KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Young girls in across the Kansas City area are making the decision to play flag football.
“Girls can do more than you think, like they’re actually really good,” said Sofia Gurung, an 8-year-old who plays flag football.
Through the “Girls Play Flag Football,” local girls are picking up the sport through a partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We couldn’t believe that it caught fire that quick,” said Crystal Ford, president at Girls Play Flag Football.
Hundreds of girls signed up to play, and now the up-and-coming league is taking two teams 1,300 miles west.
“Well, first of all, I’ve actually never been to Vegas,” said Hayes Helvey, a 12-year-old player.
The girls will travel to Sin City next month for the NFL Pro Bowl games.
“Really excited that our team gets to go the Pro Bowl and we get to travel, and it will be super fun,” Gurung said.
The girls teams each won their division in Kansas City, and then won regionals, which was held in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“When they go to the Pro Bowl, they’re going to see, I think there is 180 teams that are going to be there,” Ford said. “And some of them are from Mexico, some are from Canada — all over the country there are some great teams.”
Spending a week at the Pro Bowl, the girls will face off in their own tournament and have the opportunity to watch the professionals.
Seven players on the Kansas City Chiefs made the 2023 NFL Pro Bowl, including Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.
“I want to see the Chiefs play and I want to just play and hopefully win,” Gurung said.
The girls are torn between wanting to see the Chiefs at the Pro Bowl.
“I’m hoping that he’s not the quarterback so then they go to the Super Bowl,” Helvey said.
The NFL Flag Championships at Pro Bowl games gets underway on Feb. 3.
“Even if we don’t win, it’s going to be a really good opportunity to build relationships with our team,” Helvey said.
Girls Play Flag Football has two sessions open for registration. You can learn more here.
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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.
