In the Richard Montgomery High School football stadium Wednesday night, a sideline packed with teenage girls jumped and cheered as their Springbrook High School teammate ran with a football down the field.
Eventually, an opposing player from Albert Einstein High School brought the runner to a halt by capturing one of the detachable flags hanging from her uniform. But that didn’t take away from the students’ excitement of almost scoring getting a touchdown in one of the first-ever Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) girls flag football games.
Wednesday night was the kickoff for the school system’s high school girls flag football season, making MCPS one of four Maryland districts to add the sport to their roster of high school athletic teams while also providing county students an opportunity to participate in a typically male-dominated sport.
“I’ve been watching football all my life,” said senior Kesare Bakare, a co-captain of the Gaithersburg High School flag football team. “I wanted to be able to play it in an actual [team] setting.”
Flag football has been gaining popularity over the years, according to CBS, because the fast-paced sport poses less risk of injury when compared to tackle football. The biggest difference between flag and tackle football is the lack of tackling, but there are also other rule differences. The size of the playing field also is smaller and there are fewer players on the field than in traditional football, according to NFL flag football. Organized flag football leagues for all genders have increased over the years, and the sport also will be debuting at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, according to USA Football.
For Montgomery County, the idea of bringing girls flag football to schools came from student surveys identifying interest in the sport, MCPS Director of Systemwide Athletics Jeffrey Sullivan told MoCo360. After discussions with the Baltimore Ravens and athletic wear company Under Armour brought in grant funding for equipment and uniforms, the sport became a reality for MCPS. Grant funding also paid for other expenses, including coach stipends, transportation and awards, according to MCPS.
More than 600 students are playing flag football this fall, according to Sullivan. “With every checkpoint, it has more than exceeded the excitement level and the experience for our student athletes and coaches,” he said.
MCPS joined Baltimore City and Washington County public schools to pilot the girls flag football program this fall, while Frederick County Public Schools entered its second season after piloting the sport last year.
Wednesday’s opening night took place at four county high schools: Richard Montgomery and Thomas S. Wootton in Rockville, Paint Branch in Burtonsville and Seneca Valley in Germantown. All 25 teams took part in opening ceremonies held at all four high schools and 24 got their first taste of competing in flag football during games played that night.
“I was at Wootton and Seneca Valley, and the energy was just–it’s hard to put into words,” Sullivan said. “My job ultimately is to create opportunities and spaces for student-athletes to thrive. … It’s really surreal when you’re watching it unfold in front of your eyes.”
In the lead up to the sport’s debut, Sullivan said the district tried to “build momentum.” It held skills clinics for players interested in joining, opportunities that Tina Fitzpatrick, athletic director at Einstein High School in Kensington, said helped get more students involved.
“We’re not just like dropping it out of nowhere,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s not up to just our schools to get it off the ground, but we’ve done it kind of together as a collective county effort, which I think shows in the amount of girls that are participating.”
For Bakare, along with her co-captains Yvette Larios and Edita Kentale, both juniors, joining the Gaithersburg High team came down to wanting to try something new and get involved in a sport they loved.
“I used to watch YouTube videos of people [playing] flag football,” Kentale said. “I was like, ‘I want to do this. … I want to be part of a team sport where we’re all working together.’ ”
The three also play other sports, with Bakare and Kentale participating in track and field and Larios swimming and playing soccer. None of the trio had played flag football before, though, an aspect of the new sport that Fitzpatrick said makes it more approachable.
Larios said the members of the Gaithersburg team have grown close in part because they are learning flag football strategies and rules together. After clinics in June, tryouts and practices for teams began in mid-August in preparation for the September opening.
“These girls, they’re all brand new,” Larios said. “We’re all starting at the same level and we’re growing together. So, it makes us even closer.”
However, learning the new sport wasn’t easy, the players said.
“When you’re not used to people coming at you, a natural instinct is to block or push them away right? So, with flag football, you can’t do that,” Larios said. “So learning how to not push people away when they’re running at you … is really hard.”
And there are aspects of the game and plenty of new vocabulary that the girls said they had to get used to. It took a lot of repetition to remember lingo such as “blitzer” or “line of scrimmage,” and even more repetition to memorize strategic plays.
Despite the challenges, they said they learned about the value of teamwork–especially Kentale and Bakare, who typically compete in non-team sports.
“One of my coaches said, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything,’ ” Kentale said. “We need to all work together because if one person is down and we don’t try everything to pick them up, it’s going to affect us as a team and how we play.”
Plus playing flag football has been a lot of fun, both for the players and Jeremy Brown, coach of the Gaithersburg High team.
“I’m just having a lot of fun working with them and seeing them compete,” Brown said. “I’m coming up with a scheme and what not to win games, but I’m also teaching a lot about the sport and strategy.”
Brown said providing students with more opportunities to play sports gives them the chance to learn how to be a team member as well as how to lose and to deal with adversity.
“If an opportunity comes up and you feel like you’re down to do it, having options like this is really, really good,” Larios said. “You learn more about yourself as an individual, and you also learn more about opportunities that you can get.”
Those new opportunities are reflected in the division names for the 25 flag football teams: Dreamers, Pioneers, Innovators and Trailblazers. Sullivan said the divisions were intentionally named “for what our students are doing with this initiative.”
“This really allows girls … an opportunity to play football for some of us [who] actually enjoy the sport,” Kentale said. “It shows that women can also do anything.”