SAN ANTONIO – Just weeks before a youth football league at Fort Sam Houston was to begin practice, the league was disbanded.
The league is made up of 200 kids ranging in age from 7 to 12.
Now, the football players and the cheerleaders are left searching for other teams around the county if they want to play this year.
"(I'm) actually shocked," said Donnie Cromartie, commissioner of the Fort Sam Houston Cougars.
The team league has been around for four and a half decades. It was part of the North American Junior Independent Football Federation that started on military bases around San Antonio back in 1969.
"The military presence, you know, they used to bring out the Army band (and) they would have ceremonies," said Mike Tavita, president of NAJIFF. "I think all our kids were inspired seeing that military presence."
There is not any of that presence left.
The Air Force bases have been doing away with the teams over several years. Since the formation of Joint Base San Antonio, the Air Force took over the Moral, Welfare and Recreation departments, including at Fort Sam, and now they have ended their football program with little explanation, leaving the commissioner to speculate that it had to do with the possibility of head injuries.
"We thought we were taking the steps to make the game a whole lot better and safer so things like this wouldn't happen," Cromartie said.
The coaches were teaching the new recommended techniques of head-up tackling, even taking classes to get certified.
The decision also affected parents.
Chris Irving is was injured by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2009. During his rehab and recovery at San Antonio Military Medical Center, the short distance to the field to watch his kids become a blessing.
"I came out to the field just to sit there on the bench and watch my kids play and the other kids play, hear the laughter. It took some of the darkness, literally, out of my mind," Irving said.
He also said it had the same effect on others who were wounded. Over all, watching his kids and the other kids had such an impact he became a head coach.
"Were still fighting for the program. We're not going to quit," Cromartie said.