OWINGS MILLS — As girls flag football players from Gov. Thomas Johnson High walked through a black curtain and stood before a covered mannequin inside the Baltimore Ravens’ training facility, they whooped and took cell phone videos to document what was about to unfold.
Poe, the Ravens’ ever-excitable mascot, high-fived each player before standing in front of them and beckoning a dramatic countdown from three. As the Patriots obliged, Poe lifted the cover to reveal their sleek uniforms, all red, white and blue, sending the team into further joyful shouts.
A similar scene repeated for each of Frederick County’s 10 public high schools, with each group of players clapping, admiring and posing for photos with their new threads.
The uniform unveiling started a thrilling and memorable Monday at the Under Armour Performance Center as Frederick County gets one day closer to inaugurating its newest varsity sport on Aug. 30.
“I was not expecting it to be this big thing,” Linganore senior Madilyn Allen said. “Everyone loved the jerseys, and it was really cool.”
But it was a big thing with help from the Ravens, who are putting up funding for the sport for three years, and Under Armour, which provided the uniforms.
More than 370 students countywide have registered for flag football, according to FCPS supervisor of athletics and extracurricular activities Kevin Kendro. Most were present in Owings Mills on Monday, taking in an NFL training camp and even speaking with Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.
“Thank you for being out in front. Thank you for being pioneers. Thank you for doing something that is gonna make a difference,” he told them. “You’re gonna make a difference in girls’ lives forever because you’re doing something for the first time.”
Several people echoed those remarks Monday.
The hope is that the league, the first of its kind in Maryland, serves as a springboard to get girls flag football sanctioned as a championship sport in other counties and, eventually, statewide. The momentum might already be building, as administrators from the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletics Association, Baltimore County and Baltimore City schools were also in attendance Monday.
“You can hear the excitement and feel the excitement,” Ravens President Sashi Brown said. “It’s a great way to give an opportunity that’s, frankly, in high demand.”
Nowhere in the state has it been higher than Frederick County, thanks in large part to Nick Damoulakis and his daughter, Dana. In 2020 at his daughter’s urging, Nick Damoulakis put together the county’s first rec girls flag football team of 10 players.
That quickly grew into what is believed to be Maryland’s first organized all-girls youth flag football league, and then a pilot high school league last fall. Now, it’s a full varsity sport, and Monday’s uniform reveal showed both of them just how far they’ve come in only three years.
“Teary eyes and a warm heart. All I can say before I cry,” Nick Damoulakis, now the coach of Urbana High’s team, said.
“I never expected anything to go this far, and the fact that it is, is just incredible,” Dana Damoulakis, a sophomore at Urbana, said.
Case in point: The Ravens invited members of the Frederick High and TJ teams onto the field at halftime of Saturday’s preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
There, they participated in a scrimmage in front of tens of thousands of fans.
“It was so surreal, that day, everything went by so fast,” Frederick junior Lara Adeoye said. “It was a lot of fun.”
And after getting their uniforms and meeting Harbaugh on Monday, the players formed the gauntlet, the high-five line that the Ravens run through to enter the practice fields.
Each player that came through was greeted with thunderous cheers, though the loudest screams were reserved for quarterback Lamar Jackson, with several beckoning for autographs.
“That was crazy. We get to see these people on TV, but seeing them in person …” TJ senior Riley MacDonald said, trailing off before adding she never thought she’d be at a point in her life where she’d get to meet a player like Jackson.
But that’s where she and the rest of Frederick County’s girls flag football players are.
All the fanfare of Monday’s event means they are nearing the start of a new chapter in high school sports, both in the county and the state. After seeing those new uniforms and hearing those joyful yells, it’s all starting to set in.
“We know it’s for real now,” Kendro said.
