Excitement is building in Harlan, Indiana as the latest, hometown, football team is going into practice for the fall, 2015 season! The Tri-State King’s Crusaders, based out of the Christian Community Center of Harlan, are coming off a year when the varsity team won the league playoffs and championship. And with almost the whole offensive and defensive lines and much of the defensive backfield returning, they appear to be a very formidable team again this year.
The King’s Crusaders team is entering its 5th season after Lynn Swing and Junior Stailey, with their families and others to assist them, started a football team to afford an opportunity for their sons and other homeschooling young men to play organized tackle football, as well as others that attend private schools that do not have football programs, or any others that may not have made the programs of other local teams for whatever reasons. The team is composed of players from the Fort Wayne area, Western Ohio, as far south as Decatur, IN, and as far north as southern MI.
The Crusaders program is a program designed to create an environment for young men to be mentored in a Christian environment as well as provide winning football against other homeschooling teams across the Tri-State area, and some other smaller public schools. The Crusaders have a Junior High and High School program. Mr. Swing and Mr. Stailey still run and oversee the program. The Crusaders are coached by Jay Horn, Lael Barkman, and Jose Lopez, as well as other assistants.
Coach Horn (assistant Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator) is a long time coach in various Ohio High Schools. He is part of a lineage of coaches as his father is a long tenured high school coach, as well as his son is coaching the wide receivers at Ashland College after playing professionally and semi-professionally, including a brief stint with the Indianapolis Colts.
Coach Barkman (Defensive Coordinator) played one year of semi-professional with the Virginia Mutiny while serving as a youth pastor and associate pastor in Northern Virginia, and then after moving to Indiana to serve as the senior pastor at The Ekklesia in Harlan (formerly Sunrise Chapel), he coached at Woodlan High School for 8 years under Coach Leland Etzler and Barry Ehle.
Coach Lopez (assistant coach) has always had a passion for coaching/mentoring and studied philosophies of coaching at Indiana University.
If you have a son(s) from the ages of 12-19 years old that would like to play in a quality program, please contact the Crusaders faculty. You can reach Mr. Lynn Swing at 260-403-5167 or Mr. Junior Stailey at 260-515-1438 with any questions or to sign up to play.
Practice begins August 3rd and the team practices Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Games are played on Saturdays and they practice on the Saturdays that they don’t play on before the season begins.
