If the most avid supporters of a Calais-Woodland high school football program had their way, the Silverados would be making their varsity debut this fall.

But since the Maine Principals’ Association football committee opted not to accept an application for that cooperative entry to join Eastern Maine Class C at the start of the 2007 season, Plan B has been to take the necessary steps to build toward that varsity objective.

“The kids are excited,” said Ian Pratt, who was hired recently as the Silverados’ first head coach. “If it was a choice between club football versus no football at all, we’ll take club football.”

Pratt, a left guard and inside linebacker during the late 1980’s at Stearns High School of Millinocket, has coached football just across the Canadian border in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, since 1999. More recently, the Robbinston resident and auto dealer has developed and coached bantam (ages 14-15) and peewee (11-13) teams consisting largely of Calais and Woodland players who have competed in the Canadian-based Fundy Football League for the last three years.

Last fall, the Calais-Woodland bantams won the Maritime provincial championship, sparking momentum for a cooperative entry from the schools to apply to join the Maine high school varsity ranks.

The MPA football committee ultimately put the brakes on that effort, citing the fact that Calais-Woodland had not played two years of junior varsity competition as well as safety concerns about 16-year-olds from Calais-Woodland who had aged out of the bantams competing against high school varsity players typically ranging in the 17-18 age bracket.

A subsequent appeal of that decision to the MPA’s Interscholastic Management Committee was denied, so the Silverados, with an eye toward becoming a varsity program as soon as possible, are moving ahead.

“A lot of people are excited about having football in Washington County for the first time in 70 years,” said Pratt, referring to earlier football programs in the region during the 1930s.

Pratt expects up to 40 players to participate in football at the high school level this fall, playing a schedule against sub-varsity teams from Eastern Maine as well as other developmental programs around the state, such as Telstar of Bethel.

Many more players are expected to play on the local bantam and peewee teams that will still compete for Fundy Football League championships.

“I want as many of the kids as possible to have the chance to play for something,” Pratt said.

Where the high school team will play and practice this fall hasn’t been determined yet, and as a result the Silverados likely will play most of their games on the road.

“We’re still up in the air on that,” said Pratt.

Pratt also is pursuing a longer-term solution to the field situation, a proposal for a $1.3 million multipurpose stadium for the area that would include a rubberized track and a FieldTurf artificial surface that could be used for football as well as other sports and community activities.

“There’s been a lot of favorable response to it,” Pratt said, “and this area really needs it.”