King George senior Morgan Yarborough had a wide smile on her face after her team, the King George Youth Athletic Association Fury, advanced to the final of this season’s high school girls flag football league.
“It was rocky in the beginning, but we kept our head in the game and kept focusing to where we are now,” Yarborough said. “… I’ve had a lot of fun. It was really different, but I’ve liked it a lot.”
Yarborough, a first-year player, is one of many new faces who joined the league for its second season, and is a great example of the growth seen from Year 1 to Year 2.
Player participation has doubled, with the league now fielding four teams instead of two. Word has spread, garnering interest from other local towns and counties.
It’s all part of an ongoing push from King George to turn flag football into a Virginia High School League-sponsored sport, starting with the Battlefield District and expanding from there.
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There’s a resounding belief that what’s been built over the past few years with the Foxes can be the benchmark for the rest of the state.
The first step is getting the VHSL to declare girls’ flag football as an emerging sport. To become a sponsored sport — as girls’ wrestling did in 2023 — a sport must be offered by more than half of the state’s schools.
“Really, it was about watching the trends, seeing our girls play in KGYAA and then stopping in seventh grade or so,” KGYAA President Marc Watson said. “… Then, we see this emergence of girls flag through the NFL and I’m like ‘We gotta do this.’ ”
Watson, also finishing up his second year as King George High School’s principal, will soon be stepping down from his role as association president to spend more time with his family.
The job has been an intensive one, but it’s been rewarding thus far with nearly 400 area boys and girls participating in flag football.
“It’s like Saturday is another school day when it’s flag season,” Watson said. “It’s gone so well because there’s great people involved. We’re certainly always checking the pulse of everyone. … They’ve really enjoyed it and the girls do a great job of balancing things, but they still come out here because they love it.”
He helped push for a girls-only league as part of the flag football offerings with the KGYAA, joining the existing coed leagues. It was an almost immediate success.
“My brother was playing flag ever since he was little,” senior Taylor Dutko said. “Once they started this girls’ league, it just got me hype and into it.”
Dutko is a two-year veteran of the program and became one of the best players in the league. Her team, the KGYAA Liberty, ran the table this season, going 10-0 with a dominating 50-13 win in the championship game.
The Liberty outscored its opponents 106-19 in the playoffs alone. But as dominant as they were, the focus has never been on wins or losses.
“We’re like a family,” Dutko said. “We’ve just become super close, almost like sisters.”
Huddling with his team after losing a nail-biter to the Fury in Saturday’s final, Chaos head coach Brandon Haga focused less on the loss and more on the future, asking his players to see who was returning for next season.
He also took time to celebrate senior Emonee Hopewell, one of the first players to join the league, who will be getting ready to go off to college.
“I wanted to be different,” Hopewell said. “They say girls can’t play football, but we can.”
Haga, like Hopewell, jumped at the chance to be part of this league.
“I have a daughter and we’ve watched a lot of football together,” Haga said. “I talked to her a little bit about it, see if she would want to jump into it. Sure enough, she did.
“ … I’ve been coaching in the flag league since right after COVID and the two girls’ teams I’ve coached are by far the most eager, the most willing to learn the game and the most physical teams I’ve had.”
There’s genuine interest and enjoyment in playing this league, and everyone from coaches to players take this as seriously as any other sport.
Like other flag leagues throughout the country, that’s what has given this sport legitimacy, a desire to play and win, and if King George is any indication of where this is going, the future is bright.
“I think it’s really going to skyrocket,” Yarborough said. “As you see more females doing it, that’s going to make others say, ‘If she can do it, we can do it.’ I can’t wait to come back here in a few years and see where things have gone.”
