The football league teams will be five-on-five non-contact for girls ages 8-13.
BOISE, Idaho — Four years from now, flag football will be part of the world’s largest stage for athletes: the Olympic games in Los Angeles. Flag football is a version of the sport in which players pull colorful flags from their opponent’s waist, instead of tackling, but before flag football makes its big debut at the Olympics.
Here in the Treasure Valley, it’s the young girls’ turn to hit the gridiron for the first time.
The Treasure Valley Women’s Flag Football League is partnering with Optimist Youth Football and launching a new girls non-contact flag football league. For the first time in Idaho, girls ages 8-to-13 will get to play flag football in a league of their own.
It’s something Loren Wilson and Sam Hayes wish they had while growing up in the Gem State.
“Growing up, you know, female, there was limited sports I could play,” Wilson said. “I played what was available to me, and I just like felt something missing.”
As co-directors, both Wilson and Hayes told KTVB that seeing this new league is a dream come true.
“I get to be able to live out what I envision for myself,” Hayes said. “I always went out and played with my brother and all of his friends. We played the powderpuff in high school, and we always envisioned being able to have access to that for a longer period of time, and now it’s possible.”
In 2022 around 474,000 young women between the ages of 6 and 17 played flag football, according to the NFL. It reports that as a 63% increase from 2019.
Here at home, the girls flag football league will be five-on-five non-contact.
“It’s mostly focusing on the football skills. Teaching them football terminology, the right terminology, the right movements, or correct movements, and how to keep themselves safe. And most of all, just to have fun,” Wilson said. “You learn about teamwork, you learn about sisterhood, you learn about communication.”
They add that in flag football, there is a home for everybody.
“We want to instill in these little girls and, you know, adolescents and inevitably women that it is possible to be able to play in a male-dominated sport,” Hayes said.
Practices kick off on April 15. The actual league itself starts on April 29.
For further information or where to register, visit Optimist Youth Football’s website here.
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