Middle Tennessee Football Association

Why it is built this way

Two things go wrong in youth football. We designed around both.

Neither comes from anyone acting in bad faith. They are what happens when placement is left to judgment, and most families in this market have watched one or the other happen to a team they know. The whole design follows from taking both seriously at once.

The first

The team that plays down

A program concentrates its talent a rung below where it belongs and wins a title against children who are actually that age. Every player is age-eligible and weight-eligible. No rule has been broken. Everyone in the stands can see it.

The second

The team that gets moved

A program declares honestly, pays fees on that declaration, builds a roster around it — and is moved anyway, by a body whose authority is unclear, with no notice, no written standard, and no record of who voted.

Solve only the first and you produce the second with better arithmetic. MTFA is built to prevent both — and neither safeguard asks anyone to cast a vote.

How your team is placed

Three checks, none of them a judgment call

Your program declares where its teams play. Two objective tests confirm it, and the season itself has the last word — on which championship you contest, never on whether you compete at all.

How many teams you field is a lookup

Your registration count in each age band determines how many teams you must field and at which levels. It is a table, not a petition. There is no waiver to request and no favour to ask.

Rule 4.04

Your roster is measured, not judged

Four things are counted from data the league already collects: how many players sit above the weight line, how many are in the older year of the band, how many played at a higher tier before, and how many seasons of football your squad has between them. Clear the limits and your declaration is guaranteed for the season — it cannot be reviewed, reclassified, or made the basis of any postseason restriction by anyone.

Rule 4.06

The season decides your bracket, not your eligibility

At season's end every team is rated in points from the games it actually played. A team that turned out to belong a tier up plays for that tier's championship. It moves teams up and never down, so there is nothing to gain by losing on purpose — and no team is ever left out of the postseason.

Rule 9.04Rule 9.05

The one-line version Play down. Don't win down.

Playing at a level below what your roster qualifies for stays open to any program that needs it, for all the reasons that are legitimate. You simply are not entered in that level's championship. Every honest reason survives; the one dishonest reason is worth nothing.

A first-year player is not a fourth-year player

Experience counts, literally

There is no good reason to line a child in her first season up against a child in his fourth, whatever the two of them weigh. So we count prior seasons and place squads accordingly. A roster of beginners qualifies down automatically — no petition, no vote.

Signed by two people, not one

Your president and your coach both sign

Every team's placement is filed at Fee Day over two signatures, and published. Today a coach can commit a program, or a president can commit a coach who then has to explain it to twenty families. Here both have to agree, in front of each other, in July.

The public record

Everything above is checkable

No league in Tennessee publishes its board minutes or its roll-call votes. We could not find one anywhere in the country that publishes both those and its team classification data. This is what MTFA commits to putting online, all season, downloadable, without an account.

Public record · A band 11–12 illustrative · updated weekly

Team	Declared	Over line	Senior yr	Experience	Rating	Bracket
Ironwood	AAA	9 / —	14 / —	3.10	+18.5	AAA confirmed
Bell Forge	AAA	7 / —	12 / —	2.85	+11.4	AAA confirmed
Millrace	AA	4 / 5	11 / 13	1.74	−0.3	AA confirmed
Longbranch	A	2 / 4	9 / 10	2.40	+8.3	AA — moved up
Ash Grove	A	3 / 4	10 / 10	0.78	−10.2	A confirmed
Kettle Creek	A	1 / 4	7 / 10	0.61	−11.6	A confirmed

Each figure is shown against the published cap for that tier. Longbranch cleared every roster limit at A and was confirmed there for the season — then finished the year rated a tier higher, so it contests the AA championship. It was never at risk of losing its postseason.

Published all season

Rosters and weigh-ins

Every roster with verified birth-record status, recorded weights and assigned tier — with the profile computation and its inputs alongside.

Rule 2.12

Within 72 hours

Every vote, by name

Every vote of every body taken by roll call and published with the minutes. No secret ballot on eligibility, tiering, discipline or the postseason.

Rule 2.06

On request, ten days

The records themselves

Charter, three years of minutes with roll calls and recusals, financials and Forms 990. No purpose statement required, and no refusal because you are in a dispute with us.

Rule 2.13

Who decides what

Named bodies, listed powers, and one line that matters most

Between the two rulebooks this association was built from, six governing bodies are named and none is defined. Here there are four, each with an exhaustive list of what it may do, and anything done outside those powers is void.

Decision

Who decides

Majority

Rules, budget, fees, membership

Board of Directors
One vote per member program

Two-thirds, instructed by each program's own board

Day-to-day administration

Executive Committee
Four elected officers

No power over tier, roster, schedule or bracket

Roster classification and bracket

A published formula
No vote exists

Not applicable

Protests, appeals, ethics, discipline

Appeal Panel
Three directors drawn by lot from uninvolved programs

Written reasons published within five days

The Board of Directors runs this association — and it may not determine any team's tier or bracket, rule on a participant's eligibility, hear an appeal, or exclude any team from the postseason. Rule 2.23

A member program votes on rules, money and membership. It never votes on another program's classification, because no such vote exists.

What we field

Two programs, one book of procedure

Cheer is not a subordinate programme with lesser process here. It is governed by the same notice, the same recorded votes, the same appeal panel, and the same rule that placement is arithmetic.

