We believe the GCYFL is the best organized league in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, focused on the highest levels of league integrity, player safety, and youth football experience. Since our founding in 2005, we pride ourselves on providing a best-in-class youth tackle experience. Our member chapters strive to build deep roots within our communities.

Participation in youth tackle football is a significant commitment of time and resources for the entire family. A given youth tackle football season is long and requires hours of family time for practices and games. You need to find the right league and the right team. Many youth tackle football leagues which are poorly organized or lack adequate funding suffer from all or some of the following: poor communication with teams and parents, missed or frequently rescheduled games (often at the last minute), lack of safety or proper crowd control at football venues, absence of trained medical personnel on site at games, use of untrained referees, and/or coaches and staff who have not been properly certified or background checked.

The GCYFL are firmly committed to doing what we reasonably can to maximize child safety. Our coaches go through background checks and screening and are required to be certified with USA Football. We mandate that trained medical personnel are on the sidelines of every GCYFL game. More information on our approach can be found at www.usafootball.com.

An unweighted league is solely age-based, meaning players are assigned to divisions and teams based solely on their date of birth (regardless of size and weight). As a result, there can be tremendous variation in size and weight at a given age division because kids hit their growth spurts at different times, and players who have grown more quickly than their peers can have enormous size and weight advantages especially in the younger age divisions. This has enormous implications for player safety. In an unweighted league, you could see a 130lb ten-year-old tackling a 70lb ten-year-old. We believe many youth tackle leagues are unweighted simply because they lack the organization, expertise, and funding to manage and administer an age/weight system.

Conversely, a weighted league uses both age and weight to separate players into divisions based on studies of youth age/weight development and variance to help adjust and normalize for differences in timing of growth. The end result we believe is a safer youth tackle experience for young kids, that doesn't excessively reward or penalize players solely for differences in timing of growth. This is especially important at these younger ages when variance in growth rates is extremely high and kids are learning/experiencing tackle football for the first time. Our age / weight limits are designed to be more restrictive for the younger age groups and gradually grow less restrictive, preparing players for the transition to high school football.

We believe the GCYFL is the premier weighted league serving Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.

In each age/weight division, there are playoffs which commence at the end of the regular season. Playoff eligibility and seeding is determined by season record. The playoffs are “win-or-go-home,” and culminate in a Super Bowl Championship game. Our Super Bowls for all National Conference age/weight divisions has been held at SoFi Stadium since 2021 in what has consistently been one of the largest, most attended pre- High School youth tackle football events in Southern California.