It is official: M-A will have a girls flag football team starting next year. Other schools including Menlo, Saint Ignatius, and Notre Dame Belmont have already established teams and started playing games this year.
Given that other schools have already established teams, there has been an anxious feeling around whether or not M-A will create one. Senior Olivia Marsh echoed the sentiment of many M-A students as she said, “It builds community between grade levels, between students, between schools, and it is just really fun to play.” M-A invested in a brand new turf field this past summer and already has a strong history of football threaded into the school’s DNA.
A girls flag football team would also be a crowd attraction given that the stands were almost completely full this past week to watch the annual Powderpuff football game. Junior Elizabeth Hoffman said, “You can see how many people participated in Powderpuff. Clearly we would have the numbers, and I think it would be a great addition to M-A.”
All of the excitement to have a team raises the question: why has it taken so long for M-A to establish a team? M-A Athletics Director Paul Snow said, “We wanted to have one this year, but we wanted to wait for the district to formally say yes and pay for the coach’s stipend, and they just ignored our requests–––we sent probably four emails to different people.”
Snow continued to say, “We went through the same process with boys volleyball, and we have been paying for the coach’s stipend ourselves ever since.” Despite M-A’s efforts to persuade the district to finance a girls flag football team, they have not given any official word yet. However, despite the mysterious hesitancy from the district, Snow said, “We hope that they endorse it, but if they don’t, we will find a way. There will definitely be a girls flag football team next year, even if we have to pay for it ourselves.”
Junior Katherine Pavloff talked about why she will join the team and said, “I will play because it’s a great way for the girls in all grades to come together, and it encourages more school spirit and bonding.”
Regardless of who will cover the costs, it is official that M-A will have a team next year. If the popularity of the Powderpuff game indicates anything about the future of the program, it should be clear that girls flag football will be successful for a long time to come.
