Donning multicolored mouthguards and unclippable flag belts, a stream of female athletes are playing in high school football stadiums for the first time ever in a fall sports season. The game that’s changing the Friday night lights tradition? Girls flag football.
Most of the girls had never played flag football until it was offered as an official sport at Mountain View High School, said John Payne, Mountain View High’s head flag football coach and physical education teacher. Los Altos High School and Palo Alto High School are also offering the sport for the first time ever. Last year, Gunn High School offered flag football as a club sport before making it an official school sport this season.
In the fall of 2023, girls flag football became available to add as a California Interscholastic Federation-sanctioned fall sport option after the CIF’s Federated Council voted in favor in a 146-0 vote. However, there was too short a turnaround to add it as a sport last year as schools needed to recruit new players, hire coaches and schedule games, Mountain View High athletic director Tim Lugo said.
“It’s the most pure sport that high schools offer right now. Athletes are playing a new game,” Lugo said.
Tryouts for flag football brought around 70 athletes — a number Mountain View High’s athletic department was not anticipating, Lugo said. To give as many athletes as possible a chance to play, the school created a junior varsity team and added two coaches to their staff of four before ultimately cutting 15 players.
On the other hand, Palo Alto High’s varsity girls flag football team consists of 17 players. An anonymous Palo Alto resident funded the uniforms and the equipment for the team, Palo Alto High athletic director Jennifer Crane said.
Despite the sport’s popularity among student-athletes, there will not be Santa Clara Valley Athletic League Finals, Central Coast West or state championships for the sport due to it being local schools’ first year piloting the program, Lugo said.
“[Girls flag football] is a great opportunity to get back to coaching on campus and to be able to have an opportunity to teach girls outside the classroom,” Payne said.
Since flag football takes place in the same season as boys tackle football, the Mountain View High team practices on the lacrosse field and Palo Alto High’s team practices in the outfield of the baseball stadium. Mountain View High is looking to add flag football lines to the lacrosse field for future seasons, Lugo said.
“I feel like they should probably give us more time on the actual [football] field,” Mountain View High junior and flag football player Leilani Tanielu said. “I know the boys need it, but I feel like they should prioritize us as much as they prioritize the boys for all teams, especially because we’re a new sport.”
The fundamentals of flag football and tackle football are somewhat similar, however, aside from there being seven players on the field instead of 11 and, of course, the tackling. In flag football, players do not wear pads or helmets, but mouth guards and cleats. There are similar pass coverages, positions like quarterback, wide receivers, and running backs on the offensive and defensive side, according to Payne. However, there are no linemen in flag football and the center position plays a different role because they are eligible receivers.
“Somebody [on flag football] catches the ball and just everybody’s up there cheering,” Payne said. “You would’ve thought we just won the Lombardi trophy [the Super Bowl winning trophy] or something like that.”
Nationally, 12 state associations have sanctioned the sport, and another 19 states are involved in pilot programs, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Nike has provided the CIF with a $225,000 Nike Girls Flag Football Uniform Grant to help offset the cost of starting flag football programs.
“We’re going to have a lot of competitiveness and a lot of drive, at least, to try our best and go out there for our first games,” Tanielu said.
