Expansion of flag football, including to high school, opens up more opportunities for female athletes
On a cool, rainy Sunday morning, Clipper Magazine Stadium was transformed from the host of baseball's Lancaster Stormers to a field of dreams for young girls who want to play football.
"Here we go ... set, hit, breakdown," shouted Lance Baird, the defensive coordinator for the Elizabethtown High School boys football team. Baird is also the head coach of Lancaster's chapter of the NFL Flag Football program, which met most Sunday mornings throughout the fall at the stadium.
Football for everybody
The infield was a maze of cones as girls ages 5 to 16 ran pass patterns and snagged balls out of the air. As they began to run deeper routes and execute over-the-shoulder catches, Baird reminded them that "this is a hard skill for high-schoolers; it's hard for boys."
"Female empowerment is big in our household," said Baird, whose two daughters were among the more than 40 girls in the program this fall. "I want them to know football can be for anybody."
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Tina Allen works with the youngest girls, helping them learn the sport's fundamentals and, more importantly, learn the life lessons that sports can instill.
"It teaches the girls they can be powerful," said Allen, who also runs Lancaster-based Rivet, an industrial marketing agency, with Baird.
Pointing to the smallest player on the field, she added, "She's 5, and she's fierce."
Edward "Duke" Bowman, who played college baseball at Millersville, works with the older girls in the outfield, throwing them passes as they run post patterns.
Bowman runs a Lancaster travel flag football team called Pressure. He started coaching at the Lancaster Rec and realized there was a void for girls once they aged out of that program.
He has taken his team as far as Florida for nationals and regularly takes them throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey for competition.
This month, Pressure will be competing in the Washington Commanders' flag football tournament.
Wandalys Anavitate-Colon, who is 12 and one of Bowman's players, was even recognized as an NFL Flag Football player of the week this fall.
Meanwhile, Marco Serour, the events and operations coordinator for the Lancaster Stormers, emphasizes that the flag football league fits with the team's mission to impact the community in a variety of sports.
The organization offered the league solely for girls — it ran through Oct. 13 — because all the other flag football leagues in Lancaster County are co-ed.
Serour, who has worked with the Stormers since February after studying sports management at Lock Haven University, said the league has a lot of potential.
"We want to make Clipper Magazine Stadium a home for more than just baseball," Serour said. "We like to think of the Stormers as more than just baseball, but as an organization that does lots for our community."
Serour and Stormers general manager Mike Reynolds both have ambitious goals for the program's growth. In future years, they said they would like to have multiple age group divisions with at least six teams per division.
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Growing at home and beyond
The girls at Clipper Magazine Stadium were decked out in Eagles and Steelers jerseys along with flags provided by NFL FLAG. They're among the more than 700,000 participants in NFL FLAG, the largest flag football organization in the world.
As NFL FLAG continues to evolve, one of its biggest initiatives is providing a pathway for girls to compete at the high school level and, in some cases, even at the college level, where several NAIA and NJCAA schools have teams.
The Atlantic East Conference, in partnership with the NFL and RCX sports, became the first NCAA conference to offer varsity female flag football, with an anticipated start date for varsity status in spring.
That pathway for high schools got clearer when the PIAA announced in mid-September that girls flag football had been sanctioned as a high school sport throughout Pennsylvania — following in the footsteps of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Illinois and New York.
Sixty-three Pennsylvania schools had teams competing during the 2024-25 school year, with York High the lone District Three school offering the sport. The largest number of participating schools come from District 12 — the Philadelphia area.
A year after sanctioning girls wrestling as a sport, the PIAA views flag football as another opportunity for girls to get involved in high school sports.
PIAA president Frank Majikes said he is hopeful that a solid foundation for girls flag football will enable the sport to grow for years to come.
Chris Curd, executive director of the Pennsylvania Flag Football Organization, has worked over the past four years to oversee the sport's growth in the western part of the state.
During that time, he has seen the sport grow from six schools participating to 35 schools competing last spring. The hope is to have 55 to 60 schools competing in spring.
Much of the early sponsorship and support has come from the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles as part of the NFL Flag initiative.
Thus, most of the participating schools so far are around the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas. Curd said the Steelers have been a huge advocate for getting the schools on board and have been involved with outreach and education, and leagues run by the Steelers and Eagles have more than 100 teams combined.
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Expansion efforts
When the Eagles and Steelers started their flag football initiatives in 2022, they established a five-year plan to have the sport sanctioned statewide, a goal they've seen come to fruition.
The pro teams have received support to help grow and expand the game from numerous organizations, including the NFL Foundation, NFL FLAG, USA Football and Nike.
"Girls want to compete at high levels, but there has to be a pathway for younger girls to see an opportunity," Curd said.
Now, the challenge is to open that pathway by expanding with the hope of having the sport played throughout the state in high school in at least two classifications by 2026.
"The key factor for success is clusters of school jumping on board," said Curd, who said he hopes his organization can be a conduit for expanding flag football to the rest of the state. "Getting five to six schools in one geographic area to pick up the sport will make it go."
PIAA Assistant Executive Director Lyndsay Barna explained that there is a process for the PIAA to officially take over the sport.
Each district has conversations at its meetings to discuss how to best introduce and implement flag football at its schools, but then each school district must approve the sport.
The organization is waiting on the National Federation of High School Sports to complete the official rule book; then the PIAA will officially take over jurisdiction July 1, 2025.
The first state championship for girls flag football is planned for the 2026-27 school year.
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Empowering female athletes
"Pennsylvania is very proud to sanction flag football," Barna said. "There is a lot going on with the growth of girls sports to provide more opportunities for female athletes."
"Girls have the power to influence if we make the opportunity available," Curd added.
This growth could be seen at Clipper Magazine Stadium. It can be seen in rec leagues and travel teams throughout Lancaster County, and in the not-too-distant future, it might be seen on high school football fields in the spring.
In fact, Baird envisions a time when he will coach his daughter as a ninth-grader at Elizabethtown. As he reminds his own girls — and the other young athletes in his charge — "get 1% better, every day."
With that, he can see the future unfolding before him: a future that will include football for female athletes throughout Pennsylvania.
