads until they’ve been conditioned for 10 days.”

If a minimum 17 players can commit to the new Sedona team at the camp, the Sedona team will take its old nickname, the Venom, and rejoin its old league, High Desert, for an eight-game schedule against seven other youth football teams beginning Saturday, Aug. 29.

“So that gives us roughly a month to get into shape and get pads,” Christensen said. “We will be joining the league we used to belong to a few years ago with Cottonwood, Prescott, and those guys.”

Christensen estimates he has heard from 10 players willing and eligible to play for the team, but there are “a lot” more Big Park Community School students who are “on the fence” about coming.

“We’ve got all the equipment, and the coaches are donating their time, so no pre-sign-up needed,” he said. “Everything we do, it’s all going to be geared toward play [and] competition. We’re going to do some drills, [but] I want the kids to show up to this camp and get excited about football.”

For the full story and full camp details, please see the Friday, July 24, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.