RMFL MANAGING BOARD BEGINS EARLY MAPPING OF 2007 SEASON; SETS TENTATIVE START, BUDGET AND ISSUES COMMISSIONER GRADE

GARLAND, UTAH – The Rocky Mountain Football League Managing Board met once again for its annual pre-All-Star Game meeting with a number of key items on the agenda; from assessing the 2006 season, to early mapping of the 2007 season.

In a general review of the “Lesson’s Learned” in the 2006 season, managing board members had a number of observations that were voiced, including:

-                     Expressed a need for better enforcement of smoking/drinking policies on school boundaries needed in ‘07

-                     An improved Ethics policy regarding players switching teams in the future needed.

-                     More consistent enforcement of the rules, particular uniform codes required players to be in uniform with the entire team by the third game of the season

-                     A better defined set of criteria for who should be in AAA or AA needed

-                     An investigation into the possibility and pitfalls of players being allowed to be on both a AAA and AA roster

-                     Defined penalties for confirmed all-stars who are no-shows at the all-star game

-                     A defined constitutional clause regarding player conduct towards officials and subsequent penalties regarding conduct and behavior

-                     Early released schedule (tentative) in 2006 was good and helpful for many teams

-                     Look into increasing some of the pageantry surrounding the all-star event, including fireworks or an indoor football arena (Holt Arena perhaps)

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RMFL Managing Board was able to "spread out" in Bear River High School Auditorium as they discussed the issues from 2006.

Overall, the RMFL Managing Board was pleased with the 2006 season and expressed satisfaction on the general execution of the administrative program of the RMFL. Specifically, the Managing Board had their annual opportunity to “Grade the RMFL Commissioner”, Jared Neumeier, on many of the job assignments he was under contract to perform.

In the “Overall” League Functioning Category, Neumeier scored an even “Good” grade, garnering 15 goods with 3 excellent and 3 Fair grades from the Managing Board.  His strongest category was Statistics reporting, scoring a 4.25 average with 7 excellent’s, 12 goods, 1 fair and 1 poor grade. Neumeier’s weakest category was in Diplomacy with an average score of 3.33 with 5 excellent’s, 9 good’s, 6 fair’s and 1 poor grade.  In other categories, Neumeier scored 3.66 in Leadership, 4.0 on the RMFL web site, 4.15 in League Communications and 3.85 in Organization.

General comments included, “too much bias expressed in sports stories” and “inconsistent decision-making at times”.  Also, some board members felt that generally enforcement of rules should be stronger and too much “slack” was extended to some teams in 2006.  Also, a comment was that a Utah area beat writer should be looked into.

There were generally no positive comments recorded by the Managing Board.

In commenting on his 2006 grading, Neumeier stated, “Obviously, I always want to live up to the expectations of those that I serve, so all I can do is take the criticism to heart and try to do better for as long as I serve in 2007.  I honestly do appreciate that the board does take the time annually to let me know what they think.  The important thing really is that they know that it is THEY who represent the players of the RMFL, not myself, and I am obligated to listen to that.”

In the next order of business, a tentative budget for the 2007 season was reviewed and approved by acclamation.  The budget operated under the assumption that there would not be a significant insurance increase as occurred between 2005 and 2006 and that there would be 24 teams playing an 8-game schedule.  The same number of playoff teams as from ’06 was assumed would be represented in ’07. The approved tentative budget can be viewed at: Tentative 2006 RMFL Budget.

The Managing Board then launched into discussions for Coach of the Year, League MVP’s and the All-RMFL Teams.  The results of those discussions and votes can be found on the announcement articles for those awards.  There was some discussion that for 2007, the RMFL should consider and discuss further overall MVP’s broken down into an overall AAA and overall AA MVP awards.  Commissioner Neumeier stated that the 2006 decision to maintain it as one overall league awards was part budgetary and part philosophical.

Finally, the Managing Board settled in on discussions as the a skeleton schedule to lay-out the 2007 season.


Managing Board attempted to solve the issues of an early season; setting earlist season start date for 2007 at April 14th.

Another one-day RMFL Kick-Off meeting was agreed to be held on January 28th, 2007 at a location to be announced by Jared Neumeier sometime in November.  The final schedule would be released no later than the Friday following that meeting.

A discussion and vote was taken on the tentative opening weekend for the 2007 season.  Many GM’s felt that the adverse late spring weather continues to be a concern for school districts and more and more restrictions on early games are forthcoming.  By a vote of 13-8, however, April 14th was selected as the tentative opening  Saturday for 2007 over April 21st.

Commissioner Neumeier, however, was asked to look into a “local schedule” combined with looking at which teams would be able to host a Thursday night game so that a full slate of regular season games could be held the Thursday night before Memorial Day weekend so as not to lose a week on the schedule and keep the Championship and All-Star games from running too late into July.

The only managing board member not in attendance was the Salt Lake Nemesis who subsequently have announced they are folding.

The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.