ST. CLOUD -- The Granite City Renegades semi-pro football team is looking forward to the new season, and bringing home some championship hardware.  The team held a meet and greet in east St. Cloud Monday night.

This will be the 8th season for the Renegades, who kicked off their inaugural season in 2011. Team President and Head Coach Brett Weaver says his wife and him started the team, to give St. Cloud something it didn't have.

"Our guys are all local, from here. They play for the love of the game. So they have a chance to do other things, but, the real reason we [my wife and I] did this is to give the community something they didn't have, and that's having hometown heroes if you will."

Weaver says the team's goal for their 8th season is a championship for St. Cloud.

Todd Youngdahl is a 2nd-year linebacker for the Renegades and 39-years-old, he says semi-pro has given him the option to live out some high school dreams, after making his way in life after school.

"Football is something I didn't get to do in high school, I'm the old guy on the team, so I didn't play, I started companies and went on that whole life thing right out of school. When I finally got to a spot to where being injured wasn't that big of a deal, I figured I'd try this again before I got too old."

Rookie runningback Adrian Walker is making sure he's taking every game one at a time. He says he doesn't want to get ahead of himself when it comes to the end of the season stats.

"I think a lot of that is something I shouldn't worry about. I wanna just worry about making sure I'm doing my best. Whether I'm getting a lot of yards or touchdowns, quite frankly, that doesn't matter. It just making sure we get wins, and I help my team out."

The NSFL is made up of six total teams, and the Renegades play their home games at Clemens Stadium on the St. Johns University campus.

They'll start the 2018 season by kicking off against the Minnesota Storm on Saturday, May 5th. Wrapping up the season July 21st against the Minnesota Vipers.

More From AM 1240 WJON