The Seymour football team was the beneficiary of the Indianapolis Colts, in partnership with the NFL Foundation and nonprofit initiative True Impact Football, sponsoring 10 under-resourced Indiana high school football programs.

Seymour was one of the 10 schools selected on Jan. 25, being included with Anderson High School, Caston Junior-Senior High School (Rochester), Crispus Attucks High School (Indianapolis), Decatur Central High School (Indianapolis), George Washington Community High School (Indianapolis), Southport High School, Speedway High School, Washington High School (South Bend) and Winamac High School.

Owls head coach Tyson Moore admits he was caught off guard by it. He didn’t hear about it until the last minute as he had a representative from True Impact Football reach out and tell him Seymour qualified for this sponsorship.

“I didn’t have to apply for anything. I just had to tell him yes or no,” Moore said. “These resources are up to $2,500.”

They didn’t donate $2,500 directly, but each program received access to new coaching education, player development and fundraising resources.

“We are proud to be a part of this effort to address the challenges under-resourced football programs in Indiana face,” said Mike Prior, commissioner of Colts Youth Football. “We hope these funds will grow these football programs as well as provide new resources for our student-athletes and coaches to help make the game more fun, safe and accessible.”

Each school got unlimited access to free resources from True Impact Football’s partners, including Glazier Clinics coaching clinics nationwide and its online coach learning platform, Lead ‘Em Up leadership and team captain’s courses and fundraising tools through Booster Club Academy.

Moore attends a lot of the Glazier Clinics.

“They are very popular clinics, and I take my coaching staff to those,” Moore said. “Last year, we bought a pass to those and it cost $800, so to have those paid for in full and not have to worry about budgeting was very helpful.”

It’s not just for the coaches, either. A lot of these resources are geared toward player development and leadership.

“We get leadership resources, online resources to help with player development and coach development, just different resources that we can use,” he said “Some of them are organized to online classwork. We can bring the team in, have a projector and they listen in and learn.”

Developing young leaders isn’t just something that can help on the football field, either. Moore believes this can really help his players off the field as well as help the coaches form better relationships with the players and communicate with them.

“I set up an account, and as soon as I did, I had all these different resources I could use with our team,” Moore said. “It was a very special opportunity. We’re very pleased and very appreciative that we had access to it. It’s $2,500 worth of stuff that we got for free.”

Each program can also include its local youth football programs, such as elementary or middle school teams, in these activities.

Moore is making sure he’s taking advantage of that. He plans to take the Seymour football middle school coaching staff to some of the Glazier Clinics, and they’re planning to share this with the Seymour Area Youth Football League, as well.

“Just so we can help the coaches at that level,” Moore said. “You can always get better. It’s going to be huge in growing the coaches for our programs and helping to put these young kids in the best possible position.”

Moore has also started up his Speed School again, something he started this past summer.

The winter sessions took place a couple of weeks ago, and he was only expecting 10 to 15 kids, but there were 30 registrations for the first night.

“I was very pleased,” Moore said. “I do it for these kids to just get them active and moving, learning the basics of the stuff they need to do when they get older. I had 10 to 12 football guys helping out.”

The mentality around the Seymour program is still as motivated and hungry as it was in the immediate aftermath of the last-second loss to New Albany in the sectional championship game in early November.

In years past, Moore always felt like once the season ended, players were relieved it was over, but that’s starting to change for the Owls, even in the doldrums of January and February.

“We have a lot of kids that play winter sports, so it’s just about all the guys that should be going to after-school workouts are showing up,” Moore said. “The guys still have that motivation. It’s definitely an energy I haven’t seen since I’ve been here.”