Flag football’s popularity in Wellesley among girls has been growing over the past couple of decades thanks in no small part to the annual pre-Thanksgiving Powderpuff game between Wellesley High School and Needham High School senior women as well as youth programs offered through local camps.
Community Investors, the non-profit affiliate of the Wellesley-based Terriers Sports youth sports organization, is now readying a free flag football program for high school girls who may or may not have ever played the non-contact alternative to tackle football. The program will offer drop-in sessions on Sunday nights, from 6-7pm, in early April at Babson College. Registration is open.
The goal is to build on that and potentially get a girls’ flag football club going at the high school in the fall, and possibly enter a team into a spring league in 2025 (this all needs to be done in conjunction with school administrative and athletics leadership). Where it goes from there, who knows, but there is a movement afoot for the sport to go varsity in parts of the country, and the National Football League and the New England Patriots have been promoting the sport as well for boys and girls.
The game is catching on with young players because “they love the action,” says Joe Roberts, president of both Terriers and Community Investors. “It’s the ultimate team game.”
Plus, Taylor Swift dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has been “a really cool development that’s gotten more girls interested in football… Now we’re trying to make opportunities for them to not just watch the game, but play it,” he says.
Things will only heat up for the sport as we head toward 2028, when flag football will be among the sports included in the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The immediate focus for Community Investors is less on the competitive aspects of the game, and more on just having fun, learning the game, being a good sport, and participating: It stresses that “ZERO experience is necessary.” The program would build off of Terriers’ and Community Investors’ methodology that uses a combination of student coaches, music, and active management to support physical, social, and emotional development. (An article in the Spring edition of Wellesley Weston Magazine covers more of Community Investors’ GirlPower and other flag programs.)
The initial program being offered for free this spring to high school girls won’t require any ongoing commitment. Show up when you can, with the hope from organizers that girls will want to keep attending.
The organizations already know of some local high school girls who might be interested. A handful recently coached dozens of younger girls at Taylor Swift tribute games at Boston Sports Institute ahead of the Super Bowl.
There’s also incentive for high school girls to hone their flag football skills to become more competitive vs. the Needham High team in the Powderpuff game (not that the Wellesley Police don’t do a good job of coaching the WHS girls). Needham High already has a competitive flag football club. “I know that game means a tremendous amount to the girls who play in it,” Roberts says.
But in speaking to Roberts, and Community Investors board advisor Chris Cavallerano, the emphasis kept returning to less competitive goals, highlighting a flag football event the group held at Fenway Park last fall, and teasing a possible flag jamboree to be held locally during the summer for boys and girls.
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