With the semi-pro football level of the sport attracting more and more formerhigh school and college football stars these days - the AFA national Associa tion finds it necessary to help promote interest in the semi-pro level to asmany current and potential players as we can. Forming the AFA-PA andencouragingmemberships will help bring ‘awareness’ to our level of the sport.

It wasn’t that many years ago when the semi-pro football level was lookedupon with a somewhat
negative connotation by football insiders - on everylevel.It wasn’t that long ago either that high school and college coaches wouldn’tthink of referring any of their former players to teams on the semi-pro levelfor fear they’d be sending them to semi-organized adult football programs withbad reputations in the local community.

Not so anymore. With today’s semi-pro players coming from educationalinstitutions (if only that of high school backgrounds) where they grew upsearchingthe internet for answers to questions they couldn’t find anywhere else - theyseemed to have found the American Football Association - ‘on-line’. A goodnumber of high school and college coaches have become more familiar with
ourlevel of the game over the years as well. Each year across the country findsmoreand more of our young, and some not so young, AFA players (with remaining‘eligibility’) receiving college football scholarships, grants and tuition aidsaswell as other financial assistance programs - to get them back in school andon the college football gridiron. Making it to the next level - doesn’t alwaysmean the NFL.

The AFA is the national association for semi-pro football teams and leaguesand monitors the game activity of over 700 teams playing in more than 60different leagues coast-to-coast. As part of our many free services to memberteams- the AFA ‘power rates’ every team in every league over the entire season andpublishes those results weekly in the AFA’s American Football News
-(www.AmericanFootballNews.com) the ‘On-Line’ edition.

‘We’ve noticed over the past few years more and more players are interactingwith the AFA national office through e-mail inquiries and bulletin boardpostings. ‘The interesting thing is that the majority of the e-mails we are nowreceiving from players are in the form of legitimate comments and questions,rather than those registering complaints about one thing or another’, says theAFA’s communication director Dave Burch of Endicott, New York. ‘It’s a pleasureto communicate with
players who want to learn more about the AFA and who areeither looking for direction to get them to the next level or just helpingthem understand what the AFA national association is all about’, added Burch.

In an effort to get the players even more involved with semi-pro football onthe national level, the Sarasota, Florida AFA based organization has recentlyformed the AFA Players Association and are currently soliciting nationmemberships. Currently there are some 35,000 athletes taking advantage of semi- profootball teams coast-to-coast to extend their playing careers beyond the highschool and college levels. Players joining the AFA-PA will receive apersonalized membership card
and be assigned a lifetime players number - aswell as ahaving their names listed in the AFA’s 2005 media guide ....and cataloged asaplayer in the semi-pro football history book archives. In addition, memberswill receive a AFA quarterly newsletter publication geared specifically atsemi-pro football news and information regarding - professional football freeagenttryout camps,
all-star game opportunities, and much more. Members will alsolearn what it takes to be nominated for the annual AFA All-American selectionsas well as for eventual consideration for nomination and induction into theAFA’s Semi-Pro Football Hall of Fame. The cost of the annual membership is $25.