Adults bet thousands on youth football

[The Straight Story]

Gambling, criminal influences surround popular South Florida youth football league

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Pee wee players take the field in the morning, with parents and young siblings scattered through the stands. But as day turns to night, and the boys on the field get bigger and older, the crowd grows and the atmosphere begins to shift.

Groups of men in their 20s and 30s fill the stands and sidelines, to the point that passers-by must jostle for space as they walk along fences separating the bleachers from the field. And then something else becomes obvious: Wads of bills start switching hands; cheers and fist pumps are followed by exchanges of money; and men debate how much to put down next time. Marijuana smoke is often in the air, and adults walk around with cups of alcohol seemingly without concern.

An "Outside the Lines" investigation found such scenes several times this past fall in the South Florida Youth Football League, which is made up of 30,000 children ages 5 to 15 from Palm Beach to Miami. In the packed crowds, OTL producers saw men holding stacks of bills -- often in large denominations -- as they watched the games. Using hidden cameras, OTL recorded the men openly exchanging money with one another, even as they were just a few feet from a uniformed police officer in one instance. But the exchange of money in the stands was the small stuff, OTL found -- sometimes the games had tens of thousands of dollars bet on them, and players were often paid for making big plays.

Former players and coaches say the gambling and paying of players and their parents has gone on for years, yet some league and law enforcement officials told ESPN they were not aware of the extent of the problems until "Outside the Lines" conducted interviews and showed the officials its undercover video. One man seen on video exchanging money in a group at the league's super bowl is a longtime coach in the league and city recreation leader.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6451796

[Drale]

1. Gambling is an addiction much like a drug

If you are addicted, you will find anything possible to gamble on and do it.

[brewens]

2. My freshman coach told us there was a lot of money riding on us

when we played our arch rival. Only time I ever had a coach bring that up. He was an alcoholic but also a really nice guy. In a pregame pep talk he could fire us up like no other coach I ever had. He coached at that jr high school for 30 years.

He also taught drivers ed and was renowned for sleeping most of the way. He'd tell a kid where to go, wake up when he stopped for the driver change, then go back to sleep for the next leg. Despite all his flaws, we really loved that guy.