Girls flag football is coming to high school sports in the state of Washington.
That much we can say after an amendment to sanction the sport was passed earlier this month by the Representative Assembly of the Washington Interscholastic Activities.
The news also came with a lot of questions. And one week after its passage, many athletic directors didn’t have a lot of answers.
A bit more clarity arrived the past couple of days. Flag football was one of the leading topics of discussion during a two-day meeting of athletic directors from around the state.
“Right now, all of the schools are doing their homework and talking to school boards and superintendents to figure out what their capacity is for adding a program like that,” said Camas athletic director Stephen Baranowski, who attended the statewide meeting Sunday and Monday at Kennewick. “It sounds like there’s almost 100 schools around the state that are interested in adding it. So a significant number are excited about the opportunity and are trying to figure out a pathway to offer it at their schools.”
The biggest question seems to be what season would this new sport be played in. Baranowski said the winter season appears to be the early consensus from the schools around the state.
“Obviously, the major drawback of that is going to be the weather,” Baranowski said. “But schools have done it up north in the winter the past couple of years as a pilot sport, and they had a lot of success with it and huge participation numbers.”
Baranowski said he was first leaning toward spring, as were other Clark County schools.
“But honestly, we’ll play it whenever,” he said. “We’ll make it work, if my school board jumps on board, which I think they will.”
There was some thought that the weather issues would be too much for schools on the eastside of the state to overcome during the winter season.
But Baranowski said the biggest issue driving the winter season as the season of choice is field availability.
In the fall, athletic fields are in use by football and girls soccer programs. In the spring, it’s track and field and boys soccer.
But no sports are played on fields in the winter. At least no high school sports.
“(At Camas), we run winter soccer for middle schools on our high school fields,” Baranowski said. “So we have a space conflict that we’ll overcome, but it is more challenging for us in the winter.”
Another issue that makes winter more attractive is that participation numbers in girls sports in the winter — basketball, wrestling, bowling and gymnastics — is lower than in the fall or winter seasons. So the chances of flag football drawing athletes away from other sports are less during the winter.
“I think we potentially can attract some of those soccer and softball girls to come over and try out the sport” in the winter, Baranowski said. “We’ve got the club sport of lacrosse (in the spring), and I think a lot of those kids might come out as well. And we hope to find some track and cross country kids who might try it. It’ll be interesting to see what type of turnout we might get.”
Baranowski said Camas is hoping to host a flag football showcase event in late May to offer players an opportunity to give the sport a try.
“We’ll try to get three or four schools together to have a doubleheader matchup of flag football,” he said. “It would be a lot less formal that what we might see next year, but we’re just trying to get kids excited for the opportunity that might be coming up for them next year.”
But he said the initial interest from students is there, at least at Camas High School.
“There’s a lot of curiosity, I guess, more than anything,” Baranowski said. “They’re just curious about the same things we are. When is it going to be played? Can they do it with the sports they already play? All those sorts of things they’re just wondering about it.
“I think as we got those details, and as we get it confirmed that our school district is able to support it or not, then we’ll be able to dive into it even deeper.”
