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HISTORY
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The Gentlemen's Flag Football
League began in 1991 by athletes who loved competitive adult
sports. Forty-two young men set out to form the Lackawanna
County Fifth Down Gentlemen's Flag Football League. The
League reformed in Lehigh County as the Lehigh County
Gentlemen's Flag Football League with thirty-six
individuals. Through the dedication of those captains and
players, the league began to thrived and continued to
attract more and more athletes. By 1993 the league grew to
eighty active athletes. In the fall of that year, the League
decided, for better publicity, to shorten its name to the
Gentlemen's Flag Football League, sometimes referred as the
GFFL. In the spring of 1995, the GFFL published its own
newsletter, now known as The 5th Down. After that, the
league exploded to 140 active athletes. In 1996, volleyball
and basketball were developed for league members and thus
transformed the League to operate as an athletic
association. Thereafter, the Gentlemen's Athletic
Association became the official name with four divisions;
Gentlemen's Flag Football League (GFFL), Gentlemen's
Basketball League (GBL), Gentlemen's Volleyball League
(GVL), and Gentlemen's and Athletes Motivational efforts
through sports (GAMES). GAMES was created to organize
tournaments or activities for the sole purpose of raising
revenue for charities. By the end of 1996, the Association
incorporated as the Gentlemen's Athletic Association, Inc.
All GAA activities would be organized and operated under the
direction of committee members who were in turn governed by
the GAA Board of Directors. In 1997, the Gentlemen's
Athletic Association exploded a second time to 350 active
members who were players, officials, league officers, and
board of directors. Excellence in organization and standards
for sportsmanship became the vehicle that would carry the
GAA into the 21st century. By the ten year anniversary, the
GFFL became the primary operation for the GAA and alone was
accommodating over four hundred area athletes. Through the
success of the past and vision for the future, the GFFL now
runs year-round flag football for area athletes by having
flag football seasons in the spring and fall, separated by
two substantial tournaments: the March Melee tournament
which is for members only during the last weekend in March,
and our open SportsFest tournament in July. What will bring
success tomorrow will depend on what has already brought us
success in the past - our committment to sportsmanship and
our sportsmanship to one another.
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PURPOSE
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The Gentlemen's Athletic
Association, Inc. is an organization created in Lehigh
County, Pennsylvania to offer athletic programs for the
community and financial funding for charitable
organizations.
The GAA's primary purpose is to
provide a challenging and competitive experience for
athletic gentlemen and women in order to continually enhance
the lives of players, members, and staff and also to offer
sportsmanship, health, and education to our community. The
GAA devotes seventy percent of its time and resources to
organizing, scheduling, and implementing athletic programs.
Each program is administered by directors at different times
of the year and continues for two to three months, depending
on the sport. All programs are funded by the association's
membership dues. The revenue generated by dues is allocated
to finance the operating costs of the organization as well
as to be distributed as donations to charities.
The GAA's secondary purpose is to
aid charitable organizations with financial funding. The GAA
devotes approximately thirty percent of its time and
resources to organizing athletic tournaments and events that
raise and distribute funds to charitable non-profit
organizations. Event directors organize the event as well as
approach businesses requesting donations for advertisements.
The event's donations and application fees build a surplus
of funds in order to distribute proceeds to the designated
non-profit community-based organizations or individuals with
specific economic hardship.
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MISSION
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- To provide a challenging and
competitive experience for athletic gentlemen in order to
continually enhance the lives of players, members , and
staff and also to offer sportsmanship, health, education,
and assistance to our community. We will strive to
establish our organization as a progressive and
profressional Gentlemen's Athletic
Association.
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COMMITMENT
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The GAA demands that all GAA
members represent the organization as a progressive and
professional athletic association while encouraging the
health, safety, and sportsmanship of every member. The GAA
directors are vested with the power to govern and make
decisions in a way that will only positively affect the
safety and well being of every player, the growth and
stability of each league, and the reputation, and finances
of the Association. Like other professional organizations,
our association must continually improve to meet the
challenges of the 21st Century. This commitment to
excellence requires us to focus on how we serve our members,
how we utilize our resources, and how we represent the GAA
and GFFL as athletic ambassadors to the public.
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GFFL
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