In the past few years girls flag football has been rising in popularity and everyone wants to play. This year, Coach McMillen, the head coach of the boys varsity football program, has started practices for the Eagles in hopes of joining this new trend. Currently, the Eagles have gained around 15 girls to their team.
Flag football is either played with 5-on-5 or 7-on-7 but is mostly a 7-on-7 sport with similar rules to tackle football but they have flags to pull instead. It is the fastest growing sport in the nation and will be in the 2028 Summer Olympics as a 5-on-5 style for both men and women for the first time ever
Since girls flag football is not yet a varsity sport in Missouri, many schools have done scrimmages against others to get in more practice and prepare for when it gets approved for a school sanctioned sport. So far Fort Zumwalt North has held all of the scrimmages Liberty goes to, as well as Fort Zumwalt South joining in.
They still have a long way to go as the sport just started, but the tackle football team is going to help out. The girls are going to be lifting with the boys in the summer as well as football workouts.
Three girls, Stella Nguyen (9), Sasha Benn (11), and Lily Herold (9), have played flag football before it became a club at Liberty and are ecstatic that it will become a varsity sport.
“I think it’s a great sport and should have already been a sport for women but it’s awesome,” Benn said.
MSHSAA has already noticed the growing sport and has said it can be a varsity sport even as soon as spring of 2027. To become a varsity sport, the board of directors for MSHSAA has to approve the sport, only after they have 50 participating schools in multiple regions.
“I think it will maybe be two more years before it becomes a varsity sport,” Coach McMillen said.
In the MSHSAA 2025 annual ballot, they covered this topic in proposal 8. The proposal was, “The Addition of Girls Flag Football as an Emerging Sport.” There were 301 people voted yes and 66 people voted no. All proposals have to be certified, which happened in June 2025, but as stated proposal 8 and 9 were effective immediately for registration purposes. Emerging sport status is the first step to becoming varsity status, it allows schools to make teams and practice, before the full varsity sport gets approved.
Girls are hopeful for this new sport in getting approved, as recently in 2024, boys volleyball became a new sport and is now a growing sport in Missouri.
Flag football is growing in Missouri rapidly and is preparing to compete alongside other schools.
