South Central Pennsylvania only has one high school registered for girls flag football.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — There’s been a noticeable push by NFL teams to create and support flag football programs.
“We just started this year in Frederick County and the Ravens sponsored the whole county and it’s just grown over the years,” Peyton Davis, the quarterback for the Ravens Flag Football team, said.
“We were a very small team,” added Peyton’s mom Peggy. “We had to play on both sides of the ball, but next year they anticipate it growing by triple because the girls saw it, loved it, and are going to expand it.”
Above the Mason-Dixon Line, girls flag football continues to make headlines.
“They reached the 100 mark which was the threshold for the PIAA to really take its initiatives. We had 103 teams this year, going in,” said PSFCA & Big 33 executive director Garry Cathell.
“We saw a lot of teams in the east, as far as flag football in Philly and in Pittsburgh, and looking at District III and the center of the state, we didn’t see hardly any teams,” recalled Ron Johnson, the PSFCA & Big 33 director of program development. “So, we thought ‘How do we put together an event to help this grow locally?'”
The former Philadelphia Eagle and Shippensburg University standout says that’s how the flag football tournament came to be at the Big 33 Game.
“These young ladies, they’re trailblazers,” said former Eagles defensive back Bobby Taylor. “To see just how excited they are. They’ve been very respectful, saying ‘Thank you! Thank You!’ I’m like, ‘Thank you for being in the position you’re in.'”
Taylor now enjoys his role as the NFL Legends Youth Advisory co-chair. Growing the game is part of his job, and that’s important in South Central Pennsylvania, since only one school in our region, York, has registered a flag football team.
“When you talk to a lot of student-athletes they say, ‘Yeah, I’d love to play football but we just don’t have that at our school,'” claimed Johnson.
Everyone from potential players to coaches may have questions, but that’s natural when learning anything new. The Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association is ready to step up and help teach the game.
“Knowing how close the girls flag is to becoming a sanctioned sport, we would like to take flag football and put it under our Coaches Association umbrella, as part of our group for coach’s education,” added Cathell.
“We hope in the next year or so that girls high school football will be sanctioned in the state of Pennsylvania,” said Taylor.
