The Strong Center program has been established to fulfill a demonstrated need and desire in the community for a team focused competitive program.  The program is a choice alternative to purely recreational programs, and will provide a more focused development of young athletes.  Similar to many situations, we recognize that all skill levels exist in a community and through a focused program, young athletes can achieve great success when provided an opportunity.   Therefore, we endeavor to surround each of our teams with the tools to excel against higher skilled and competitive players and teams.  Some additional program foci are as follows:

• Safety   The Strong Center has endorsed the USA Football Heads Up Tackling Program.  Young athletes may get hurt playing any sport, but we must prepare ourselves and them with the proper techniques and guidance to prevent injuries.  We have coaches and safety staff that are trained in basic first aid, CPR, and other sports related injury phenomena.  Coaches constantly supervise their players and stop any unsafe activities through positive redirection.

• Sportsmanship  The golden rule should always apply to treat others as you would have them treat you.  We will play by the rules and our coaches and players will respect all involved in a practice, a game, or a program event.  Our coaches will be role models in sportsmanship, exhibiting good sporting behavior and guiding their players to do the same.

• Player Development  The Strong Center is rooted in improving the lives of kids through sports development.  We have adopted "The EARN Model" as our player development philosophy, whereby players EARN positions and time on the field through Effort, Accountability, doing what is Right all the time, and Nourishing the concept of team even when you are not on the field of play.

• Positive Competition  We believe competition is a positive process when the pursuit of victory is kept in the right perspective. The right perspective is when coaches, parents, and players make decisions that put the best interests of the team before winning.  Learning to compete is important for all and learning to cooperate in a competitive world is essential to life.  Through The Strong Center we want to help share and allow players the opportunity to learn these lessons in a positive manner.

• Family Engagement  The Strong Center encourages parental involvement in our sports programs.  We encourage parents and family members to be a part of the team at practice and at games in a positive manner.  We also encourage our coaches to engage parents through two-way communication throughout the season to achieve the highest development for each young athlete.

• Fun Team sports are naturally fun for most kids. Sometimes when adults become involved in children’s sporting activities they over-organize and dominate the activities to the point that it destroys the enjoyment of sport.  If we take the fun out of sports for young athletes, we are in danger of the young athletes taking themselves out of sports.