Making some history, Steve Largent has been tapped as the first-ever Flag Football coach at Escalon High School.
There will be a Flag Football league season in the fall for high school girls in Escalon, the first time the school has offered the sport at a competitive level.
“We are excited to announce that girls flag football has been approved by the district,” said Athletic Director Andrew Beam. “We are planning to have a JV and a varsity team for the fall of 2023. Steve Largent is going to be the head coach of varsity.”
Beam said they had 51 girls turn out at an informational meeting for the new sport.
Largent, for his part, is thrilled to be helping create a little bit of history.
“It’s kind of like, growing up in the era of playing video games, I did a lot of creating a team, creating a program, creating a jersey,” Largent said, adding that now he gets to do that in ‘real life’ as opposed to through a video game console.
Steve Reisenbeck and Joe Dalpogetti will be assisting with the flag football program, said Largent.
A meeting of the coaches was planned for Monday night, June 19 and a Tuesday, June 20 session was set with the girls interested in playing.
“This is now a CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) sanctioned event,” Largent said of what he was going to stress to potential players. “This is not Powder Puff, this is not a Club sport; they will have to maintain eligibility, they will have to have exemplary citizenship, there will be practices from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. after school.”
In short, it will be a true sport, bound by all the rules and regulations of any other league offering. Largent said they hope to draw in the girls that don’t play one of the fall sports by giving them another option; if they aren’t playing volleyball or suiting up for cross country, then flag football might pique their interest. Girls golf is also a fall sport in Escalon and cheerleaders are busy with football games in the fall.
Largent explained that part of what he and his assistant coaches were going to determine this week in their meeting was whether to get in a few practice sessions now, prior to the CIF-mandated dead period for sports, which begins July 10 and runs through July 30. Official practices for the fall sports season can start on Monday, July 31.
“It’s a 7 on 7 format,” Largent added of the flag football program. “So, we’re aiming for having both a JV and a varsity team.”
The interest level was high at the informational meetings, Largent hopes to see that continue as they work to develop a practice schedule and a game plan for the fall.
“We did have only three incoming freshmen girls sign up,” he said.
But, he added, he’s also hoping those girls will encourage some of their fellow freshmen to get involved.
Starting this fall, the girls will be playing in the WAC, Western Athletic Conference, for the sport.
“They will also play a preseason schedule, facing schools from Lodi to Patterson,” Beam said. “Our girls flag football will have the regulation flag field painted on the varsity soccer field this year for home games. The girls will be playing Tuesday and Thursday nights.”
The schedule has not yet been released but Largent and Beam agree that there should be some entertaining contests.
“It’s such a different game than boys football,” Largent said. “Flag football is going to require and reward your creativity and intuition.”
The new head coach also wants to perpetuate the Escalon tradition of winning teams.
“Our girls teams have been killing it; our volleyball teams with their success, basketball with their TVL championship, softball with their success the past few years,” Largent said.
He also is looking forward to another group of athletes being able to “make that walk” from the locker room to the football field.
“A lot of these girls, they had their dads, uncles and grandfathers get to walk that walk,” Largent said. “Now they’ll get a taste of what that’s like in the fall.”
Meanwhile, boys volleyball has been approved for the spring of 2024, another new sport for Escalon.
“We have not interviewed for coaching as of yet,” Beam said. “However, there is a high interest from our male student body.”
Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
