ST. IGNATIUS - Following a homecoming powderpuff game last year, students at Mission High School wanted to create a girl’s flag football team and with the help of an NFL team, they made that happen.
"It was a blast I had so much fun and so ever since that game, I was like man I really want to do flag football as a sport, said Amelia Cronk.
She loved the game so much, that she decided to take matters into her own hands after a teacher suggested funding the new team through a grant from the Atlanta Falcons.
“He found out about this grant from an email that was sent out to quite a few schools and then he kind of passed the information on to me and so I looked at it and was like alright we could actually do this so I went and took it to Sarge our superintendent and said hey we have some interest in flag football and yeah it just kind of happened.”
Flag football is played with seven players on each end of the ball. It also requires a smaller field, and instead of tackling, the defender rips off the opponent’s flag to stop them. Despite not being a school-sanctioned sport, head coach Jason Sargent says the team has only become more passionate.
“We’ve got a super athletic bunch of girls that love football and we’re learning but we are pretty much just learning how to execute plays handoff, pitch, how to break down on tackles. Fundamental football we have a ton to learn but we’ve got a super athletic bunch of young ladies that are a quick study to the game for sure.”
A decision on whether the sport will be sanctioned will likely come next year and Cronk would be excited to see this happen for her school after her efforts to put the team together.
“That’s just really an exciting thought think that I could be the person that started it for maybe a little girl in elementary plays football every day at recess and you know it just would be really cool if I saw that happen.”
Mission’s next games are on Saturday at 11 a.m. in Butte.
