On a football field at Linton Middle School in Penn Hills, Rashad Colvin coaches his team through its playbook.
It’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday in July, and the players are getting ready to play in a tournament.
Competitive football, in July?
This isn’t traditional tackle football, but rather Pittsburgh National League FLAG football.
Colvin co-founded the league with Erik Cooper in 2004 as an activity for the Penn Hills YMCA. When the Penn Hills’ YMCA closed in 2018, Cooper and Colvin signed the league up to join the growing NFL FLAG organization.
Today, NFL FLAG consists of more than 830,000 participants in all 50 states, as well as five international branches.
The tournament in which Colvin’s team is participating on this particular Saturday is merely a tune-up for the NFL FLAG national championship, set to take place this week — July 23-26 — in suburban Indianapolis.
“It’s an experience for the kids to be able to travel, play as a team, have fun together, grow, learn the game, learn winning and losing, all that good stuff,” he said.
Colvin’s team of 7-, 8- and 9-year-olds — called the Boyce Park Jets — qualified for their sport’s big dance in October 2025, when it won the New York Jets’ regional championship in Clifton, N.J.
With that championship came a $10,000 prize that Colvin said was allocated to the families of the 10-person roster to pay travel expenses to the national tournament.
There’s no cash prize for winning the national tournament, but it brings heavy bragging rights — Colvin calls it the “equivalent of winning the Super Bowl.
“It’s like the test is in July, and all you’re doing is prepping, prepping, prepping,” he said. “Prep work. You are prepping for the ultimate test, and you just want to ace it.”
The Boyce Park Jets huddle around Coach Rashad Colvin during a practice at Linton Middle School in Penn Hills on Saturday, July 11, 2026.
The regional tournament in New Jersey and the national contest in Indianapolis aren’t the only opportunities for the team to travel.
Pittsburgh is considered part of the eastern quadrant of NFL FLAG, so teams from Pittsburgh can play in tournaments of fellow eastern quadrant markets, of which there are seven.
This can make for a grueling schedule, said Bernadette Stickles and Drew Thomas, the parents of tight end Logan Thomas.
Still, they said their family finds ways to make the trips about more than just football.
“We did the ‘Rocky’ steps when we went down to Philly. That was a bucket list check-off,” Stickles said.
“So it’s almost like a vacation.”
As Indianapolis is roughly a six-hour trip from Pittsburgh by car, most families will be driving. But Tre Osbey will feel more like the pilot for the Boyce Park Jets.
As team quarterback, he gave one specific key to victory.
“Me, throwing the ball.”
Where did he learn to throw a spiral?
“From my mom.”
Osbey’s mother, Ryan Glaze, was a star basketball player for Penn Hills High School, so there may be some truth to Osbey’s attribution for his athletic talent.
“I don’t know where it came from, but I’ll take it,” Glaze quipped.
Wide receiver Harley Burton has been playing football for four years. He’s a two-year member of the Boyce Park club, after a year of playing flag football at the YMCA in his home of Wheeling, W. Va., and a year of playing tackle football.
“I like them both, but the thing about tackle, they didn’t let me get the ball at all, and the coach — I didn’t like his coaching skills, and he wasn’t really good,” Burton explained.
“So, I like flag better.”
One of Burton’s fellow receivers, Noah McClendon, is also a four-year veteran of the gridiron. And like Burton, he played a year of tackle.
Which does he prefer?
“Tackle. [Because of] contact,” McClendon said.
Looking ahead to Indianapolis, Burton said he believes his squad has as good a chance as any of the other 31 teams in their 8-and-under division.
“If we don’t get first place, I’m pretty sure we’ll get second,” he predicted.
“I’m confident with my team.”
Win or lose, running back James Davis III said this national championship will just be a small chapter in what he hopes will be a large book of football memories.
Asked how long he wants to play ball, Davis III didn’t have to think long to answer.
“’Til I die.”