Female athletes push hard for flag football in Michigan schools

Ella Kecskemeti was lastly a freshman at Groves High School in Beverly Hills, and it was at the close of the academic year May 2023 when she came up with a prospect of creating a flag football team for the school. Her dad had sent her an article about a flag football league the Detroit Lions started for girls that same year; she used to play with the boys when she was a kid. 
 
 She desired that her school should be in that league of schools. 
 
 So I kinda just went up to my school’s athletic director the next day and was like hey, my dad sent me this thing I was wondering if it’s something we could do next year Kecskemeti said. Said the boy, ‘Um, that’s not how it is done’. ” 
 
 Kecskemeti said that she was informed that the first step she had to complete was getting 15-30 students who would be interested in the given sport. She noted that her athletic director was of the view that few students would be willing to switch due to playing other sports during spring. She went to the instagram and made a post seeking to get the number of girls who would like to play. Kecskemeti said that by the end of the first week they would have a piece of paper with probably about 40 signatures of interested students. 
 
 Subsequently, it was agreed in October to start a flag football team in the school. 
 
 Kecskemeti continued, ‘It was just really great’ with a broad smile on her face as she called herself 16 and hailing from Beverly Hills. “I simply rejoiced the moment I met everyone and became teammates with them and work along with them It is so much fun to see so many people like me have the same passion for football, and it is even fascinating talking to girls who are like ‘I have been dreaming of playing football my whole life’ or ‘I used to play football in childhood’ and now we all get to equal opportunities, equality experiences. 
 
 A non-contact football that can be played by all genders and ages is the new generation nfl football called flag football which has gradually increased in the last four years in the United States of America and has benefited the girls who want to play football more. 
 
 These are sanctioned forms of high school sports and are practiced in 11 states. Students like Kecskemeti and various coaches all over the state believe that more high school teams have adopted the sport in the state of Michigan hence the need for the sport to be officially recognized like soccer, volleyball and basketball among others with the state championship. 
 
 An activity cataloged by NFL reveals that   flag football is played by 20 million people across the globe. com. The league is still enhancing the example of the sport’s development and recognition with the future flag football championship in the summer which will be aired on ESPN and NFL+. As it stands Today, and in October, the International Olympic Committee approved flag football for inclusion at the Summer Olympics debut in the city of Los Angeles in 2028. 
 
 Currently, 60 NFL Flag Football leagues licensed are in Michigan enrolling close to 37, 000 youths aged 4-17, according to Jaclyn Thomas, the RCX Sports CMO, of a national youth sports organization that has taken over the NFL Flag Football program. 
 
 An official from the Michigan High School Athletic Association commented on this by saying that their organization would want to have more evidence that high schools are interested in flag football before adding it as a sport. 
 
 Players and coaches have vowed for such a thing to happen. 
 
 Explaining why they do not sponsor it as a high school sport, Jesse Siordia, the head coach at Siena Heights University’s newly formed flag football team said, “I do not know, I mean I think — and this is just my opinion — that I do not think it is wise that they do not. ” ‘I do feel that there is many girls out there who genuinely wanted this to happen and genuinely wanted to take part in it So, I really think that Michigan is losing a great chance to form this sport and happy that for other university such as Madonna, Lawrence Tech, they can create a team to give an opportunity for these girls to play at another level. 
 
 Advancing the game 
 
 NFL Flag Football program experienced greater success from 2020 when RCX Sports began the task of leading it. Thomas said its mission was not only to expand the sport participation when currently there are more than 420, 000 children in the U. S. playing, but also to encourage girls participate in the sport. 
 
 “We were able to see that, through simply researching and scoping out the possibilities, the girls that were playing absolutely loved it as a transition from soccer, or volleyball… ,” said Thomas. From there, we knew that we wanted to put together an initiative to get girls playing flag football so right off the bat, we created this initiative of females in flag and made it a focus to figure out how we can build flag football into more of a pathway for girls. 
 
 One of the things done to directly address the problem was to come up with events that could attract the attention of girls so that they engage in the sport more; they were able to stage showcases and place more girls into the organization’s promotional material. In may 2020 RCX signed with the National Athletic Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) to provide opportunity for flag football at collegiate level. 
 
