Rylee McIver Senior Sports Capstone
The Future of Girls and Women's Flag Football
For my senior sports capstone project, I have been looking at the potential for growth in girls and women's flag football from the high school to collegiate level. Florida is one of the leading states in the push to increase participation and support for girls and women's flag football.
Game Time
The QB drops back, looking up field for an open receiver. There. The right-side slot is on a breakaway down the sideline.
The pass is thrown. A perfect catch. Into the end zone. Touchdown.
Fans and the crowd erupt while the coaches run down the sideline.
In the end zone, the referee tugs off the receiver’s flag; the touchdown is good.
The girls high five and celebrate, then huddle up again to prepare for the conversion.
That’s right: girls.
Girl’s flag football is one of the fastest-growing high school sports in the country, with 320 teams in the state of Florida alone (Nichols, 2022). Girls across the country are picking up the pigskin and running plays, garnering sponsorships from big-name brands like Nike along the way.
The only question: what is stopping the NCAA from creating scholarship opportunities for these athletes?
Officially Official
Only six states so far have named girl’s flag football as an official high school sport but others have been tracking its potential to benefit their public school systems, with California voting in February on whether to add it to its official sports list (Nichols, 2022).
The heart of it all, the sport’s biggest supporter, has been Florida.
The sunshine state added girl’s flag football as an official sport in 2002, with 103 teams and 3,855 players (Nichols, 2022).
In a 2021-22 high school athletics participation survey, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) reported that in nine states across the country, there were 662 schools with girl’s high school flag football teams and 15,716 players (NFHS, 2022). This is an increase across all areas from the 2018-19 survey, when only seven states participated in the survey with 378 schools and 11,209 players (NFHS, 2019).
Bringing in the Big Buc(k)s
The new involvement of the NFL and Nike in the last five years also increased funding and opportunities for girls to play at the high school level. The initiative includes a partnership, promising $5 million worth of merchandise and equipment in order to help increase the popularity of the game for high schoolers (Nichols, 2022).
The organizations also created tournaments and clinics to encourage participation and interaction with the sport and and the players. In Florida, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers partnered with local high schools to promote girls flag football in the area. The organization also looks to empower all women in sports at all ages.
The Bucs use their foundation and influence to create scholarships and opportunities to increase the competition level of the high school girls flag football of the Tampa Bay area.
Florida Flag
Robinson High School and UF Club
With the state of Florida being one of the prime locations for high school girls flag football, the competition level has increased exponentially over the past 10 years, with Tampa Bay leading the pack.
Robinson High School, located in South Tampa, is one of the primo flag programs in the State. The Knights have won six State Championships, their first in 2014 and their most recent in 2021.
Head coach Joshua Saunders is also known as one of the best girls flag football coaches in the state. He has lead the team to a 131-4 record over the past eight years and nine appearances in the State Championship.
Aside from coaching and teaching at Robinson, Saunders also brings his leadership and coaching abilities to Gainesville, Florida, where he coaches the University of Florida club women’s flag football team.
UF Club Practice
Game Changing
Saunders has headed the club flag football team since 2017, coaching the team to three National Championships. He said he sees the future potential for the sport to grow and improve.
“If this ever becomes a college sport, they’ve got high school, it’ll explode,” he said. “It’s already exploding, it’ll crazy, crazy explode.”
This season, 50 women tried out for the club team, and unlike at Robinson, Saunders cannot make any cuts, so anyone who shows up to tryouts gets a spot on the team.
“In the past we’ve created multiple teams,” he explained. “This year we intentionally created just one. So there is a travel team – a team that participates in games – and then everyone else is on a practice roster. And they keep coming back.”
By creating this setup, new players are encouraged to try their hands at the game. Not everyone had the opportunity to play flag football in high school, so college club is sometimes their first time every playing.
Saunders said increasing the number of high schools with teams will directly lead to a higher caliber of competition in college. The limited number of days in which the team can practice, also affects how club flag is played at UF.
