On Tuesday, April 11, Van Nuys’s athletic director, Mr. Coley, released a statement on Schoology asking if any students wanted to join the girls flag football team, which would take place in the 23-24 fall season. The idea of this sport was brought up by the California Interscholastic Federation, (CIF) and was approved to be a girls high school sport earlier this year.
The CIF worked so hard to get flag football to become not only a high school sport, but to be a girls only sport because they wanted to include a diversity of gender onto the football field. During the football season, some students didn’t join because of the potential injuries that could occur during a game. This is where girls flag football comes in, and the CIF wanted to make a sport where students will feel safe playing and won’t easily get hurt.
The new coming sport will be just like football, but instead of tackling the offense, the defenders are tasked to pull out their flag instead, making the sport much less contact-based.
“You can love the game of football and not love getting tackled but still want to participate,” said Hart Rodas, president-elect of the CIF Southern Section’s council to ABC News. “Flag right now is aimed directly at getting more girls involved in athletics by adding a different sport that we know girls across the country are interested in, but not willing to play tackle for a variety of reasons.”
Freshman Abraham Ceja, who plays for the JV football team, believes that it is a great opportunity for girls to be more involved in sports, specifically football.
“It gives the girls a chance to get a feel for football, it could bring more girls into actual football,” Ceja said. “We have only had one girl on the tackle football team, we need more.”
One issue is that their practice schedule could collide, causing both teams being unable to practice as much as they would like to.
While the football team does not think this problem will happen next year, they are all happy that this opportunity has come for the girls. If you are interested in joining the team next year, email Mr. Coley at [email protected]