 Caffelli is the founder of SNAPtivities youth program in Bloomfield Township of Michigan and hockey coach of thousands youths residing in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills who runs seven NFL Flag leagues. Caffelli, 52, of Birmingham stated in the February issue that the four values she got from flag football are; it is non-contact sport, recreational, does not demand continuity of time and it is cheap. In fact, the major requirements in terms of equipment are a football, a mouth guard, shoes and of course flag football belt and flags. 
 
 “That is why the game is so open for everyone to enjoy; whether the person is a villager or a city; limited equipment is needed to play the game and that makes it so much fun to play,” said Chris Fritzsching, the head of football education for Detroit Lions.

This means that Fritzsching was well-placed to devise the football education program after some years of being a youth and high school football trainer. Said by him, the goal of the program is to impart football basics to the kids and in those teachings, he uses flag football to expand the game in Michigan. 
 
 “NFL flag, or simply flag football in general is just simply an opportunity for everybody to be a part of the game and that is why it is the enthusiastic for growth of the game, not only among the boys but also the girls as well because everyone can play and in essence, it is for everyone or for all,” he said. 
 
 Fritzsching said that in a 2021 annual NFL Club Summit he recalled a discussion being made about girls flag football and the experience that was being generated on the markets in the flag football categories. Other organizations that formed a league include Getting Started and football coaches all across Michigan Speaking with those organizations and understanding how they started and what transpired, the Lions were able to commence the Michigan Girls High School Flag Football Pilot League in January 2023. 
 
 The league needed four schools to participate and was conducted, in general, during three weeks in spring of the last year. 
 
 “It was certainly a good chance to move the game forward and to expand the game,” said another player, namely Fritzsching. “I have been with the Lions actually the last twenty years, and ultimately being a part of that program on that day – one I would have to say was one of the most satisfying programs I have been associated with. ” 
 
 During the first season of the league that started in 2023 and end in 2023 only 4 teams had participate in the second season of the league in 2024 24 teams partaken. 
 
 Taking the lead 
 
 Actually, the Lions are not the only organization that has played a part in the promotion of this activity in Michigan. Adrian, a private university about one hour from Detroit, Siena Heights, said in November they wished to inaugurate the first women’s flag football team in Michigan in the spring of 2025 as the sport is becoming increasingly popular. 
 
 In March, the university appointed Siordia to be its head coach for the new coming team. In the capacity of the president of the Student Movement he has managed to get 15 students to pledge themselves into the team; three of them play in high school flag football in Michigan. 
 
 Siordia stated that he thinks the biggest reason why the sport has not attained a sanctioning in the Michigan state is that there are not enough people supporting such a cause and pushing, or creating awareness; except for Fritzsching, who is the only person he is aware of, launching a widespread campaign across Michigan. He opined that if schools can recruit more leadership, more schools could join the Lions league and could help intensify the pushes towards attaining sanction for the sport. 
 
 ‘‘Someone has to do that as his/ her fulltime business,’’ this was stated by Siordia. ”Because I can tell you this: next year – from four, they went to 24 (this year) – I can assure you it will be 50, or more next year. ” 
 
 'Part of a conversation' 
 In the same day at Groves High School, their teacher Geoff Wickersham agreed to coach the Groves flag football team based on the request of Kecskemeti as he has been deemed experienced enough to manage a powderpuff football for over twenty years. Groves flag football team, in the first year had a scoring record of 4-0. Based on the fun experience of the girls playing the game, this author has quoted Wickersham who said he has immediately talked to the athletic director on how to get flag football recognized. 
 
 ”The real question is, when is it going to happen,” Wickersham said, rather facetiously. “Is it going to be in the fall or in the spring though?” 
 
 Before a sport can be considered to fall under the category of sanctioned MHSAA sports, there has to be some conditions that must be fulfilled. 
 
