Girls’ flag football continues picking up steam in Orange County
Going to the NFL Flag Championships in Las Vegas was an eye-opening experience for a group of flag football girls from Newport Beach.
Coach Jason Guyser took his team to the event in early February, run concurrently with the Pro Bowl. The girls qualified after winning the California regional, hosted by the Los Angeles Rams, last November.
What they saw in Sin City were athletes who were at the top of their game.
“The teams on the East Coast have been doing this club football thing for at least five years,” Guyser said. “Serious, hardcore, multiple practices a week, playing at least two tournaments a month. We played the No. 1 team in the country, the No. 4 team and the No. 5 team. It was like, wow.”
Guyser, who has coached flag football at Newport Harbor High the last two years, decided to up the ante for the younger girls. They have mostly played the sport for fun since first grade coming up in the Matt Leinart Flag Football League, but now they have a new club to call their own.
He started the Seals Football Club, which still plays in the Matt Leinart league but also will start going to club tournaments. The 13-and-under girls from Newport competed in their first one last weekend, the Hollywood Havoc tournament put on by Flag Football Life.
Despite playing against older girls, Seals battled for first place at Foothill High.
“It’s really cool how it’s grown and it’s more competitive now,” said Emery Nichols, a Seals Football Club member who’s an eighth-grader at Ensign Intermediate School. “It’s giving girls our age another option, to seek another sport to see if they like it.”
The sport continues gaining momentum, and will make its debut as a CIF Southern Section sport next school year. Though there won’t be playoffs that first year for the 7-on-7 sport, they could soon follow if popularity continues to boom like many think it will.
Guyser said the sport has taken off exponentially, adding that Newport-Mesa alone has at least 50 girls’ teams in the Matt Leinart league.
Many of the participants play other sports. Nichols is a club volleyball player who plays libero for Balboa Bay Volleyball Club. Flag football and girls’ volleyball are both fall sports at the high school level, but she said she wants to balance both next year if it’s possible.
Tessa Russell, a seventh-grader at Ensign who also plays for Seals, started playing flag football a couple of years ago. She also plays club basketball, but she enjoys the friendships she’s made in football as well.
A day prior to the Hollywood Havoc tournament, Under Armour put on a skills camp at Mission Viejo High for female student-athletes. Russell was one of the MVPs in her age group.
“It’s a demanding sport, but it’s not like you can’t do other sports,” Russell said. “I like doing a variety. But I just think it’s a great sport to do … Before, football was all dominated by men. We’re kind of creating room, I feel like, for women to start playing. It’s exciting that we get to play as a real sport in high school.”
Guyser’s Newport Harbor team has done well the last couple of years in the high school league, which has also been run through the Matt Leinart organization. Last year, the Sailors were the Pacific League champions.
Edison also fielded a team last year, and is looking for a coach to head up its CIF-official high school team in the fall. One of the Chargers’ top players is speedy sophomore Riley Crooks, who plays receiver and running back on offense and usually rusher on defense.
Crooks played flag football in middle school at Huntington Christian School. She plans to be a three-sport athlete next year for Edison as a junior. She’s also a standout soccer defender for Edison and Slammers FC, and runs track.
“I’ve made a lot of close friends that I definitely wouldn’t have met before who play basketball or lacrosse, a lot of other different sports,” Crooks said. “Also, it’s not a contact sport, so it’s not going to be injured or anything like that either.”
Across Huntington Beach, Michael Schneider is trying to start a program at Marina High.
“I’m talking with my track athletes,” said Schneider, a resident substitute at Marina. “We have a QR code up on campus, and I’m building up an Instagram page. I think they’re very excited. Even right now, after only like a week or two, we have about 35 girls who have already signed up for our tryouts.”
Guyser’s daughter Scarlett, a seventh-grader at Ensign, plays quarterback for the newly formed Seals Football Club squad. She’s also a dedicated club soccer player, a center midfielder for Pateadores Soccer Club.
She wants to play both sports in high school and see where they take her. Currently, no NCAA Division I programs offer college scholarships for flag football, though some NAIA colleges do.
“I’m kind of amazed,” Scarlett Guyser said. “I didn’t really think I would ever play on a flag football team for club. I didn’t expect that it would be taken this far. When I started in first grade, I thought that we’d just play against boys and hopefully we’d try to win.”
Her father isn’t quite as shocked. He sees how quickly many of the girls he coaches fall in love with the sport.
Seals Football Club practices twice a week, though he understands if girls can’t make both with their other sports commitments.
“If flag football had the same Division I [college offerings as other sports], I’d be shocked if it didn’t catapult to the top of the list,” Jason Guyser said. “The way the girls love the sport, they gravitate toward it.”
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