By Lillian Gustch,
Staff Writer.
Throughout America, football is a beloved sport. Here at Santa Rosa High School, we have our own boys tackle football team. But now, athletic directors district wide are planning on making a girls flag football team coming in the fall of 2025. But how exactly would that work?
SRHS athletic director and PE teacher Kenny Knowlton said, “We, as athletic directors, meet every quarter. We sat down last month and were pretty adamant, as a group, that we needed to start providing [flag football] to our girls because all the outside districts are providing it already.” Currently, there’s not much knowledge of how the sport would work due to a lack of information on district-wide interest.
Knowlton believes that “we’re starting to lose enrollment because we’re not offering programs for all our students.” By offering this new program for girls who want to play flag football, the school might bring in a whole new set of students in the coming years.
Freshman Vienna Avanche is planning on playing next year if there is a team. “Growing up, my father was a big football fan. I grew up playing with him and I always thought it would be nice to do. They don’t really offer it to girls either, so I think that they should start doing that,” said Avanche. Offering a girls team at our school would allow girls who want to play football a means to do so.
Even if girls didn’t want to actively play on the team, they, along with other students, could still attend games. “The games [in other districts] are usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They don’t play on Friday nights because of the conflict with tackle football,” said Knowlton. Even for people who don’t like sports, attending games is still an option. Freshman Aunika Marcuson said that she is “not a sports person,” but would attend games if her friends joined so that she could cheer them on. So even if some students are not interested in actively participating in this new sport, they can still come and support the team.
Now, it is not known exactly how many people are actually interested in playing girls flag football next year. This means that athletic directors and potential coaches do not know whether there will be a JV and a varsity team for this new sport or whether it will end up being one team. “Ultimately, our goal is to create a JV and varsity, but I think that we’d start with just one team. Then, if the numbers are there, then we would eventually build a JV,” said Knowlton.
Whilst there are still a lot of unknowns on how this new sport will work, the athletic department is working hard to create new opportunities for all students.
