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It’s never too late to pursue the joy of competition.

There will be a new football team taking the field at Wescott Athletic Complex over the next couple of months, and it’s made up of players from all over the area who are coming for many different reasons. Some are looking to make up for lost time on the gridiron, some are looking to make friends and create social circles, and some are probably just looking to hit somebody.

The Austin Hitmen are set to begin their inaugural season in the Southern Plains Football League, a nine man fully padded amateur football league, which includes teams from around the Midwest.

It was June of last year when Austin grads Brandon Smith and Jeremy Wilson came up with the idea to start the Hitmen and they now have a roster of 34 players, with three coaches set to go for the season, which will run from April until June. Wilson will serve as head coach and Smith will serve as team owner.

“Brandon and I used to coach youth sports together and our kids played together since they were eight years old,” Wilson said. “Brandon came up to me about starting a team last year because his son wasn’t playing much on the Albert Lea Grizzlies.”

Once they made up their minds that they were going to have an SPFL team in Austin, Wilson and Smith started a facebook page that was calling for players to join the Austin Hitmen. Some interested players are former Austin players, while others are new to Austin.

“Once the word got out that we were starting a team, we had guys coming out of the woodwork,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a couple of guys from the Twin Cities driving down to play and some out of Rochester.”

Wilson now finds himself coaching a group of adults, who listen a lot better than the youth players he used to coach. The Hitmen are giving those players a second chance to do something they love.

“It gives them a chance to keep playing,” Wilson said. “It’s not like you’re playing against 300-pound athletes. I call it beer league football, kind of like softball. I coached a lot of the Austin guys in youth and high school sports and some of them didn’t get a chance to play very much for one reason or another. It gives them a chance to do it again.”

The Hitmen will play their home games at Larry Gilbertson track and field. There will be a small admission fee of about $5, but kids 12 and under will get free admission.

Austin will open its season against the Mountain Lake Lakers at 3 p.m. on April 26. The team will play seven games, with the regular season wrapping up in late June.