Pop Warner: Getting ready to kick off.

Joseph Boo

COSTA MESA - Like most Pop Warner football games, the scrimmages

between Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach usually ended in some form of dog

pile, whether it involved an entire team or three players.

Saturday’s scrimmage at Costa Mesa High was the first opportunity for

many on Costa Mesa’s Pop Warner football teams to play football this

year. For some, it’s the first time they played football, period.

Five coaches took on the task of guiding their Mustang teams through

three scrimmages, with Saturday being the first one, before a 10-game

season starts Sept. 9.

“I’m really anxious for the season to start,” Costa Mesa Junior midget

Coach Jim Wedgeworth said.

Wedgeworth, 40, coaches the oldest group of Costa Mesa players. The

junior midget players generally range from age 12 and up, although

younger kids who are big for their age are also on this team.

Wedgeworth is entering his seventh year with the Mustangs. The

lifelong Costa Mesa resident followed two sons onto this year’s team,

13-year-old Rich and 11-year-old Matt. They are two returners from a team

that overachieved to a 5-5 record.

“We were lucky to win one game last year.” Wedgeworth said. “We had 20

kids that never played before, but we only lost the game we were supposed

to lose. This year, we have a lot of returning players. We’re a little

bigger and faster this year.”

On the opposite spectrum, Mike Griffin, 29, is the inaugural coach for

Costa Mesa’s flag football team. This team is for 5- and 6-year-olds who

never played organized football in their young lives.

It is up to Griffin, who entered first year as a youth football coach

to be with his son David, and his staff to introduce these kids to

football.

“We teach some techniques, but we’re more about building character,”

Griffin said. “We want them to play as hard as possible and give 100 %

all the time. There is no quitting, and we want them to have fun.”

Pee wee coach Charlie Christiansen, 49, is entering his fourth year in

youth football. He coached college softball in Reno, Nev. and now he is

guiding his youngest of six kids, Davis, through football. If all goes

well, Davis will play where Christiansen and his daughter attended

school, Mater Dei. For now, he feels good about this year’s squad.

“If they play to their potential, we can win a lot of game,”

Christiansen said. “The thing is, we have to remain focused and play to

our potential. We have Blake Lemiuex, our running back and linebacker,

and Jason Ruiz, our quarterback. We need them to be leaders on our team.”

Two Costa Mesa coaches, Mike Cota and Manny Bonilla, don’t have any

relatives on the their teams. Instead, they coach for one simple reason,

the love of the game.

“I just coach because I love the Mustangs and I love football,”

Bonilla said.

Bonilla, 29, is the coach of the mighty mites team for 7- and

8-year-olds. Bonilla, who played football at Costa Mesa High and Orange

Coast College, started off coaching his brother on a youth team at

Murietta Valley. He came back to his old neighborhood and hasn’t stopped

since.

“When we take a group of players who never stepped on the field and

mold them into one unit, that is the greatest thing,” he said.

Cota, 26, is still a student at OCC but is in his fourth year with

youth football. He originally coached his cousin in Junior All-American

and is entering his first year with Costa Mesa’s junior pee wee (9-10)

squad. Cota has aspirations of coaching into the high school level and

beyond. But he still finds many rewards in youth football.

“Last year, we had a kid who was the biggest one on the team but also

the weakest,” Cota said. “He fought and cried, but we pushed him and at

the end of the year, he was a coach’s dream. The joy of the season was

seeing the weakest kid on the team turn into one of our best.”