Sanctioning flag football in Minnesota is being reviewed as participation among girls increase

More Minnesota girls are trying flag football as an alternative to traditional sports

The sport isn't yet sanctioned by the MSHSL in Minnesota, but it's one of 18 states with pilot programs.

By Cassidy Hettesheimer Star Tribune

September 28, 2024 — 5:17am

They arrive in shifts.

Hour by hour, from 4 p.m. to nearly 10 p.m., a revolving group of 4th- to 12th-grade girls gather in the outfields of Edina's baseball diamonds, flags clipped around their waists.

The sports complex's lights flicker on by the time the high school girls arrive at 8:30 p.m., some already tired from a varsity soccer game that afternoon. By the time they leave, nearly 400 girls will have thrown footballs, snagged flags and run routes.

"It's very easy to pick up. Everyone is starting at the same kind of level, so it's a lot easier to pick up than other competitive sports that you play through your high school," Edina High School junior Veda Laabs said. "It's easy to find a spot that fits you, and you're more focused on having fun with your friends."

Across six-week, $110-dollar seasons, flag football teams compete against each other in a recreation league orchestrated by the Edina Girls Athletic Association (EGAA). Some players have competed against the same classmates since before they wore braces.

This league, and those like it, operate outside the sanction of the Minnesota State High School League, or MSHSL. Momentum to legitimize the sport as an official high school extracurricular is being driven by students, parents, coaches and even NFL executives.

Minnesota is one of 18 states with pilot programs. It's a solid start, but the MSHSL has not yet confirmed a date for potential official sanction of the sport.

Meanwhile, girls interested in tossing touchdowns and snagging flags have geographically limited — though growing — options.

Growing interest

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), about 500,000 girls ages 6-17 played flag football in 2023, up 63% since 2019. To date, 13 states have sanctioned girls flag as a high school sport, with Florida doing so as early as 2003 and five states voting for the change this year.

On the international stage, both men's and women's flag will debut as Olympic sports in Los Angeles in 2028. In Minnesota, thousands of spectators are watching young girls play.

This summer, when the La Crescent-Hokah flag football team walked onto the field at U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis, players had routes scribbled onto paper meal vouchers. Quarterback Eve Cody normally uses a digital wristband as a playbook, but in front of the 60,000 spectators at a Vikings preseason game, the tech wasn't working.

"All of us walking out of the tunnel were shaking. Like no way this many people are watching us right now," said Cody's sister and teammate, Gracey. But Eve threw three touchdowns in the 6-minute halftime exhibition game against Rosemount.

The two flag football teams were invited to the Vikings game after competing in a four-school league earlier that summer, alongside Pine Island and Kasson-Mantorville.

La Crescent-Hokah head football coach Terry Donovan pitched the four-team league to the Minnesota Vikings and gathered a team of Lancers basketball players, track athletes and "most of the best athletes in the school," Donovan said. NFL teams, including the Vikings, are part of a league-wide push to provide resources and funding.

La Crescent-Hokah junior Gracey Cody and her basketball teammates were intrigued.

"It's almost our senior year," she said. "Why not try something new?"

The barrier to entry was relatively low. They'd be on a level playing field with most of their teammates and opponents, learning to play a sport they'd grown up watching on TV.

"You really need someone that's going to drive the participation at each school," Donovan said. "And once the girls tried it, it was an easy sell."

New teams, opportunities

The Vikings and Donovan hope they can expand last summer's four-team league into a 20-team competition this spring. The Vikings, which have committed $300,000 toward supporting flag football's growth across the state and established middle school teams in eight Minnesota school districts, said more than a dozen teams have committed to playing in the league.

When the Vikings had their first chance to send and support an under-18 girls team at July's NFL Flag Championships at the NFL Hall of Fame in Ohio, they asked the EGAA to assemble a group of players.

Trevor Busby, an 15-year EGAA official, helped coach the team that included his daughter, Lyric. He's seen the level of EGAA participation increase over the years, with more athleticism and better passing — 6th-graders tossing back-to-back 40-yard touchdown passes. Compared with other regions, though, Minnesota's emerging flag talent has a ways to go.

At nationals, "you could tell the teams that travel and play the NFL regional circuits. That was our first time playing that format, at that level," said Busby, pointing to club teams in New York and Texas as top competition.

Until the sport becomes sanctioned in Minnesota, a city-based league has provided a different format for curious families, and it has its perks.

EGAA players and parents both noted a welcome change of pace from the pressure-cooker environment that can come with more established youth club sports. With flag, there's no college recruiting, hefty price tags or yearly tryouts.

And a one-night-per-week commitment allows multisport athletes to add flag football to already packed schedules. Molly Bennett, a freshman at Edina, rolled in from a volleyball game, and Kaylee Idrogo-Lam from soccer. That's why EGAA gives its high school age group the 8:30 p.m. slot.

"I play soccer because I played it growing up," said Idrogo-Lam, a senior at Edina who's played flag since 4th grade. "It's not like [flag football] was a guided path to play a varsity sport in high school. I started soccer really early, but if I was playing [flag] when I was really, really young, then maybe that could have been the sport I would be playing."

Next steps

The MSHSL requires 20 interscholastic teams to compete for at least two years in order to classify a new sport as "emerging." After gaining that status, a sport can be considered for full sanctioning, when the MSHSL would oversee governing, rules and tournaments.

School officials would also have to ponder logistics and calendars for a new sport, mainly finding field space.

"We have been communicating with the Vikings and have talked with some of our schools who are experimenting in that direction, have created teams," said MSHSL executive director Erich Martens . "The growth pace within our schools, what their capacity is, what the interest level is, all of this will play into how rapidly this accelerates."

Both Laabs and Bennett said friends from other schools and cities ask about joining the Edina league. Acceptance is currently limited to those who live in or attend school in Edina.

"We get inquiries all the time, but because of numbers, we have to limit it," EGAA board member Megan Sweeney said.

"We've had some people reach out to us and ask for ideas on how to get started," Sweeney said.

The Vikings and local coaches pointed to the importance of pipeline development, not just at the high school level, but youth programs and college. Several factors could shift local perception on the sport: 19 NAIA colleges competed in 2024; the upcoming formalization of nationwide NFHS rules; playing opportunities at the youth level, and emergence of college scholarships.

"Flag football offers so much more right now than any other sport we're playing, just because it's so new, and we've all exceeded [expectations] pretty decently," Gracey Cody said. "We started, and we're like, 'Wait, this can actually go somewhere. There's actually some hope in this.'"

StarTribune

More Minnesota girls are trying flag football as an alternative to traditional sports

Growing interest

New teams, opportunities

Next steps

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