ARLINGTON — In 2018, Fort Worth Independent School District polled girl student-athletes asking what new sport should be added.
After seeing bowling and gymnastics listed flag football became the clear winner.
Starting in March, the FWISD will have a 15-team girls’ flag football league and on Saturday the Cowboys in a partnership with the district and Nike held a Flag Football jamboree at AT&T Stadium.
The event was attended by several girls from the various schools who will have teams this spring. Also, Cowboys great DeMarcus Ware, former Cowboys safety Danny McCray, Sarah Fuller, the first woman to play in a Power Five conference in 2020 with Vanderbilt, and Cowboys sideline radio reporter Kristi Scales spoke to the players.
Fuller, currently the goalkeeper at North Texas, and Ware encouraged the teenagers to become groundbreakers in this new sport.
“They’re not out there doing what you’re doing,” Fuller said in a talk with the female players of people who might not encourage this sport. “You’re out there working every day, doing what you love playing the game that you love and that’s all that matters. And if anything, it should add fuel to the fire to work even harder.”
Ware’s understands the importance of female sports as a father of a young daughter who also plays flag football.
“There’s going to be so many people that’s telling you no, but you have to figure out how to make it a yes. By keep coming, over and over again. There’s going to be a lot of doors that’s going to be shut and we got to find the courage and it’s all about the courage you need to keep knocking at the door.”
The girls worked out on some football techniques with McCray and their high school coaches and received their jerseys for the upcoming season and some Cowboys’ swag.
But more importantly, they got an introduction into flag football as a high school sport.
“My little daughter she plays in a flag football league, along with my son, who plays quarterback,” Ware said. “Just letting them now you were born to do this. You were born to do what you want to do and go out there and do that to the best of your ability and don’t let anybody tell you no.”
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