Gulf Coast Sharks football team held tryouts Saturday

The Gulf Coast Sharks, an international year-round football team for kids, held tryouts over the weekend in Biloxi.

The Sharks are set to be the first of such a program on the Coast, drawing a crowd of young candidates to Popp’s Ferry Park Saturday morning.

Director Joel Fields tells News 25 he and his team of coaches want to give area kids a program they can focus on for the whole year.

No registration was necessary, the eight-to-13-year-olds showed up on the field with only their cleats and a birth certificate.

The football team aims to temper its boys into young men as they enter high school leagues. Fields said, “I wanted to have teams that were well-organized, well-coached, as well as to have more skillsets for these kids. Because you have rec leagues that are only for a couple of months out of the year, and then the rest of the time these kids are left with playing other sports or nothing else to do, so that’s why we made this year-round, we can continue on these skills for these kids and make them better.”

The Gulf Coast Sharks are formalizing their team this week.