There are numerous methods flag soccer differs from deal with soccer, together with discipline dimension, first downs and even the variety of gamers in a sport.
However in Kansas, there’s now yet another similarity between the 2 sports activities. The Kansas State Excessive Faculty Actions Affiliation voted on Thursday to sanction women flag soccer as an official sport, making it simpler for groups to take part in statewide competitions and safe gear and funding.
Sheila Sickau, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs’ director of soccer growth, stated it additionally provides the game as a lot validity as deal with soccer. She stated folks mechanically consider homecoming “powderpuff” games after they consider flag soccer.
However that’s not the case. The NCAA added it as an emerging sport for ladies and the NFL is launching males’s and ladies’s skilled flag soccer leagues. The game additionally will make its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028.
Sickau stated sanctioning the game is among the first steps for Kansas to help athletes representing them at that degree.
“Now we have created a path so that you can make all of it the best way skilled, Olympic, get a university scholarship, and simply making an attempt to make that very same pathway that males have entry to to play deal with soccer,” Sickau stated.
Evan Sanders
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Kansas Metropolis Chiefs
The affiliation stated on social media that Kansas is the 18th state to sanction the game. Ladies will be capable of compete for a KSHSAA state championship in flag soccer beginning within the 2026-27 faculty 12 months.
Almost 11,000 folks signed a petition as a part of the Chiefs’ “Let Her Play” marketing campaign to get women flag soccer sanctioned in Kansas. However Sickau stated the trouble has been a number of years within the making.
The Chiefs have helped launch pilot programs in faculties throughout Kansas over the previous three years, offering gear, jerseys and funding to ladies flag soccer groups. Simply three excessive faculties in Kansas and 4 in Missouri competed throughout this system’s first 12 months, however it’s been rapidly gaining traction.
Sickau stated final fall there have been 29 women flag soccer groups in Kansas, exceeding the state affiliation’s threshold of 24 groups to sanction the game. In Missouri, there are 55 excessive faculties with groups, however the state follows a special course of to sanction excessive faculties sports activities.
The state received one step closer last year after the Missouri State Excessive Faculty Actions Affiliation voted to make flag soccer an “rising sport.”
It’s Blake Iles’ first 12 months teaching at Olathe East Excessive Faculty and the college’s second 12 months of getting a women flag soccer staff. He stated sanctioning the game acknowledges how exhausting his staff works and the way good they’re.
“It is not simply an exercise … it’s a sport as a result of they’re competing at a really excessive degree,” Iles stated. “They deserve the popularity they usually deserve the platform that the opposite sports activities get.”
The highschool initially held women flag soccer practices as a night exercise for college students to play after different sports activities practices. However the faculty determined to maneuver it after faculty to get extra women concerned.
Iles stated the time change labored — about 60 women got here out for the staff, permitting the college to create varsity, junior varsity and third-string groups. He stated some women had performed flag soccer in native golf equipment, however numerous the scholars had by no means participated in a staff earlier than.
And a few women grew up going to Olathe East soccer video games, Iles stated.
“They’ve grown up with it, in order that they wished to get to be part of it and type of present women can do it, too, they usually’re fairly darn athletic, they usually’re fairly gifted as properly,” Iles stated.
There’s been some hesitation for faculties to create their very own staff, together with issues that it might take pupil athletes away from different sports activities — however Sickau stated she’s making an attempt to vary that narrative.
She stated it’s a small share of women who could depart a sports activities staff like volleyball to play flag soccer.
“For these bigger faculties, you simply opened up a spot on the volleyball staff for a woman that received lower to maneuver that spot up after which have a place over right here,” Sickau stated. “So it is about creating alternatives, not taking something away.”
Sickau stated women flag soccer could also be a smaller enterprise than faculties anticipate as a result of discipline sizes are smaller and video games are shorter, making it simpler for groups to carry a number of video games in a single night time.
Iles stated beginning one thing new is all the time a problem, however the advantages of beginning a women flag soccer staff significantly outweighed the challenges. He stated that features the grins on college students’ faces after they’ve achieved one thing they’ve by no means finished earlier than.
“Many women have by no means scored a landing earlier than,” Iles stated. “Many women have by no means caught a cross earlier than, so simply seeing these small victories week in and week out and apply far exceeded any of the struggles that went together with it.”
