Tina Hu was an athlete without a sport.
As a sophomore at Lowell High School, she found herself in a place all too familiar for students who have the desire to play, but haven’t had the means to access the specialized training and opportunities that come with private club teams. Select spots on volleyball and basketball seemed out of reach.
Then, Hu found her opening. Lowell launched a girls club flag football program, and almost everyone who signed up was entirely green.
“I had the skills to play football, but even if I did something like basketball, most girls had started when they were four years old,” said Hu, who now attends Skyline
College
in San Bruno where she took a short-lived flag football elective as a freshman. “Most of the girls were new to flag football, it felt like we were on the same grounds.”
Now those grounds are on the verge of expanding to thousands of girls like her across California.
The
CIF’s
Federated Council
took up a proposal
at its Los Angeles meeting
on Oct. 7 to make girls flag football an official varsity sport for the 2023-24 school year, with a vote set for February. The South Section codified it
a week earlier, but the CIF’s decision would impact all
10
sections, and it appears to have
overwhelming
support.
“The CIF Oakland Section is in full support of girls flag football as an official CIF sanctioned sport,” said Oakland section commissioner Frank Navarro. “We are excited about establishing more opportunities for our girls.”
It’s been over two decades since the CIF sanctioned a new sport, most recently adding lacrosse in 2001. The federation’s interest in girls flag football comes as the sport has seen a surge in growth while overall participation in girls high school athletics, already stagnant before the pandemic, decreased by 8.2% from 2020 to 2022, according to its most recent census.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, the number of girls playing flag football at high schools in the U.S doubled to 11,000 between 2008 and ’19. From 2019 to ’22,
that number
jumped 40% to 15,716, while girls on boys tackle football teams increased 39% to 3,633 during that time period.
Flag football has been sanctioned at the high school level in Florida, Alabama and Nevada, and is a
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
sport at 15 schools, where each team received a $15,000 stipend to award flag football college scholarships to student athletes. The bulk of the NAIA programs are in the southeast; La Sierra University in Riverside is the lone California institution to offer it as a varsity sport.
“A lot of girls want to play football,” Hu said. “Tackle can be scarier, but flag feels like it’s for all.”
The surge in girls flag football across the United States has come at a time when tackle football has been under scrutiny for excessive head injuries and other safety concerns, and during a strengthening conversation around class inequity prevening opportunity for all athletes.
“We are excited about this,” North section commissioner Pat Cruickshank added. “Looking forward to it making its way through the CIF process.”
The South section voted in late September 61-26 in favor with two abstentions.
When a sport becomes sanctioned, i
t opens the door for inter-sectional play and state championships, which is the CIF’s biggest source of income. It also lessens red tape for sections hoping to introduce a sport, which have to get council approval if it isn’t already sanctioned at the CIF level.
Girls flag football wouldn’t be required to be picked up by all schools or sections, but would have the CIF structure behind any sectional leagues.
The San Francisco
S
ection, which began sponsoring the sport in 2012,
will have 10
club
teams participating this season, with the first games scheduled for March 1 and the postseason in April.
If it becomes sanctioned, it is expected to become a fall sport, but it remains unclear when that move would take effect.
The Southern Section ratified it as a fall sport because of potential conflicts with players in girls lacrosse, which is a spring sport.
Lincoln defeated Galileo for the title last season, breaking Galileo’s two-season reign; the 2020 and 2021 seasons had been canceled due to COVID, so it was the first championship since 2019.
“I wish they had provided it when I was in high school,” said Lincoln head coach Camille Bustos, who is entering her sixth season at the helm. “I always loved football. … It would be exciting for more high schools to provide it for the girls.”
Joelle Wang joined the Lincoln flag football team as a freshman when she was looking for another sport to play along with basketball. Like
many of
her teammates, she didn’t know anything about it.
She saw a “cute little flier” advertising the team, and joining a no-cut sport to find community was appealing to her.
“There is a lot less pressure,” said Wang, now a senior, who was on the all-San Francisco first-team. “People join from all athletic backgrounds. I didn’t even know how football works, which was really stressful, but now I love it.”
Wang practiced before school to master throwing a football and is now the team’s quarterback, also slotting in at wide receiver and linebacker as needed.
She said the school funds most of the gear and travel, but the players also fund-raised for the rest of it last season.
The NFL took notice of the nationwide surge; in 2021 the league teamed with Nike to launch a $5 million grant for girls and women’s flag football.
The Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers started high school leagues last season, and have been major drivers in the movement for the Southern Section.
The 49ers also have started to get involved, hosting a girls football jamboree in August. They hope to hold another in spring with higher numbers; 12 players showed up to the inaugural event.
“We’ve had monthly calls with (the Chargers and Rams) to make sure we’re doing it all in the same format,” said Tucker Baksa, senior manager of 49ers PREP. “We want to make sure California is on the same page, to get (girls) high school football kind of more established in the Bay Area and hoping for a positive vote at the state level with the momentum of the Southern section.”
Earlier this year, the NFL and the International Federation of American Football introduced Vision28, an effort leading flag football’s push toward inclusion in the Olympics, beginning with Los Angeles in 2028.
Girls are allowed on tackle football rosters in California and 593 played last season, a number that has steadily increased since 2013.
Still, girls have gravitated towards a sport with their own community in flag.
“Some of my girls shied away from (tackle football) because of head injuries,” said Balboa flag football coach Alec Williams, who is entering his sixth season. “If they wanted to do it, I support it, but a lot of girls have thought about if they want to.”
The IFAF estimates 2.4 million kids younger than 17 are playing organized flag football in the United States.
Only a fraction of them have the opportunity to compete for their high school.
The next growth spurt for the sport might come through California.
“It would be awesome if we could have a state champion,” Wang said. “I would have loved to have continued my season after we won the section. If (the CIF) makes it an actual sport, we could be a state champion.”
Marisa Ingemi is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: marisa.ingemi@sfchronicle.com
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