Youth All-Star Events: A New Growth Industry

It is an annual tradition in the Cofield household, piling in the family's black 2001 Ford Windstar and driving from their Chantilly home to visit family in Dayton, Ohio, for the holidays. With a few stops along the way, the trip usually takes about eight hours.

This year, though, will be different.

Instead of driving nearly 500 miles, the Cofields boarded a plane Wednesday and flew halfway across the country. Jamon Cofield, 13, is one of 132 players nationwide selected to play in Sunday's Football University Youth All-American Bowl in San Antonio -- a series of three all-star games for seventh- and eighth-graders that will be held in conjunction with tomorrow's U.S. Army All-American Bowl for high school seniors.

A 5-foot-5, 127-pound fullback and linebacker, Jamon will play in the seventh-grade game. Five other local players also will play in the games, which include an eighth-grade game and an eighth-grade "unlimited weight" game.

"We felt like this is an opportunity for him and a great experience," said Jesse Cofield, Jamon's father and a former college defensive back. "We're pretty much a football family."

While the game has changed the Cofields' travel plans -- and caused them to dip into their pockets, as participants must pay their own expenses -- the event also has sparked debate about the rising profile of youth sports. The dollars being generated from sports at the pro and college level are having a trickle-down effect, creating an appetite for discovering the next big star. National exposure keeps skewing younger.

"Ninety-five percent of the reaction has been, 'What a great idea, no one has done it like this on a national scale,' " said Rich McGuinness, who founded these games as well as the All-American Bowl. "There is a small minority that say, 'Listen, is this a little too much for seventh- and eighth-graders?' My response to those people is to look at the Little League World Series, where they start a little bit younger. That's a staple."

Count Ned Sparks, executive director of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, as a member of the minority alluded to by McGuinness.

"Seventh and eighth grade? That's absurd," Sparks said. "Where does it end?"

But while state scholastic sanctioning bodies have the ability to regulate their athletes' entries in all-star games -- usually prohibiting participation until a player has completed his high school eligibility in a sport -- they generally are helpless when it comes to the youth all-star games because the players have yet to reach high school. The MPSSAA, Virginia High School League and most other state associations govern interscholastic athletics for grades 9 through 12. The D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association has jurisdiction over grades 4 through 12, but DCIAA athletic director Troy Mathieu said he was unaware of any league rules that would prevent a D.C. Public Schools student from participating.

A few states have more stringent rules on the subject. The Michigan High School Athletic Association has banned participation in any all-star games, punishable by a one-year suspension from interscholastic athletics. And Michigan athletes are unable to participate in the Youth Bowl because the MHSAA governs grades 7 through 12; at least one eighth-grade player had to turn down an invitation or risk being ineligible for athletics through the first half of his freshman year of high school.

Locally, though, participation is up to the players invited.