Colby Connell needed to puke.

It was hot out, the sweat soaking through his uniform, and Colby was fighting back tears. Coaches tried to talk him through it, but there was no fighting it. He yanked out his mouth guard and vomited on the sideline.

Colby’s team had just finished their first hitting drills of the season. It was 99 degrees under the hot Texas sun. His coach was unsympathetic.

“Blow chunks,” the coach said. “Blow chunks and then we’re going to go.”

The young football player nodded and tried to stand upright as the vomit continued to fly out. The coaches continued to yell.

Colby is one of the children being followed on the new docu-series “Friday Night Tykes,” which highlights different stories from the Texas Youth Football League.

Colby Connell is 8-years-old.

Colby is one of the hundreds of young football players to play in the Texas Youth Football League, a football league for players between the ages of 4 and 13 in Texas. (The 4 and 5-year-old division plays flag football.) The league prides itself on its competitive nature and toughness, as well as its ability to prepare its players for high school football.

“They’re convinced what they’re doing is best for the kids,” said “Friday Night Tykes” executive producer Matt Maranz. “Is it extreme? Is it intense? Absolutely. They’re doing things with 8 or 9-year-old kids that you’re more likely to see on college.”

The docu-series, which premieres Tuesday night on the Esquire Network, follows the league, its players and their parents through the 2013 season. While the league may be an extreme example of what happens in youth sports, Maranz said he wanted to explore the culture of youth sports in America.

“Youth sports is (a phenomenon) created by adults. Often what they create has more to do with adults and parents than it does with the kids,” he said. “After the games, parents and coaches are dissecting plays and the game … the kids just want ice cream.”

In San Antonio, the Texas Youth Football Association is just one of many options for kids to get in the game, points out the league’s CEO, Brian Morgan. But their league is the one that sends players to high school the best prepared. And the parents also seem to buy into the idea that their kids will learn a little bit about toughness and work ethic through the league.

“We were done with the ‘everybody gets a trophy, everybody wins, everybody gets a fair turn,'” Lisa Connell, Colby’s mom, says in the preview clip. “We wanted him to understand the value of working hard and the reward that came with that.”

The show has already garnered criticism from the NFL. “We haven’t seen the show. The trailer was tough to watch,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told For The Win. The league is not part of its youth football safety program, Heads Up Football.

Morgan said he understood the concerns, but added that the league takes safety incredibly seriously and follows guidelines from the NCAA and incorporates aspects of the Heads Up Football program into its league.

“I’m not really concerned how the league will be portrayed because once people have a chance to see the show in the totality they’ll have a different perspective,” he said.

And no matter what the NFL, other parents or critics will say, Maranz believes they’re not going anywhere.

“They have a whole lot of self awareness,” he said. “The coaches know what they’re doing, the parents know what they’re doing. This is not the only league in San Antonio — there are many other football options. The parents have decided that they want to compete in the most competitive youth football association in America.”