Since its inception 25 years ago, the Gainesville-Haymarket Youth Football League has celebrated many successes. But while his teams have achieved numerous victories, league commissioner Jeff Fehrman said there’s only one true barometer of success.
“If at the end of the season a kid wants to play again, we’ve done our job,” said Fehrman. “Wins will come…but I try to remind coaches – whether if this is the kid’s only year of playing football or he plays for 10 – you want it to be memorable for the right reasons.”
Known as the Grizzlies, the Gainesville-Haymarket Youth Football League has blossomed into quite a family tree since its inception in 1999. And no matter how much that tree grows, it has stayed rooted to the community.
The league serves boys and girls ages 7-14. It offers tackle football in the fall, flag and 7-on-7 football in the spring, and cheerleading during both seasons.
The league also has social events during the offseason, including block parties, pizza parties and outings at Splashdown [Waterpark], said Grizzlies coach Steven Warren. “Those small things build leaders.”
Players’ parents often become involved in league management, as was the case with Fehrman and former coach and board member Dean Mathews.
“I go to these [interleague] meetings and talk to these commissioners, and it’s hard for them to find coaches; it’s hard for them to find volunteers,” Fehrman said. “We just don’t have that.”
Mathews explained the adults form strong friendships through the league.
“My best friends in Northern Virginia – since I moved down here 34 years ago – are either from work or from Grizzly football,” Mathews said. “It’s an unbelievable thing about Grizzly football, that it creates lifelong relationships … for the kids and the adults.”
The growth of the league has mirrored the growth of the area. As the populations of those communities swelled in the late 1990s and early 2000s, so did the need for more recreational space.
At the time, the league was using the fields at Tyler Elementary School in Haymarket but was seeking a larger footprint.
At one point, the league had over 1,000 spring participants and 35 fall teams that needed to practice three to five days a week, said former coach and league commissioner Matt Patterson. “We were literally busting at the seams.”
Then, a proffer agreement from a local developer in 2010 allowed Prince William County to lease the Grizzlies 17 acres off Vint Hill Road in Nokesville for athletic fields. In 2011, the league unveiled its two new turf fields. They are now used about 40 weeks a year for football and other sports like lacrosse.
And local businesses and individuals contributed to the construction of the $2.5 million Grizzly Sports Complex, including Merrifield Garden Center co-founder Bob Warhurst.
“I can’t tell you the importance of that man,” Mathews said.
The complex also sports an air conditioned two-level barn for equipment storage, a gift from former Grizzly parents.
Mathews’ son, Nick, a former standout wide receiver for Patriot High School, saw firsthand the growth of the league. Once Nick started high school, he spent his offseason officiating games between the younger players and conducted drills there with his teammates in the summers.
“Devin Patterson [son of coach Matt Patterson] and I were probably the first ones to get out and run on it,” Nick said of the turf fields.
Devin was just one of many who cut grass, helped build the snack bar or volunteered selling snacks at games. “It was a true community effort that made this possible,” he said.
Over the last several years, the league has continued to improve with permanent lights installed at the Grizzly Sports Complex in 2022 and a pair of scoreboards last fall.
Going into the 2025 tackle football season, 22 teams will suit up, and the league continues to attract new players. In a preseason orientation in August, Fehrman estimated more than two-thirds of the audience were first-timers.
The next evening, parents perched behind the chain-link fence to watch their kids try out for the league’s “draft.”
But not all players were brand new to the sport. Anthony Cordero chose the Grizzlies for his son, 7-year-old Bane, who had been playing flag football in Manassas.
“It’s amazing what they are doing for them,” said Cordero, who also remarked how nice the facilities were.
Tanine Dietter chose to switch her son, Hudson, 7, from their Fauquier County league because of the Grizzlies’ emphasis on safety and fundamentals.
Once a family enters the program, siblings usually follow. Some players only play recreationally, but many continue with the sport. A few, like Nick Mathews, even make football into their career.
After playing for Patriot, Nick played for Division 1 Marshall University, in Huntington, W.Va. He is now an assistant quarterbacks coach for the University of Memphis.
To this day, his favorite season in football was his eighth-grade year, when his Grizzlies squad won the national title at the 95-pound weight class. It wasn’t just the winning that made the year special, but the time he spent with his teammates.
“It’s a game,” Nick said. “The fact that you can go out there and play with your friends and enjoy it. Especially now, in the higher levels you get. … In my world now, it’s a business. You got to remind yourself…that it’s still a game. It’s supposed to be fun.”
Kipp Hanley is an award-winning journalist with experience covering government, education, sports and the military. He resides in Woodbridge with his daughter.
A Big Cheer
BY STACY SHAW
This fall, 110 Grizzly girls will take up their pom-poms. The Gainesville Haymarket Youth Football League's Grizzly Cheer program, founded in 2011, typically organizes three to four squads, but is currently fielding six, explained Grizzly Cheer Director Stephanie Davis.
“This is my fifth season running Grizzly Cheer, so I felt more confident increasing the total number of girls. I would have parents reach out after registration had filled up,” Davis said.
The program serves kindergarten through eighth grade. Squads cheer on the sideline and perform half-time performances.
“Our more senior squads incorporate routines and stunts that will be a huge help transitioning to middle and high school cheer,” Davis said.
Grizzly cheer is both its own tight-knit community and a part of the larger Grizzly family
“We have many girls return year after year. It’s so fun to see them grow from tiny kindergarteners to middle schoolers,” said Davis. “Many of the girls have siblings that play football as well. Grizzly is really one huge family.”
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