 MHSAA programming is followed by more than 750 high schools that contribute their talented students to competitions. For a sport to become sponsored (what the MHSAA calls a sanctioned sport), there needs to be 75 schools that have a varsity team, explains MHSAA’s communications director Geoff Kimmerly. He explained that in a survey on the newspaper the MHSAA conducts annually, which covers its schools regarding the participation in sports, the flag football, over 8-9 years have seen a participation of around 200-600 students’ (girls and boys combined). Kimmerly added that this year there were only five schools that had a boys team and six schools with a girls team. 
 
 In this case, in order to introduce a sponsored sports for girls, MHSAA must sponsor a sports for boys as well. Boys volleyball and girls field hockey are to be the next sponsored sports in MHSAA starting from the academic year of 2025/2026. MHSAA added the last new sports in the 2004-2005 season and included boys and girls lacrosse. The female cross-country star, Kimmerly, posited that it would be impossible for the MHSAA to come up with any sport under that sponsorship for one gender without the other. 
 
 Regarding sponsorship, there are more talks about this type of sport, such as indoor track, however, the conversation to ad flag football is not completely excluded. 
 
 He said that Girls flag football has at least been part of the conversation because he acknowledged that ‘that has the potential to grow very quickly. ’ 
 
 In neighbouring Illinois, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) unveiled in February that girls’ flag football would the next addition to the roster after it took root after Chicago Bears organization initiated a pilot project three years back. 
 
 Wickersham noted that such a statement from the IHSA makes him believe that Michigan will have it successful in the sanctioning of the sport. 
 
 ‘They are a northern state’, Wickersham said. “All the others are southern or western, where it is warmer and they can do that The are a Great Lakes state like us and it is as cold as it is here in the fall or the spring. ”

Making a difference 
 
 Meanwhile flag football which people in authority are yet to decide whether to have it recognized in Michigan’s high school is already impacting. 
 
 Ojni Canales, 12, from Detroit is the youngest of 13 children and the only girl: so, of course she was always playing football with her brothers. Her mother, Victoria Canales Jones, 55, said she always wished for her daughter to become a cheerleader but stated that Canales detest such practice. 
 
 Canales has been shy sometimes, but not to the extent that it restricts his movements and abilities. Notably, her mother put her and her siblings in the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit in 2020, and for weeks, she could not speak, according to Asiyah Williamson, the director of enrichment at the youth organization, and Canales’ mentor. In 2023, Williamson convinced Canales to bring her on as it member of the flag football team and was the only girl on the team. These are the words of Canales Jones where she indicated that her daughter’s self-esteem increases even more with the team. 
 
 In the process, Canales Jones narrated this, ‘You know, once she gets on the field, then she forgets that shyness. ’ This girl, she’s really especially competitive, especially with the boys So she’s kinda fearless when she gets out there she’s not hesitant, she doesn’t hang back, she kinda just goes for it. 
 
 Preliminary, the sport has already begun showering them with life-changing opportunities as it is witnessed in Kecskemeti and Groves teammates. Three of the Kecskemeti’s teammates were to be offered scholarships to play at Siena Heights and they where to achieve success the boys football team has not yet to achieve. 
 
 ‘The funny part is that we went to Ford Field before the men’s (varsity football) team went,’ Groves’ incoming senior and 17 year old Sara Litowiec of Southfield added. 
 
 When asked about the ability of the sport to be sanctioned, Sarah Day, an assistant coach of Groves flag football team parti cipated in the interview and said that, As things stand, every school district has to be in unison in order to keep taking the sport forward. 
 
 The intended audience of the show should include MHSAA and the athletic directors in the area and in Michigan because Day believes that ‘They have a lot of say in okay, this is something our kids are interested in. ’ ”I mean, our girls put out a whole poll of do you want to do this. And we just need more districts and schools to do that because I think women would want to do this, high school girls would want to do this, but I do think that’s not on the top of the radar for athletic departments, truthfully. ” 
 
 Siena Heights Siordia also believes that all the fame that flag football growing, more girls will come to practice for flag football and perform. 
 
 As for Siordia, he is pinning for such day when people will have an epiphany and think to themselves, ‘Hey, this sport is no joke. ‘It is not something that is just a kind of a recreational type the thing. ’