Southern Section of California Interscholastic Federation to Vote on Making High School Girls’ Flag Football an Official Sport

According to youthtoday.org, roughly three dozen girls recently tried out for a school’s flag football team in Redondo Beach, California. The popularity of flag football amongst young girls and youth in general is on the rise in both California and the United States as a whole. The total number of girls playing flag football in U.S. high schools has doubled to 11,000 in the last decade, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Today, the southern section of the California Interscholastic Federation is expected to vote on making it an official girls’ high school sport. If it gets approved, the state federation would take it up next month with the goal of making it an official sport in the nation’s most populous state for the upcoming 2023-2024 school year.

Flag football is already a sanctioned high school girls’ sport in states including Alabama and Nevada. It was also added as a collegiate sport by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, with schools in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and elsewhere. According to Paula Hart Rodas, the president-elect of the CIF Southern Section’s council is quoted in saying that, “that has all the knowledge, skills, and ability and the strategy of traditional football without some of the more violent parts of it,” In flag football, no one gets tackled. A play ends when an opposing player pulls off the flag of a ball carrier. It also is far less expensive than tackle football since no helmets or pads are needed.

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