For Robinson, the team practices every day: running plays, watching film, drills and games. With only two days of practice a week and new faces to the game all together, Saunders said the team learns to run routes but not everybody knows the plays like he expects his high schoolers to.
Players like Alex Kirkner have played for Saunders since they were students at Robinson. One of the unique things about his program, is he moves with his players. Saunders originally took on the club flag team in order to continue to coach his high school players.
“My coach has been a very big mentor for me,” Kirkner said. “He was my coach for four years, I had his class, he taught me calculus and also was one of the advisors for my club. He’s honestly had a big role in that, too. I feel like he does a lot of things right.”
Kirkner’s journey to flag, however, was not love at first sight.
“I didn’t want to play at first,” she said.
Kirkner played softball and high school, so the seasons overlapped and she would have to choose between the two sports. She said, however, some of her closest friendships have come from flag and “flag is family.”
Many of the girls who played for Saunders in high school, join the club flag team when they start at UF. Because of this, Saunders said he is able to keep some of his old plays and knows more about each of his players despite their limited practice schedule.
Kirkner also praised Saunders for his role in pushing for girls flag football. She said having an opportunity to play sports after high school is important, and flag football opens doorways for people of all levels of athleticism and socioeconomic background, making it incredibly unique and more accessible to everyone.
“Football has always been seen as such a male-only sport,” she said. “Pushing it for women and showing anyone can play football … is huge around the country.”
“The struggle with getting equal representation is that a lot of people don’t watch women’s sports,” Kirkner said. “I think that is the biggest challenge to overcome, but it is important for girls to see older people playing a sport they didn’t realize they can play.”
Kirkner said she hopes through the help of Nike and the NFL and the increased competition level, like that of which Saunders is teaching, women’s flag football can grow and continue to evolve in the future.
The Next Play
In order for women’s flag football to reach higher levels of respect and competition (becoming a NCAA scholarship sport,) the demand for the sport must first increase across the country. The initiatives started by NFL teams like the Bucs, Falcons, Seahawks, Titans, Broncos and more and Nike, help to alleviate the financial barriers many teams face. Still, the limited number of states with official girls flag football programs, creates boundaries for girls looking to become involved in the sport.
While increasing demand across the country is the first step toward the NCAA adding women’s flag football to its list of scholarship sports, there are other boundaries to consider in the future. Funding, Title IX regulations and awareness of the game are all potential roadblocks to look at, but for now, focusing on the high school opportunities is most important.
Fortunately for UF, it already has a head coach lined up for when the NCAA makes the next step. Coach Saunders said he is ready and waiting for Scott Stricklin to give him the call.
Resources
“Coaches: Robinson-Flag.” Robinson Flag, Robinson High School, https://www.robinsonflag.com/coaches.
“High School Participation Survey Archive.” NFHS, National Federation of State High School Associations, https://www.nfhs.org/sports-resource-content/high-school-participation-survey-archive/.
“How the NCAA Works.” NCAA.org, NCAA, https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/10/28/how-the-ncaa-works.aspx.
McCarriston Feb 3, Shanna. “Nike Partners with NFL for New Girls High School Flag Football Initiative.” CBSSports.com, CBS Sports, 3 Feb. 2021, https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/nike-partners-with-nfl-for-new-girls-high-school-flag-football-initiative/.
Nichols, Tessa. “Flag Football's Rise in Popularity Spurred by Nike, NFL Commitments.” Just Women's Sports, JWS, 26 Aug. 2022, https://justwomenssports.com/nike-kickoff-classic-nfl-commitments-rise-of-flag-football/.
“Nike and NFL Partner to Grow Girls Flag Football in the US.” NFL Communications, 2020, https://nflcommunications.com/Pages/Nike-and-NFL-Partner-to-Grow-Girls-Flag-Football-in-the-US-.aspx.
“Tampa Bay Buccaneers.” Buccaneers, NFL, https://www.buccaneers.com/community/gender.
UF Flag Football, http://ufflagfootball.com/.