It’s ‘not just’ for the guys: Wake kicks off women’s high school flag football league

More than 500 Wake County high school students are blazing a trail to try to make flag football North Carolina’s next female varsity sport.

On Saturday, 19 public high schools and Cardinal Gibbons High will kick off the Wake school system’s Women’s High School Flag Football League thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Carolina Panthers.

The Panthers have been awarding money to set up girls flag football teams across the state. The shared objective is to get it sanctioned as a varsity sport by the N.C. High School Athletic Association.

“Our ultimate objective has really become to see the sport grow in our region to reach the point where it becomes a ... varsity sport when the time is right,” Riley Fields, director of community relations for the Carolina Panthers, said in an interview. “All the girls that are competing now, they’re blazing a trail for the girls who will come behind them to create future opportunities for a pathway to play collegiately and in the Olympics.”

‘Not just boys can play football’

Flag football has been soaring in popularity. It’s been added as a sport for the 2028 Summer Olympic games in Los Angeles.

The Wake County school system decided last year to apply for a grant from the Panthers to pilot a women’s flag football league. Deran Coe, Wake’s athletic director, said schools have heard from many female students who wanted to turn powder puff football games into an interscholastic sport.

“It’s not just boys that can play football,” said Alexis Mmbaya, 16, a junior at Heritage High School in Wake Forest. “It’s girls too.”

Coe said he originally thought that they might have up to 10 schools this season. Instead, 19 of Wake’s 26 high schools started programs for an abbreviated season that will be held over the next three Saturdays.

Wake hasn’t officially committed to continuing the pilot after this season. But Coe said he expects it will.

“It’s a very exciting time for this sport and for our young ladies who will gain experience in teamwork and all the great outcomes that we know of that come from extracurricular activities,” Coe said in an interview.

Learning to play flag football

The past few weeks have been spent getting the players — some of who are not as familiar with football-—ready for the start of the season through practices and scrimmages.

“Kudos to them coming out not knowing anything about a sport that we’re sitting there talking to them about,” Chris Miller, Heritage High’s flag football head coach, said in an interview. “It’s 40 degrees and we’re having to adjust this and they’re trying to figure it out. Then I give them a playbook that’s 30 plays long.”

Flag football is similar to regular football, but with some variations. It’s seven-on-seven, and instead of tackling players, defenders try to pull the opposing team player’s flag from their belt.

“It’s fun seeing what goes into football because just watching it you don’t see all the plays that go into it, all the hard practice, the studying of what goes into it behind the scenes,” Haylie Betheil, 16, a Heritage High sophomore, said in an interview.

A ‘Friday Night Lights’ moment

Wake held a kickoff event earlier this month at Millbrook High School’s football field in Raleigh to unveil the new custom Nike uniforms provided by the Panthers.

The players charged out onto the field led by Sir Purr, the Panthers’ mascot. Mmbaya, the Heritage High player, said she felt like she was in “Friday Night Lights,” the movie and television series that chronicled the exploits of a Texas high school football team.

“It was adrenaline pumping,” Mmbaya said. “It was fun. We got to see friends from other teams who are playing flag football. It was a good thing for all of us.”

Fields said the Panthers appreciate how Wake is treating flag football as a varsity sport even though it hasn’t officially earned that status yet.

“What’s been really exciting is the level in which the schools have embraced the opportunity for the program,” Fields said. “The energy around it, the buzz within the schools themselves has been elite. My expectation is that it will now bear out on the playing field.”

‘On the cusp’ of becoming a varsity sport

The NCHSAA will consider sanctioning a sport when it’s played by 25% of its members or half of the schools in one of the four athletic classifications. Fields said they’re “right there on the cusp” of having enough 4A schools to petition the NCHSAA for sanctioning

The Panthers have funded flag football programs in North Carolina’s two largest school districts: Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

The NFL team also is helping to launch flag football programs with Cabarrus County Schools and Union County Public Schools. Fields said the Panthers are in active discussions with other school districts across the state about starting programs.

Miller, the Heritage High coach, says there’s no doubt in his mind that women’s flag football should become a varsity sport.

“I guarantee you that if they run this and set it up correctly, it will take off like wildfire,” Miller said. “Just give these kids the opportunity and let them go. That’s all you’ve got to do.”

Get your tickets

The season will start with a round-robin tournament on Saturday, Jan. 27, at Athens Drive High School in Raleigh and Green Level High School in Cary. Go to https://twitter.com/WCPSS_Athletics/status/1750184478419390698 to view the schedule for Saturday.

Games start at 9 a.m. All-day tickets for each site are $10.

Go to https://gofan.co/event/1348934?schoolId=NC112 to purchase tickets for the games at Athens Drive.

Go to https://gofan.co/event/1325468?schoolId=NC72639 to purchase tickets for the games at Green Level.

Women’s flag football is coming to Wake high schools. Thank the Carolina Panthers.

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