The California Interscholastic Federation’s (CIF) Federated Council unanimously voted in 2023 to add girls’ flag football as an official sport, starting last year. The Silicon Valley Athletic League, the one SHS plays in, added the sport a year later, playing for the first time this year, but the Falcons didn’t field a team for the inaugural season. That might change next fall.
In recent years, girls’ flag football has gained global attention, and it even earned an official seat in the 2028 Summer Olympics. Participation in California has been strong, with over 10,000 girls playing in the 2023-24 season. This places flag football just outside the top ten most popular sports for girls, and numbers are continuing to grow.
Out of the schools eligible to play in the Silicon Valley Athletic League, ten schools — Gunn, Los Altos, Los Gatos, MacDonald, Milpitas, Monta Vista, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Wilcox — have already played in the 2024-25 fall season.
For the past two years, SHS has been sending out interest forms for girls’ flag football to assess if there are enough students to form a team. According to athletic director Rick Ellis, the sport would need between 10-14 players who could commit to daily after-school practices in order to run. Seven players must be on the field at a time, but more would be needed to sub in for tired or injured players and to run smoother practices.
The first form, intended to assess interest for the 2024-25, received 10 responses, while the second, intended for the 2025-26 school year, received 15. Of these 15, eight students marked their level of commitment as “maybe,” while the other seven responded “yes.”
Ellis and principal Greg Louie plan to hold a meeting with the 15 respondents this semester and assess the feasibility of forming a team for the 2025-26 year.
“We have to get a feel for what the commitment level is, but we also need to consider other sports,” Ellis said. “How would it impact other fall programs that are already in existence? Would it affect girls on the field hockey, girls’ water polo, volleyball or tennis team?”
According to the interest form, nine out of the 15 students aren’t currently planning to play a fall sport apart from girls’ flag football, three responded they were and three responded “maybe.” The girls’ water polo team, for example, barely had enough players to form a varsity team this year, so if adding flag football takes away members from water polo, it would make next season even harder.
Said Ellis, “It’s a tough thing to talk about, but in a school like ours with 1,100 kids, offering more sports isn’t necessarily better for the athletic program because it spreads everybody thin. All of a sudden, we only have ten people on every team, and that’s not good because it’s hard to play that way.”
He added, “It’s an interesting dichotomy: You want to give students choices, but by doing so, it’s possible that nothing really works out.”
Junior Elizabeth Kline has been playing volleyball in the fall, and she said that her decision to switch to flag football would depend on a lot of factors.
“I’ve never played flag football other than Falcon Puff but I enjoy the scale of it all — I liked how big the team was as well as playing on the lower field. I also enjoyed the game play,” Kline said. “But, I would probably only switch if any of my friends who do volleyball with me joins flag football. I’m not super invested in the actual sport; it’s more about having fun with my friends.”
Similarly, freshman Kaili Ljepava said that flag football would be more fun if there were a lot of girls on the team, and she would be more compelled to join.
Six of the interested form responders were also from incoming freshmen. According to Ellis, several parents of Redwood Middle School students have reached out to him inquiring about the sport.
Ellis believes that if sufficient participation can be achieved without hurting existing sports teams, flag football would be a great addition to the athletic program.
“Football has been a male-dominated sport, but in flag football, there’s technically no contact,” Ellis said. “There’s no blocking or tackling — which parents also like — so it’s a safer sport with the same level of strategy. And I think that’s great.”