Tackle Football

Ages 5–12 · Four age bands

Three competitive tiers in every band, so a first-year player is never matched against a fourth-year player on weight alone
Helmet striping and weight lines that Middle Tennessee programs already know, so switching costs almost nothing
Mandatory crossover games, published contact limits in practice, and a written heat and lightning policy
Championship and bowl brackets — every team plays a postseason game

Cheer & Dance

Ages 4–14 · Sideline and competition

Skill tiering inside each age division, so a squad of beginners is not scored against a squad of trained competitors
No child excluded for cheering elsewhere — all-star and school athletes are counted, not barred
Safety written to the current USA Cheer and USASF standards, incorporated by reference so it updates when they do
A full safeguarding rule: background checks, two-adult minimum, open practices, and a named officer

How MTFA is organised

A Tennessee nonprofit, and a public one

MTFA is a Tennessee public benefit nonprofit corporation with members, formed to serve young people rather than the organisations that run it. It is seeking recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. That recognition has not been granted yet, and we will not describe it as though it has.

Legal name: Middle Tennessee Football Association
Entity: Tennessee nonprofit corporationPublic benefit, with members — the election on file with the Secretary of State. Each member program holds one vote for directors, which makes it a member under T.C.A. § 48-51-201.
Federal status: 501(c)(3) recognition pendingThe association has not received a determination letter, so contributions are not tax-deductible today.
Classification sought: Public charity under section 509(a)(2)Not a private foundation, and not a supporting organisation.
Fiscal year: Ends 31 December
Charitable solicitation: Filed with the State before any solicitationWith the Division of Charitable Solicitations, Fantasy Sports and Gaming, and renewed every year.

What "pending" means for a donor

A gift made before the determination letter issues is not deductible yet. If the Internal Revenue Service grants recognition, it is retroactive to the date the association was formed, and gifts made in the meantime become deductible then. If it is refused, they do not. Give with that in front of you rather than behind you.

Why a charity and not a club

Youth leagues do not qualify for exemption by fostering amateur sports; that clause in the Code excludes any organisation that provides athletic facilities or equipment, which a tackle league plainly does. MTFA qualifies on the two grounds the Service has recognised for governing bodies of under-18 sport since Revenue Ruling 80-215: it is charitable, in that it gives young people supervised recreational outlets, and educational, in that it instructs them, their coaches and its officials.

That is not a filing technicality. It is the reason the rulebook restricts participation to players under eighteen, the reason coach and official certification is annual and mandatory, and the reason no program may exclude a child who cannot pay.

Where the money cannot go

No part of the association's earnings may benefit any director, officer or member program. Directors serve without compensation. Individual fundraising accounts are prohibited outright — no member program may credit money raised or hours worked to a particular family's balance, or condition participation, playing time or fee relief on fundraising. That practice is common in youth athletics and it is the fastest way for a league to lose its exemption.

What gets published, and when

The charter, the bylaws, the conflict of interest policy, both rulebooks, the annual budget and every Form 990 the association files. Minutes and roll-call votes within seventy-two hours. Records on request within ten days, with no purpose statement required and no refusal because you are in a dispute with us.

1 April, annually

Tennessee annual report

Filed with the Secretary of State. Missing it means administrative dissolution.

15 May, annually

Form 990 series

Filed with the Internal Revenue Service and published here the same week. Three consecutive misses revokes exemption automatically.

30 June, annually

Charitable solicitation renewal

Renewal or annual exemption request with the Secretary of State, whichever the year's contributions call for.

Questions we expect

Straight answers

Is this just a breakaway from another league?

It is a new association, and we are not asking anyone to leave a league today. Programs in this market already move — one new eight-community league incorporated in 2025 and another has grown from nothing to the largest in the region in about three years. The question was never whether communities switch. It is what they switch to, and today every option is built the same way.

What stops a program stacking a team and winning anyway?

Three things in sequence. The roster test catches a squad that is too big, too old or too experienced for the level it declared. The season rating catches a squad that was inside every limit and simply far better than its division. And the title floor means that playing below your level never puts a lower championship within reach. There is nothing left to gain, so there is nothing for a board to police.

Can my child's team lose its playoff spot?

No. There is no ineligible list in this association and no body has the power to create one. A team can be moved into a higher bracket by its own results, and it can forfeit games for playing an ineligible player or falsifying a record — but no team is ever excluded from the postseason over where it was placed.

What if the league gets a decision wrong?

Classification is arithmetic, so the two things that can go wrong are a misapplied formula and a wrong input. Both are appealable and the remedy is recomputation on correct data. The appeal is heard by three directors drawn at random from programs with no team in your band, and they publish their reasons.

I'm a parent, not a board member. Does any of this reach me?

Yes, deliberately. You can attend any open meeting, see every roster and rating we publish, file an ethics complaint directly without going through your program, comment in writing on any rule change with your comment published alongside the motion, and appeal a decision about your own child's eligibility without your program's consent. And no adverse action may be taken against you for doing any of it.

Is my donation tax-deductible?

Not yet, and we will not tell you otherwise while that is true. MTFA has not received a determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service. If recognition is granted it is retroactive to the date of formation, and gifts made while the application was pending become deductible at that point. Sponsorships and registration fees are a separate question — a sponsorship may be deductible to a business as an ordinary advertising expense whether or not we are exempt. Ask your accountant rather than us.

What does it cost?

The association carries insurance, sanctioning, the platform, the championship and an independent commissioner. Fields, equipment, uniforms and your own registration stay with your program, exactly as they do now. The league-level figure is modelled at $38 to $66 per player where home programs engage officials. Your program sets what families pay.

Every kid plays. Every game is worth the drive.