The first piece to the Sedona Red Rock Junior High School sports puzzle fell into place this week.

Tod Christensen, the head coach of Red Rock Youth Football last year, looks to be the first head coach of the first Sedona Red Rock Junior High football team Wednesday, Aug. 3.

“Last year, we resurrected the program from nothing,” said Christensen, a local realtor. “This year, we’re starting off with essentially a brand new program.

“If football’s going to survive at the high school level, we’ve got to have a junior program. If you were to just completely eliminate that, the high school program would just evaporate.”

He will find out for sure from athletic director Pedro Ortega Sr., with whom he was been working on a six-game fall schedule, after the first day of school at the new junior high.

“Assuming we have a football team,” said Ortega, who has received interest from 14 incoming junior high students. “Those numbers are very low. We are going through the whole process just to make sure we’re clear.”

But Christensen, who saw last year’s club roster balloon from six to 24 players by the end of the first week of practice, is optimistic.

“I actually feel pretty good about 17, for a junior high team,” he said. “I think we can make do with those numbers on a limited schedule.”

He and Ortega have been talking on the phone weekly about getting at least three other teams to commit to home-and-home matchups on Thursday afternoons.

“As soon as they hired Pedro for the position, which I was thrilled about, we immediately started talking about football and the prospects,” Christensen added. “It was a natural progression, as far as I was concerned, [but] there were still conversations about whether or not it might be smarter to do club again for a year.”

After Chuck Russell, Red Rock Youth Football president, opted to disband the program, Christensen said, the decision became simple.

“There was every reason to not have Red Rock Youth Football any longer,” Christensen said. “Chuck Russell … still had to do ongoing maintenance issues.

“So they donated all the equipment to the junior high. Lucky the students decided on Scorpions as mascot, or we’d have been in trouble.”

Ortega will also be able to provide pads, helmets, and other equipment for up to 26 players from his days as athletic director at West Sedona School.

“At the time, we had a club [football] in a league that had weight limits,” Christensen recalled. “We had a number of kids that couldn’t make weight in the club, so they scheduled a few junior high games.”

That program combined with Big Park Community School to play teams from Williams, Cottonwood and Prescott-area middle schools between 2008 and 2011.

Of those five teams, however, only Williams is still active. Joseph City Junior High has also shown interest in a home-and-home series with the Scorpions, he added.

“Tod, the first week, is going to come out and try to recruit [students], which is a great idea,” Ortega said. “In other sports, we practice two weeks, then play right away. We start signups Aug. 3.”

Christensen is bringing longtime local football coach Scott Gilbert on board as an assistant.

“That’s a huge get for us,” Christensen said. “I’ll probably run the offense and he’ll run the defense, but we can interchange that.”

Christensen is actively pursuing at least one more assistant coach, he added. Monday, Aug. 8, is when Christensen is shooting to start practice. If he is the head coach, Ortega said, he would be paid about $1,650.

“People who really care about football, they really need to get involved and start building the program back up,” Christensen said. “Teach the kids the sound fundamentals of football so that they can play it, have fun and come out of here physically and mentally prepared to play at the high school level.”

So the ultimate goal this season is not to win but to field a competitive team.

“That’s all that I really care about,” he said. “That’s going to require some recruiting.”

For more information on Christensen and his youth skills football camp for seventh- and eighth-graders, please see the Friday, July 22, issue of the Sedona Red Rock News.