45 teams and a football jamboree

Saturday, October 15 was filled with the sounds of cheering and the clash of shoulder pads at the Waseca Football Jamboree from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. A total of 45 teams from grades 3-6 faced each other on the high school football fields; schools as small as Randolph to as large as Faribault battled for the right to call themselves the top teams of their grade.

The Waseca Football Jamboree began when the Waseca Football Association was formed by its President Ed Hoehn around 2004. “My son was in fifth grade and that’s how it all got started,” he said.

The jamboree took shape within a couple years of the organization’s founding. “We had a bunch of towns in the area that started Minnesota youth football,” he explained. “At the end, the sixth-graders had a playoff game Tuesday night and played in the Minnesota Vikings dome on Sunday. We went from there to Rochester stadium.”

While the sixth-graders traveled across the state to play on bigger football fields, those in fourth and fifth grade didn’t have any special playoff spots. “We decided the solution was to hold a large jamboree on Saturdays.”

Waseca playing fields offered an ideal setting: along with the main football field where the Bluejay high school teams play, the district has four additional football fields in the same complex, allowing up to five games to be played at once.

Hoehn claims the event was so successful that the sixth-grade teams wanted to be a part of it, thus reducing travel and saving costs.

The celebration grew into a fantastic afternoon of football with four lucky teams taking home trophies. Randolph’s third-grade team, Kasson-Mantorville’s fourth-grade team, Waseca’s fifth-grade team, and Hayfield’s sixth-grade team took home the gold this year. As an added bonus, Waseca finished the season undefeated according to Hoehn.

“The jamboree went really well,” he concluded. “We were pretty fortunate to have great weather. Lots of key people put in a lot of time, and that helped us out.”

Hoehn is ecstatic about the future of the jamboree and Waseca’s football program. “I feel fortunate being in this town,” he said. “We have a great youth football program followed by a great high school team. It continues to only get better. Waseca is so successful because it’s not just one group but everyone in the community working together. It’s why we get to do the things we do.”