Sunday Funday Sports offers low-key games for youths

BY JEFF VORVA

James Epsom, 7, of Burr Ridge is a cancer survivor who loves football and helped win a championship in the Sunday Funday sports league.
Photo courtesy of Kristin Garlander

James Epsom’s goal is to play in the National Football League.

He is 7 years old. He is 4 feet tall and weighs 60 pounds.

Oh, and he just beat leukemia.

Time will tell if the Burr Ridge cancer survivor ever obtains that dream of playing pro football, but he took his first step in the fall, playing flag football in the Sunday Funday Sports league at Hinsdale South. His Vikings team won an award that looks like the famous Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the NFL Super Bowl champ.

“It’s a godsend to have some normalcy back in his life and let him do sports,” Epsom’s mother, Kristin Garlanger, said. “Flag football is the first of many sports he is involved in, and he is just thriving.”

Hinsdale native Michael Ockrim loves to hear that. In June, he took over the Go Long Flag Football organization and morphed it into Sunday Funday, which offers flag football, wiffleball, and floor hockey to hundreds of kindergarten-through-12th-grade athletes from Hinsdale, Downers Grove, Oak Brook, Elmhurst, Clarendon Hills, Willowbrook, Burr Ridge, and other surrounding communities.

“At the end of the year, I received a note from James’ mother, and I had no idea that this kid went through all of this trauma and this horrible experience,” Ockrim said. “This was like a bright light. You don’t know all of the stories, but I’ve been around long enough that if one tells you, there are 10 more. It brought me to tears. I know that sounds cheesy, but he’s holding the trophy and beaming. That’s what it’s about.”

“The real secret sauce isn’t the sports. It’s that it is one hour, once a week.”

– Michael Ockrim on Sunday Funday

Epsom, who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 3, is happy to get his chance to play football.

“I like pulling flags, the handoffs and the touchdowns,” he said. “I also like catching the throws.”

Ryan Slotwinski of Darien dives for an opponent’s flag in the fall.
Photo courtesy of Elias Varesis

And he liked winning the trophy.

“He would point to the trophy, which looks like the Lombardi trophy,” Garlanger said of her son. “He would say, ‘I want that.’ Mike would always say, ‘You gotta earn it,’”

Ockrim and his venture have been earning a lot of respect in the area. He is the founder of Westmont’s Mighty Oak Athletic and is now providing kids a chance at some low-key, low-pressure fun.

Sure, there are championships to be won, but most of the year, it’s a one-hour Sunday of having fun and playing sports without practices or lengthy time commitment or travel.

“The real secret sauce isn’t the sports,” he said. “It’s that it is one hour, once a week. There are no snacks. No practices. No travel. It’s just going out there and having fun. Just playing a game. It used to be like that. When I was a kid, that’s how it was.”

And he doesn’t want too many adults gumming up the works.

Henry Hutchins of Hinsdale enjoys a moment during a wiffle ball game.
Photo courtesy of Radosav Dubak

“I want it to be youth-driven,” Ockrim said. “The kids come up with the rules and the game structure. We want all the kids to be the referees. We want them to help coach as much as they can. We want them to serve on the board.”

Ockrim said he grew up playing sports in Hinsdale at the Salt Creek Club, Burns Field and Monroe Elementary School.

When Go Long was ready to dissolve, Ockrim took over, and his son, Nicholas, was placed in charge as a program director.

“I love sports and playing games — it’s what I look forward to most each day,” said Nicholas, a freshman men’s volleyball player at the College of DuPage. “This gives me a chance to share that joy with other kids in a fun, low-pressure environment.”

Michael calls Sunday Funday Sports, “One of the greatest parental experiences I’ve ever had.”

Garlanger also enjoyed watching her son thrive and have fun each Sunday in the fall.

“It was a special season for him and our whole family,” she said. “That Sunday Funday group just made it very easy, and it was such a good time for us. Now he wants to keep playing.”