Guess what’s coming to St. Joe’s?

November 18, 2024 Andy Furman

A game of flag football being played at the University of Texas at Austin. Photo by Enoch Lai at the English-language Wikipedia

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The fastest growing sport in the nation is coming to Brooklyn.

It is women’s flag football. And how fast is flag football growing?

According to “USA Football,” there were over 230,000 girls from ages 6 to 17 playing flag football in the U.S. in 2023, which marked a 44% increase from 2014. Including boys, there were over 1.6 million American youths playing flag football as of 2023. The sport is played in 10 countries around the world.

And now, the sport will be played at Brooklyn’s St. Joseph’s University, commencing in the spring of 2025 – for women.

“We are excited to offer this new opportunity for our female student-athletes,” Meghan Valentine, director of athletics and recreation, told the Eagle last week. “The popularity of the sport is booming,” she continued, “a lot of high schools in the region are sponsoring flag football.”

Flag football, backed by the NFL and some of its former players — and soon to become an Olympic sport — is a girl’s high school varsity sport in 13 states and became the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. between from 2019 to 2023.

St. Joseph’s University, Brooklyn becomes the first institution in the Skyline Conference to launch a women’s flag football program, but not the first in the metropolitan area. Wagner University, on Staten Island, fields a club team as does the two-year College of Staten Island.

“We’ve certainly seen the growth in women’s sports,” Valentine continued, “and we’ll continue to open doors for a better pathway for growth and development.” The university has launched a search for the program’s first-ever head coach.

“We’re signed up to play the College of Staten Island in a tournament next April,” Valentine said. “Our Long Island campus has a team, and St. Thomas Aquanis College has a club team.”

Valentine says the focus is to compete as an NCAA team member, “but not yet.
There are enough teams in a two-to- three-hour drive to field a schedule,” she said.

She cites both the Atlantic East Conference and United East as possible leagues to compete in and against. The Atlantic East is an NCAA Division III member comprising of seven institutions in a four-state area — Gwynedd Mercy, Immaculata, Marywood and Neumann Universities in Pennsylvania; Centenary University in New Jersey; Marymount University in Virginia; and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Holy Family University will join the conference as an associate member in women’s flag football for the spring of 2025. The Atlantic East partnered with the NFL and RCX Sports to become the first NCAA conference to offer varsity female flag football last year. The league held its inaugural championship in April, featuring four conference institutions in a one-day tournament.

That inaugural contest featured a welcome from Philadelphia Eagles mascot Swoop and team cheerleaders, as well as the pep band. This first season was a preparation for the first full varsity season with regular season play in the spring of 2025. All conference schools will compete throughout the spring season, with a full schedule to be determined. The top four teams will compete for the AEC Champion in April, 2025.

The United East Conference becomes the second Division III league to announce its sponsorship of flag football. The league will have at least five institutions participating at the club level in the spring 2025, including Gallaudet University, Keystone College, Lancaster Bible College, Penn College and Rosemont College. The United East boasts 17 Division III full-member institutions.

As for the Bears of Brooklyn’s St. Joseph’s University, home games may be played at Aviator Field, according to Valentine. “They certainly have enough fields, we’ll need to check the permit process,” she said. “But we’re not worried, we’ll find a place to play; we’ll find a space.” She says a four-to-five game schedule is probably the goal for season one.

Flag football is played on an 80 x 40 yard field and features four quarters, each lasting 12 minutes. Teams normally have around 25 players, though there are no current official roster caps, and the games are played in a seven-on-seven format. It is a non-contact sport with ‘tackles’ made by removing one of two vinyl ‘flags’ attached to the ball-carrier’s waist — one on each side.
The game was started for military personnel to play without getting injured during wartime. It is believed that the history of flag football was first recorded at Fort Meade, Maryland, and that is generally accepted as its birthplace. Local leagues were formed as military personnel returned home in the 1950s and 1960s.

St. Joseph’s University, Brooklyn currently fields 11 varsity teams — five men’s teams and six women’s teams. Its flag football team is not an NCAA Championship team yet.

But it is the first in Brooklyn.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR