Football is considered a rough and aggressive sport, which makes many people think it is“manly” or “masculine,” however, the girls at Hazen are changing the history of this sport at our school.
Hazen girls’ flag football is a new sport introduced to Hazen this year. Flag football first became a sport because it gave girls an opportunity to play football. The goal is to make it a Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) sanctioned sport so that all schools can do it. Right now, only certain schools (mainly in King County) have teams.
Flag Football is very similar to football, with all of the same rules and concepts, but it eliminates many of the injuries and violence of the game because instead of tackling, players pull each other’s flags to signify them as “down.”
The rules are similar to normal tackle football, but everything is smaller. The field is only 70 yards long but the same width as a normal football field, which is about 30 yards. The games are 40 minutes long, with 20-minute halves and two-minute halftimes. The team sizes are also much smaller. The game is played in the 7-on-7 style, meaning seven players on offense and seven on defense as opposed to 11-on-11.
The positions are also much simpler. On offense, there is one quarterback, one center (the person snapping the ball to the quarterback), a running back, and four wide receivers. On defense, it is all up to what the coach wants. They can send up to two people to rush the quarterback or they can have everyone playing man coverage (meaning a defender is guarding every receiver or running back on offense).
It is completely unrestrained for what the defense can do. Since there are no Defensive Linemen to sack the quarterback, the quarterback has seven seconds to throw the ball before the play is blown dead.
The scoring system is also changed a bit in flag football. If you score from the midfield mark or beyond the midfield mark, it is seven points. Anything less than the midfield mark is six points. Teams can also decide if they want a Point After Touchdown (PAT), which in normal football is gained when you kick an extra point. Since there are no kickers in flag football, you automatically get the PAT if you choose that option. If you decide to go for two points you get one play at the 10-yard line to score, and if you select to go for 3 points you get one play from the 17-yard line to get into the endzone. The rules may seem complicated, but flag football is generally very similar to normal tackle football. Flag Football also has two games during one “game day, ” and only one game day a week.
So far, 38 Hazen students have already shown their excitement to play Flag Football, and have expressed their past experiences with the sport of football, and what positions interest them the most.
Marisa Aoki (10) shared that she was originally interested in joining because “[her] soccer team brought it up and were talking about how it would be a fun way to connect even after the season is over.” She also wanted to do it because of Coach Singh, “he is a really good soccer coach so I feel like he’d make it fun to play flag football as well.” I wanted to know if she had any prior experience since she told me she played sports like soccer, “I only have a little bit of experience playing football, only just running routes and playing for fun with my family.” I also wanted to know what positions she was thinking of playing, she also wants to play running back because “I like the fact that you get to take the ball and run so I get to use some speed.” She is also interested in playing wide receiver because she “is good at receiving the ball.”
Samantha Whiteker (11) says that she came from a football family and “that a lot of her friends were also interested in it. She then further explained her experience with football, “I used to watch my brother’s flag football games,” so she didn’t have a lot of experience playing the actual game. She then explained to me what positions interested her the most. “If I got to choose I would be quarterback or wide receiver.” She said this because “they seem like the most fun positions to play.”
To hear the team tactics, the coach of the team, Mr. Singh described his experiences with coaching and his past experiences with football. Mr. Singh had no prior experience in football, but he did have some soccer experience which helped him make his decision to become the flag football coach. “I decided to coach flag football because I enjoy coaching and I wanted to coach a new sport.” Mr. Singh further explained what he wanted his team to look like, both on offense and defense. “The plans for the offense are going to try to confuse the defense or catch them off guard. I will incorporate pump fakes, laterals, pitches, reverses, etc. to keep the defense guessing.” For the offense, he took a different approach, “For defense, we will mainly play man-to-man with a QB/RB spy. If the other team is in long yardage situations on third and fourth down, we may look to the play zone and play further back to make sure we don’t give up the first down or Touchdown.” This overall showed his passion for the game and how he wanted Hazen to perform “I think Hazen will do great! We will improve each week and hopefully have some fun as we get wins.”
The Highlanders, viewers, coaches, and especially the players are extremely excited for this season to start so they can show how passionate they are about football. Hazen has nothing but optimism for the future of this new sport and the Highlanders are eager to watch everything, like tryouts and games, play out.
