Contagious smiles and sideline celebrations warmed up a chilly February evening at Lehigh Senior High School.
Lee County students got their first taste of girls flag football, the latest FHSAA sport approved by the district for the spring.
The inaugural season kicked off in Southwest Florida with preseason games last week with all 15 public schools in Lee County fielding teams, including five that competed in a jamboree at Lehigh last Tuesday.
“I was always jealous of the boys playing, and now we have an opportunity,” Riverdale junior Holland Hertog said.
Riverdale’s team is coached by the school’s head football coach Kendoll Gibson who held a team practice last Monday filled with drills, a scrimmage and an enthusiastic concluding speech.
“The girls are into it,” he said. “They’re positive, they want to have fun, so it makes it easy for us because I come out here and want to have fun with them, so the energy’s been very, very positive.”
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Riverdale had around 40 girls come out for the sport and had to cut down to a team of 25.
“As soon as we announced that we were doing flag football, they all came out,” Gibson said. “I didn’t even have to recruit. We did a little bit of powderpuff so I knew a few of them could throw the ball, so I kind of eyed them, but as far as having to get them out, they came out on their own.”
The district approved the sport, along with beach volleyball, during the 2021-22 school year, according to district spokesman Rob Spicker. The starts for each of the new sports were staggered by a year.
The sport has been sanctioned by the FHSAA since 2003. This year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will host the state championships in May at their indoor practice facility.
The Private 8 schools in Southwest Florida are holding off on adding flag football due to their smaller numbers with sports like lacrosse, softball, and track and field absorbing.
There have been discussions about bringing girls’ flag football to Collier County Public Schools, according to Naples athletic director Cassie Barone.
“Over the past three years, CCPS has introduced three additional girls sports,” she said in an email. “This year, we decided to add beach volleyball. I do think girls flag football would be very popular.”
For the first year in the Lee County School District, the hope is to eventually garner enough interest so that schools can field JV teams. The postseason will consist exclusively of Lee County schools, so a county champion will be crowned.
“This being our first season, we are only playing each other with the intention of expanding next season,” Spicker said in an email.
Learning and adapting to flag
Dunbar head football coach Sammy Brown is fresh off a second consecutive Final Four appearance. After a lengthy coaching career, including the past eight years as head coach of the Tigers, there is little he hasn’t experienced as a coach.
But now, he’s heading up Dunbar’s flag football team. On Tuesday, they won their scrimmage in classic Dunbar style ― with a defensive stand.
“That’s what we do at Dunbar – we let them play defense,” Brown said. “We got the stop and then we took a knee and got out of here. That’s what you’re supposed to do, and we’re going to teach them the right way.”
Coaching the sport has been a new but enjoyable experience for Brown.
“It’s been different, but it’s fun,” he said. “You got different personalities, little different things to deal with, but they all want to learn. They’re eager to learn. They come to practice with a good spirit, and we just enjoy them, every minute.”
For the coaches, the biggest adjustment has been teaching the sport that’s brand new to the players – and has some rules that set it apart from tackle football.
“Everybody, they see the football and they automatically think it’s Friday night football, but it’s a totally different sport, so I’m having to learn the sport myself because it’s very, very different,” Gibson said.
Establishing terminology and communication have been key to helping the players learn the basics.
“They’re adapting very well,” Brown said. “A lot of girls are tremendous athletes and they just got to learn the rules and regulations and I think we’ll be fine.”
Officials are helping that process along, especially during last week’s preseason games.
The South Gulf Florida Officials’ Association has 36 referees assigned to this flag football season, according to President Adam Weissberger. Each regular season game has three on-field officials, and each postseason game will have four.
So far, the preseason has “gone incredibly well,” Weissberger said.
“I’m incredibly impressed with what the girls knew from a playing standpoint.”
Since last summer, the SGFOA has worked to train their officials by breaking down film and attracting more to join their ranks.
“It’s obviously different from what we’re dealing with on Friday nights,” he said.
As a result, the preseason games were critical to establish communication with coaches and answer questions that came up.
The opening games have gone smoothly, ensuring that the on-field product will improve as the season kicks off.
“I’m excited for the future of flag football and its continued growth within the county,” Weissberger said.
‘The interest was there’
Zoey O’Nan grew up tossing the football around with her brother. Once she got to high school, there were no opportunities for girls to play the sport.
Now, that’s changed, and the Riverdale junior is playing quarterback for the Raiders.
“I can express my talent,” O’Nan said.
As a sanctioned sport, the game is different from a backyard game, but still plenty of fun for O’Nan.
“It’s a whole lot different,” she said. “There’s a lot being thrown at us in a short amount of time. We’re working with it and doing pretty good.”
Her coach is encouraged by the start of the season and finding benefits in coaching the sport compared to tackle football.
“It’s a little bit more laidback, a little bit less serious because these girls aren’t going to college to play flag football,” Gibson said. “They just want to come out here and have fun, so it’s a little bit more of a relaxed mood than the boys.”
It’s been a solid start from an administrative standpoint as well, with the district helping out with costs, like for new uniforms, according to Lehigh athletic director Ernesto Adamo.
“We really haven’t had many obstacles because the interest was there, the county was able to support us, and then everything’s just kind of falling into place,” he said.
The kinks have been minimal – the jersey number on the shirts doesn’t always match the shorts. Some players forgot they had to take jewelry out before game time. Plus, teams are still waiting for additional players, either playing in a winter sport or filling out athletic paperwork for the first time.
It wasn’t hard to attract players for the sport at Lehigh, Adamo said, and the school’s powderpuff game last fall was the perfect opportunity to let girls know they could do this again in the spring – sanctioned by the FHSAA.
For Hertog, as soon as she heard rumors the sport was coming to Riverdale, she was determined to play.
“We could do anything anybody else wants to do,” she said. “The opportunities are endless.”
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.
