Eskimos Junior High Flag Football Program Grows To 41 Teams
By: Esks.com Staff
Yahia Dalloul jumped at the chance to introduce a new game to the youth at the Edmonton Islamic Academy when the Eskimos Junior High Flag Football program was created in 2016.
Based on his own personal experience, football taught Dalloul a lot of life lessons, such as teamwork, effort, respect, dedication and discipline.
“So I’m hoping to introduce these different traits to these young students that we have at our school,” said Dalloul, the physical education and athletic director responsible for the sports and gym classes.
Dalloul was a defensive end with the St. Francis Xavier X-Men during five years of university football in Nova Scotia and tried out with the Montreal Alouettes in 2009 and Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2010.
“It was a wonderful experience, man,” he said about his CFL opportunities. “Truly loved every minute of it. Too bad it ended really shortly, but it was definitely a fun time, for sure.”
Sports – and football in particular – was Dalloul’s saving grace after he moved to Canada in 1997. He was born in Palestine.
“I had to learn the language, I had to learn the culture and the traditions, so one way for me as a young kid to get into that type of stuff was sports,” he recalled. “I used to love gym class and then one of the coaches saw me performing and invited me to play football.
“To be honest with you, if it wasn’t for football, it would have been a hard time for me. It opened so many doors, it opened so many opportunities. I got to meet a lot of great people so it helped me a lot to grow up and get used to the culture and the people.”
The Edmonton Islamic Academy has had a boys team and a girls team play in both seasons of the junior high flag football program, which is basically a five-week exhibition league in May/early June “where everyone gets a chance to learn and play,” according to John Ioannides, the curriculum co-ordinator of junior high athletics for Edmonton Public Schools.
“Last year, we did it for the first time and this year the kids were excited,” said Dalloul, who had 15 players on both his girls and boys teams this season. “The kids loved it, they worked hard, they picked up the game really fast.
