Portsmouth Pee Wees to follow Pats onto Gillette field

Posted 8/12/15

Above: Portsmouth Pop Warner Junior Pee Wee head coach Marc Mello leads his team during practice at Portsmouth High School Monday night. Photo by Richard W. Dionne Jr.

PORTSMOUTH — This is one childhood boast that few kids ages 9 to 12 …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Portsmouth Pee Wees to follow Pats onto Gillette field

Posted

Above: Portsmouth Pop Warner Junior Pee Wee head coach Marc Mello leads his team during practice at Portsmouth High School Monday night. Photo by Richard W. Dionne Jr.

PORTSMOUTH — This is one childhood boast that few kids ages 9 to 12 could top.

Thursday night’s NFL pre-season matchup between the Super Bowl championship-winning New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers is notable not only because Tom Brady is expected to play at least a few snaps.

The nationally televised game at Gillette Stadium has a bonus attraction: the Portsmouth Pop Warner Junior Pee Wee team will be taking on a Massachusetts squad at halftime.

The 7:30 p.m. NFL game will be broadcast in these parts on WPRI-TV Channel 12.

“It’s going to be a great opportunity for the kids to actually play at Gillette,” said Troy Watson, assistant commissioner of The Rhode Island Southeastern Massachusetts Football and Spirit Conference (RISMA). And, they’re going to be playing to a sold-out crowd. They’re going from, at the most, 600 to 700 people to 65,000.”

Junior Pee Wee Portsmouth Patriots team, made up of players ages 9 to 12, won its second consecutive Rhode Island championship last year under head coach Ben Hurd. Some of those same players are still on the team, which is now headed up by Marc Mello.

The halftime games will feature four teams from Rhode Island and Massachusetts who will use half the field for their two games. They’re being held as part of USA Football Month, which is celebrated throughout the pre-season.

Mr. Watson, who is also head coach for the Pop Warner Mitey-Mite team, said he was asked about Portsmouth’s interest in sending a team to Foxborough through his RISMA contacts.

“When they mentioned a good team, Portsmouth came up. I said, ‘Absolutely. These kids are going to go nuts over this,’” he said.

Although the Pee Wees have known about the honor for “two or three weeks,” said Mr. Watson, players were asked to keep it under their hats before the official invitation arrived.

“First of all, they didn’t believe us,” he said of the players’ initial reaction. “We didn’t have anything in writing.”

The New England Patriots were generous with tickets, he said. There are 34 to 36 players on the Pee Wee team and each one was offered one ticket per parent, according to Mr. Watson.

Limited playtime

Although they will surely enjoy the spotlight, the kids probably won’t have an opportunity to meet the players, nor will they have much time on the field.

“NFL rules are real strict. There’s not even a set time for the game,” said Mr. Watson. As soon as the Patriots and Packers leave the field at halftime, the junior games begin.

“It’s only eight minutes of play, but once an NFL player walks back onto the field, the game is over, no matter if it’s mid-play,” said Mr. Watson.

No matter, he said.

“It’s going to be a great experience,” he said. “They probably won’t remember until the fourth quarter but then they’ll be, ‘We played there.’ They can look at their friends and say, ‘Hey, I played on that field.’

“They have bragging rights for at least a year.”

New England Patriots, Portsmouth Football, Portsmouth PeeWee, Portsmouth Pop Warner

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.