TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — For Alicia and Taylor Jones, whether they would play football in high school was never really a question.
When the identical twins stepped foot onto the football field as freshmen in 2023, they became the fourth and fifth daughters in their family to carry on the family tradition of playing flag football. It's all happened at the girls flag football dynasty built by Robinson High School in Tampa, Florida, a program that's racked up 10 state championships.
“Our sisters tried so hard, they put in all the work,” said Taylor. “So it lets us do the same thing.”
They're hardly alone. Girls flag football is rapidly spreading through high schools in the U.S., with 14 states sanctioning it as an official high school sport in the last three years. The growth has been helped along by millions of dollars from benefactors like Nike and the NFL and has unfolded as interest in women's sports explodes.
But for Florida and its community full of families like the Joneses, it’s nothing new. Girls have been playing flag football there for over 20 years, and recent participation numbers in the state have over 10,000 girls across four divisions and more than 450 schools.
The “entire world” of Florida girls flag
It all started back in 2003. Florida became the first state to sanction high school girls flag football and since then, it’s been adopted on a county-by-county basis — and has taken quite a foothold.
Certain schools have evolved into dynasties. Robinson is one and, just 30 minutes across Tampa, Alonso High School is another. Alonso has four state titles of their own, and the teams starred in a Nike commercial together four years ago.
“When I got introduced to it I didn’t realize there was an entire world behind it,” said Natalie Fischer, a sophomore at Alonso who discovered the sport after moving from Malaysia to Florida. “It really changed my life.”
One of the main backbones of that world is the generations of women who played flag before it was a part of the national consciousness – and they’re helping usher their beloved sport into its new era. Most Thursdays you can find one of them, Deliah Autry-Jones, on the sidelines of Robinson practice, watching the team run drives up and down the field as the sun sets.
“I decided what better way to give back than to the program that just absolutely changed everything for me?” she said.
That moment that changed everything was when Autry-Jones discovered flag football at Robinson back in 2009. She’s now spent five years on the U.S. Women’s Flag national team and has a real shot at the 2028 Olympics, where flag football will make its debut. Returning to Robinson as an assistant coach was an important check on her list.
Autry-Jones is just one example of an early adoption perk: programs have been around long enough for star alumni to come back as coaches. She is joined by fellow alumnus Kylee Gorngpratum on the coaching staff at Robinson, and alum Letrice Hall is on staff at Alonso.
“It’s really just nice to have somebody in your shoes. It’s such a prestigious program, not everybody understands,” said Paige Halverson, Robinson’s quarterback. “To have somebody that you can go to and that understands what you’re going through, it’s really important.”
National interest in these prestigious programs is only increasing, and for Alonso coach Matt Fernandez and Robinson coach Joshua Saunders, that means a lot of messages.
“If you google girls flag football coaching, our names pop up,” Saunders said. “So about once every month, I’ll get a coach that just says ‘Hey, I’ve just started a program in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Do you have any advice?’”
He tells them to focus on “patience, really. And give yourself some grace. It’s still convincing a 15 year-old girl that this is going to be important to her.”
What’s up next?
If asked to look forward, a number of Florida high school players have dreams of playing flag football in college – “I love it so much, I wouldn’t be able to stop playing,” said Robinson junior Sarah Williams – and the collegiate opportunities are slowly developing.
Currently, at least 65 NCAA schools sponsor girls flag football at the club or varsity level, with the majority being at the club level. It was recently approved to join the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program, the first step to possibly becoming an official sport for Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3 athletics. Players are still hoping and pushing.
“Seeing the freshmen last year was a really big thing for me because half of them wanted to play in college. Half of them are like ‘Hey, it’s possible,’” said Alonso senior Gabriella Werr.
“Flag is going to keep growing very fast, and I think that’s going to be a shock to some people,” said Werr, “but not to others.”
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