The Farmingdale Hawks Midget Football Association is looking forward to their 37th season in Farmingdale, organizing football and cheerleading programs for the youth of Farmingdale and surrounding areas. With registration coming up in April, the organization has set many goals for its membership for the 2000 season. With the continued growth of the organization both in football and cheerleading, they have addressed how to have more children involved. Several years ago, they added tackle football for 5 and 6 year olds. The 7-8-year-olds play in a league without standings, with the emphasis on learning how to play football. The ages 9 through 12-year-olds will continue to have travel teams of a single age that will compete with other towns throughout Nassau County as they always have.

Due to growth in the 9 through 12-year-old age groups, there is another league developing that will include other towns like Farmingdale, that have sufficient numbers of players. This league will be considered a town league made up of a 9 and 10-year-old division, and an 11 and 12-year-old division. The goal of these teams will be to compete with players of similar abilities without standings or championships. Competition will be based solely on the players' desire to play the sport. There will be traveling involved just like the other teams, and the new teams will be just as competitive.

"The seniors in our organization ages 13 and 14 will continue to play in one of the most competitive leagues around Long Island. The biggest goal for this group, as well as largest undertaking is to ensure that they have a travel game at the end of the season that will enable this group to compete with another team from out of state," explained a spokesperson. The Hawks have looked into a tournament in Florida that incorporates a football tournament as well as a cheerleading competition, and they are also contemplating an exchange with teams in other states that are looking for a similar experience. This is a goal they have dedicated the organization to.

In addition to cheering at all the football games this past season, the cheerleaders entered their teams into several competitions around Long Island. They competed in the LICA competition that they have always competed in, and added several competitions associated with the Nassau Suffolk Cheerleading Association. The organization was successful last year in getting all of the cheerleaders involved, and plans to continue with several competitions for the 2000 season.

"As you can see the Hawks organization will be hard at work to try to bring quality experiences to the children of Farmingdale. Please look for the flyers and notices stating the dates and times of the upcoming registration for the 2000 season," added the spokesperson.