The feeder programs that stock some of Minnesota’s high school football powerhouses — teams like Maple Grove, Minnetonka and Edina — are less concerned about winning at the youth level than you might expect.

From fourth grade through eighth grade, there are no playoffs or standings. They don’t even post the scores.

“We don’t do any of that,” said Chris Buboltz, director of the Lake Minnetonka Athletic Association (LMAA). “After the last game, everybody shakes hands and moves on to the next season.”

Other youth football programs in Minnesota do keep score. With few exceptions, however, every association purposefully spreads talent evenly among teams, instead of forming an A team, B team and C team, etc.

The A-B-C approach is common in Minnesota for other sports, such as hockey, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball and soccer — but not football.

This frustrates some football leaders who say Minnesota’s philosophy is holding the top players back.

“I’m a huge believer that Minnesota has a ton of talent,” former Gophers assistant coach Mike Sherels said. “Having recruited the state for many years, I started to kind of connect the dots as to why we don’t have more top-end players.

“I don’t want to throw it on [community] associations because they’re doing what they know. But I think we’ve kind of gotten away from development.”

A 12-year-old Minnesota boy who had dreamed of becoming a police officer was sworn in as an honorary cop shortly before he was tragically taken off life support.

Raghav Shrestha was given his own badge and made an honorary member of the Sartell Police Department in front of his heartbroken family at Hennepin County Medical Center on Thursday after a bike crash triggered a heart attack days earlier, police said.

“We learned today that Raghav’s dream was always to become a police officer when he grew up,” Sartell Police Chief Brandon Silgjord said in a statement posted on Facebook Thursday.

“Several of us involved in the incident were able to visit Raghav this morning, and in the presence of his family pin him with his own badge and swear him in as an honorary police officer with Sartell. Our community will continue to support Raghav’s family however we can as they process and grieve.”

Police said the young boy, a seventh-grader at Sartell-St. Stephen Middle School, was riding his bike down a hill at Northside Park Sunday afternoon when he crashed and suffered a severe head injury — despite wearing a helmet — that sent him into cardiac arrest.

Shrestha’s 10-year-old friend called 911 but struggled to give the exact location — until a good Samaritan, who happened to be a CPR instructor, confirmed it for police and began performing life-saving measures on the boy, cops said.

The youngster – described as a happy and spirited child – was airlifted in critical condition to the Minneapolis hospital, where his condition worsened and he was declared brain dead Thursday morning.

He was removed from life support that afternoon and died “peacefully” moments later. 

“Raghav was a cheerful and fun-loving 12-year-old boy, doing what so many 12-year-old boys would be doing on a beautiful fall afternoon, which makes this tragedy so difficult to comprehend,” said Silgjord, who provided consistent updates to the community on the boy’s condition. 

“His parents, while grieving the loss of their son, also wanted it to be known that more than anything they are proud to be Raghav’s parents and to have raised and known a boy that was always courageous in his word and actions.

“Choosing to never cause harm to people and animals alike and taking pride in his role as a big brother.”

The police department and community have since come together to launch a fundraiser for the boy’s grieving family. 

As of Thursday night, the relief effort raised nearly $36,000.