It’s all for love of the game for adult football players

In Texas, they say, it’s always football season.
A lot of young -- and some who are young at heart -- Texans take that saying literally.
While the state’s high school, college and pro teams are in the middle of their off-season, a dedicated group of 16 teams clustered generally in the central region of the state are sweating through the summer heat while battling for the championship in South Texas Amateur Football.
“This is all for the love of the game,” says STAF founder and CEO Eloy Vela Jr. “We have younger guys, some just out of high school or college, and we have some older players who work and support their families. This is just a bunch of guys who like to play football.”
The league’s 16 teams are spread across central Texas from San Antonio to Victoria and includes entries from small towns such as La Pryor, Pleasanton, Floresville and Cuero. The Cuero team, in its first season, is 5-0 headed into this week’s action on the road against the Texas Heat in San Antonio.
Teams play a 12-game schedule wrapping up July 31.
“We try to focus on regional pairings to cut down on travel as much as possible,” Vela said. “We’ve had interest from some other towns as well. This can only get better.”
Among towns he’s heard from, Vela said, was Gonzales.
“I’d love to help get a team organized there, it’s such a great football town,” he said. “That area up there, it’s all football country. I’d like to see a Gonzales team next spring.”
When he hears from a town or group that wants to organize a team, Vela gets involved to help the team get started.
“The big expense of course, that’s the equipment, and this year we had a policy of uniformity, all the way down to  the socks of the uniforms,” he said. “It’s not the NFL, but we want to look like professionals out there. Our policy this year was 100 percent max professionalism on the field, including the referees and stadiums.”
At the same time, however, it’s strictly amateur ball. The league has firm and hard rules on eligibility and accountability.
The teams charge modest admission fees, primarily to cover stadium and officiating costs. Some of the teams recoup costs through concessions, but it’s dependent on the locale.
Because it’s amateur football, players shoulder most of the financial burden for their own medical insurance, but Vela said he’s working on finding corporate sponsors to at least defray some of those costs.
“The word ‘semi-pro,’ to me there was always a bad association with that,” he said. “Some of the guys we have playing here, they might still have a chance (college eligibility), but most of them are just guys who enjoy playing the game they love in their own backyard.”