Growing up in Hamilton, Martino Di Sabatino and his friends would play football wherever they could. Even if it meant they would have to constantly wait for cars to pass by.
"We always played football on a one-way street," recalled the Huronia Stallions Football Club director of football operations.
In those days, playing organized football just wasn't in the cards before high school for the then young Di Sabatino.
"I played all different sports, but I never really played organized football because I got cut twice trying out for football teams," he said. "I walked to a tryout and when I got cut, I walked home on my own. Back to back. There was weights and all that kind of stuff. I've never given up and you always found some place to play with your friends, so I always had that to come back to."
Di Sabatino knew the disappointment of getting cut and vowed every player would have a team to play for when he began the Stallions program in Barrie and Orillia in the summer of 1993.
"I always had great memories of playing football," said Di Sabatino, who would sneak into old Ivor Wynne Stadium to watch the Hamilton Tiger-Cats play. "If it wasn't for that, who knows what I would have done going on to high school and playing high school football.
"The one thing I always remember is that it wasn't a great feeling getting cut when you're 12 or 13 years of age, so I vowed not to have that in any of our programs. We have a motto that we don't cut kids, they cut themselves."
Now, 28 years later, the Stallions have come a long way from what Di Sabatino called those humble beginnings when they had just 40 kids registered. Today, more than 300 kids, ages eight to 18, are sporting those familiar purple and gold uniforms.
That the Stallions have become an integral part of the minor sports scene in the local community — and become a home for kids looking to dawn the football pads and develop their game on the gridiron for so many years now — is something Di Sabatino takes great pride in.
It's been quite a run.
"It's special," he said of the program's ability to not only grow, but thrive. "In 28 years, it has become such a fabric in my life. I have a family. I have other activities, but this is something that is precious."
When Di Sabatino moved his family up to the area, the football landscape outside of high school was limited. His son was interested in playing football, but to do so he had to go all the way to Oshawa.
"It was like, 'Hey, I got to drive that far from him to play football?'," he recalled.
When he couldn't find a program here, he started one of his own, though the first year was just for kids in high school.
"I knew what football can give you, because I experienced it in high school and I had some great coaches in that department that showed me and others just what sports can do for you in life," Di Sabatino said. "I went to university based on that."
A lot of those kids who suited up in the early years of the program have come back to coach and many have kids of their own playing today. It's that passion, says Di Sabatino, that has made the football club what it is today.
"I think the success is we have players that come back and coach and get involved," he explained. "That's so true today. The majority of our coaches and staff are all former players, or if they're not they're guys that have been around for 10, 15, 20 years that bought into the program and helped to give it new roots."
And Di Sabatino says he's thankful for that, because it's key.
"You need a solid foundation and we have that. All of the rep programs, they're all former players coaching. That plays a role in current kids looking at those former players and seeing where they went," he said. "They're all graduates of higher education, they're successful in life and they bring that to the football field."
You have to really love something to commit to building a program over 28 years.
"Everyone involved gives that commitment and time and leaves it in the system," he said. "We have a program and a system that everyone believes in, that everyone buys into. Not everybody stayed because of different commitments, but ours is a program you have to commit. If you don't, you're not going to get what we expect you should get out of the program. Unfortunately those players don't last. It's not for them, which is OK, too.
"But for the kids that are making the commitment, it's a big commitment and it's a commitment that we have to expect. We expect them to commit to the football program, we expect them to commit to their school work, expect them to commit to their families. You get all those three together and you make a better football player.
"All of a sudden this small little program has developed some fantastic individuals out there."
Some who have gone on to greater heights in the game. Today, the alumni includes five current university coaches and five players who have gone on to play in the Canadian Football League and others who are playing professionally in Europe.
Numerous others have earned university scholarships.
"A lot of people don't know there's football programs all across the world," Di Sabatino said. "Players go and play there and find their niche, and find some meaning to their life there. We got players living in Czech Republic or Italy, Switzerland and Japan."
Offensive lineman Adam Rogers would drive from just outside of Beaverton to Barrie several days a week to suit up for the Stallions. He was the first Stallion alumni to play in the CFL, taking to the field with Edmonton Eskimos and Hamilton.
Kyle Graves, now an offensive co-ordinator for the Mount Allison Mounties, played for the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts, while wide receiver Danny Vandervoort was drafted third overall by the B.C. Lions in 2017.
Shanty Bay native Jake Piotrowski was an offensive guard with Montreal and Midhurst's Cam Thorne an offensive lineman for the Calgary Stampeders and B.C.
"Who would have thought we had kids going to the CFL back in the day? Next on our list, who are we going to put in the NFL? We've got kids playing university football here and in the States, too," Di Sabatino added. "The world is the limit for them and I'm very proud of what they're doing."
As proud as he is of the coaches who have gone to bigger things, like former Stallions coach Clint Uttley, who is the former head coach at McGill University.
"That's one of our pillars, that we expect a big commitment, that we expect the kids to be at practice," Di Sabatino said. "We also expect that devotion, that commitment with coaches at every level. That's something we don't waver on. There's no wavering on that, because you're instructing someone on the football field and they need to have the proper training.
"Our commitment to coaching is No. 1 and that includes the technical aspect, but it also includes the other aspects. How to talk to kids, showing them different avenues that they can go on after football. It brings a lot of responsibility to ones that want to coach in our football program."
Di Sabatino is also proud of the relationships he has established over the years with the City of Barrie, City of Orillia and the local high schools. He started the program because he felt kids needed more football in terms of practices and games. He wanted to enhance what the high school programs have done.
"You can't do it if you don't have great relationships," he said.
Kids come from as far as Parry Sound and Huntsville to take part in the house league or rep programs. That interest, in part, thanks to the relationships he's fostered with Barrie and Orillia, both who have provided the much-needed facilities to build the football club.
"The Barrie sports complex, a facility that is second to none in my eyes," Di Sabatino said of the home they moved into in 2000. "On a Friday night, we'll have six football fields going, from our 18-year-olds to our eight-year-olds. That's a nice thing to see.
"And all the fields are top notch. We don't have to go and pick rocks and pop bottles and glass from all over the field like we used to do when we were first starting."
Oh, there is one thing Di Sabatino is still hoping for: A grandstand at the Barrie Community Sports Complex in Midhurst.
Di Sabatino admits one of his favourite parts of all this is hearing from former players and coaches who have gone on to enjoy success, whether it'd be on a football field, running a team on the sidelines, or as police officer, firefighter or even a politician.
He has no plans to slow down and is thankful for the support from his family and from all those who have been involved in the program over the years, like Chris Forde and Jason Romisher.
"I wouldn't be doing it if the thumbs up didn't overwhelmingly surpass the thumbs down," Di Sabatino said. "You have disappointments and you get upset. You can't please everyone, but those are small compared to the positives. I'm around young people, around former players who are now coaches and they have children and a life and family, and I've got the best world happening.
"I got a family that supports me talking about the football community and my own family that is loving me for doing it. I just continue to do it because the love for the sport, the game and what you get out of it is rewarding," he added. "It never ends really. One day it will for me, but not the football program. There's a long way to go."
