TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 For Alicia and Taylor Jones, whether they would play football in high school was never really a question.<\/p>\n
When the identical twins stepped foot onto the football field as freshmen in 2023, they became the fourth and fifth daughters in their family to carry on the family tradition of playing flag football. It\u2019s all happened at the girls flag football dynasty built by Robinson High School in Tampa, Florida, a program that\u2019s racked up 10 state championships. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur sisters tried so hard, they put in all the work,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cSo it lets us do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re hardly alone. Girls flag football is rapidly spreading through high schools in the U.S., with 14 states sanctioning it as an official high school sport in the last three years. The growth has been helped along by millions of dollars from benefactors like Nike and the NFL and has unfolded as interest in women\u2019s sports explodes. <\/p>\n
But for Florida and its community full of families like the Joneses, it\u2019s nothing new. Girls have been playing flag football there for over 20 years, and recent participation numbers in the state have over 10,000 girls across four divisions and more than 450 schools.<\/p>\n
The \u201centire world\u201d of Florida girls flag<\/p>\n
It all started back in 2003. Florida became the first state to sanction high school girls flag football and since then, it\u2019s been adopted on a county-by-county basis \u2014 and has taken quite a foothold.<\/p>\n
Certain schools have evolved into dynasties. Robinson is one and, just 30 minutes across Tampa, Alonso High School is another. Alonso has four state titles of their own, and the teams starred in a Nike commercial together four years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got introduced to it I didn\u2019t realize there was an entire world behind it,\u201d said Natalie Fischer, a sophomore at Alonso who discovered the sport after moving from Malaysia to Florida. \u201cIt really changed my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the main backbones of that world is the generations of women who played flag before it was a part of the national consciousness \u2013 and they\u2019re helping usher their beloved sport into its new era. Most Thursdays you can find one of them, Deliah Autry-Jones, on the sidelines of Robinson practice, watching the team run drives up and down the field as the sun sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided what better way to give back than to the program that just absolutely changed everything for me?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That moment that changed everything was when Autry-Jones discovered flag football at Robinson back in 2009. She\u2019s now spent five years on the U.S. Women\u2019s Flag national team and has a real shot at the 2028 Olympics, where flag football will make its debut. Returning to Robinson as an assistant coach was an important check on her list.<\/p>\n
Autry-Jones is just one example of an early adoption perk: programs have been around long enough for star alumni to come back as coaches. She is joined by fellow alumnus Kylee Gorngpratum on the coaching staff at Robinson, and alum Letrice Hall is on staff at Alonso.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really just nice to have somebody in your shoes. It\u2019s such a prestigious program, not everybody understands,\u201d said Paige Halverson, Robinson\u2019s quarterback. \u201cTo have somebody that you can go to and that understands what you\u2019re going through, it\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
National interest in these prestigious programs is only increasing, and for Alonso coach Matt Fernandez and Robinson coach Joshua Saunders, that means a lot of messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you google girls flag football coaching, our names pop up,\u201d Saunders said. \u201cSo about once every month, I\u2019ll get a coach that just says \u2018Hey, I\u2019ve just started a program in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Do you have any advice?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He tells them to focus on \u201cpatience, really. And give yourself some grace. It\u2019s still convincing a 15 year-old girl that this is going to be important to her.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s up next?<\/p>\n
If asked to look forward, a number of Florida high school players have dreams of playing flag football in college \u2013 \u201cI love it so much, I wouldn\u2019t be able to stop playing,\u201d said Robinson junior Sarah Williams \u2013 and the collegiate opportunities are slowly developing.<\/p>\n
Currently, at least 65 NCAA schools sponsor girls flag football at the club or varsity level, with the majority being at the club level. It was recently approved to join the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program, the first step to possibly becoming an official sport for Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3 athletics. Players are still hoping and pushing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the freshmen last year was a really big thing for me because half of them wanted to play in college. Half of them are like \u2018Hey, it\u2019s possible,\u2019\u201d said Alonso senior Gabriella Werr.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlag is going to keep growing very fast, and I think that\u2019s going to be a shock to some people,\u201d said Werr, \u201cbut not to others.\u201d<\/p>\n
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