Inductees
Jamie Myers
A simple conversation between Jamie Myers and his nephews in the late 1980s led to one of the most successful youth sports programs in the state of Missouri.
“When I finished graduate school and moved back to Rolla for a counseling position, my two nephews were in middle school. When I asked if they were playing intramurals, they were confused about what I was asking,” Myers said. “When I told them about playing flag football after school when I was in 5th and 6th grade, they were disappointed it no longer existed.”
Myers spoke with school administration and then-Rolla High School coach Gary Miles and got their support for a flag football league.
Thirty-seven years later, Rolla Youth Football has served thousands of children through its tackle football programs that builds character, teaches life lessons and prepares them for the high school playbook they’ll use as teenage student-athletes.
The success of the program and the impact it has had on the community of Rolla is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Myers into the Class of 2025.
Myers was a First Team Class 4 All-State quarterback for Rolla High School in 1981, setting school season and career records for both touchdown passes and passing yards as co-captain of its state playoff team.
He returned to Rolla to find that when, the middle school opened and fifth-through-seventh graders moved into the new building, the intramural football program didn’t survive.
After garnering support to revive it, he had close to 100 kids show up for the first evening of instruction. He and other volunteer coaches divided them into teams, put plays on large cards, split up the practice field into three smaller fields, and started playing games.
The first two years the program offered just flag football.
“That first year, all we had to tell the difference between teams was the color of the flags,” Myers said. “The second year, my older brother, Dr. David Myers, purchased printed T-shirts, so every team had their own color shirt. We really thought we were something then.”
If they only knew.
The league converted to full tackle football after the second year and the growth continued.
To this day, Rolla Youth Football gives every kid in the community who wants to play football the chance to compete on a team. Myers and others who have helped lead RYF have worked to keep registration fees low with the help of local sponsorships, and the league also provides full registration scholarships for nearly 20 percent of the league each year. Cooking and selling countless hot dogs and hamburgers through the years have helped keep gameday costs low.
Myers says all this work has helped the league avoid the trend of many youth sports programs that, he believes, burden kids and families with the stress of travel expenses, troughs, never-ending seasons and excessive games.
“I have to think our league has been a little unique because the board and coaches from year-to-year wanted to have the best program and the best experience for every kid. Few of us on the Board had our own kids participating, so we worked hard to keep the teams as even as possible,” Myers said. “We have worked hard to have good people as coaches that make it a priority for their team to be a positive experience for kids and understand their role as a model and leader of kids. We wanted coaches that encouraged kids and taught that if you show up, work hard, and be a team player, good things will happen.”
Rolla Youth Football has worked side-by-side with both the high school football program and the local youth cheerleader program that Myers says has the same philosophy of including every kid who wants to participate.
“The two programs have always worked very well together,” he said. “We did make a mistake one year and tried to run the cheerleader program ourselves but learned to stick with football.”
Myers has long had the support of his wife of 37 years, Laurie, and their children Mylhan, Adalie and Chloe – and their spouses Rachael, Matt Threadgill and Matt Wentz. He also thanks mentors Ted Arthur and Jim Anderson, and siblings David and Mary Beth.
“There have been so many people that have made huge time and effort commitments to our program over the years and contributed greatly to its success,” he said. “It has been an example of ‘many hands make light work.’”