Once dismissed as ‘powderpuff’ sport, Alaska girls flag football gets boost with first-ever sanctioned state championship

Flag football was once a recreational activity played in intramural leagues on college campuses and playgrounds at recess or gym class for grade-school children around the United States.

Over the past decade, it has been taken more seriously, and interest in the sport has spread across the world to the degree that it will be played in the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

When that time arrives, there could be a representative from Alaska on Team USA because of how much the sport has grown in the Last Frontier in recent years. The 2024 fall season marks the first in which a state tournament sanctioned by the Alaska School Activities Association will be held.

“It makes the sport that much more validated and with girls sports,” Colony/Palmer co-head coach Amy Fischer said. “It’s been a little challenging to kind of make it a real sport in people’s minds.”

She says the term “powderpuff” has been around for a while and often been used in a derogatory manner to describe, lessen and invalidate girls sports.

“It’s an actual ASAA-approved sport, and for us to now have enough girls and teams to allow us to have a state tournament, people are starting to recognize, ‘Oh this is a real sport and has an actual season,’” Fischer said.

Lathrop head coach Lance Cheney said having a sanctioned state title is a signifier of growth, but the sport was already “pretty respected” in the schools that have had programs.

“We’re excited to get to play for a real title, but I don’t know that validation was the right word,” he said.

For a high school sport to be eligible to have a sanctioned state tournament under the Alaska School Activities Association, there must be at least three districts representative of different parts of the state.

The interest and participation in flag football has exploded over the past decade nationwide and in Alaska — including in the Interior as well as the Mat-Su, where there are now two teams in each region.

“We’ve been hoping that the Valley would get teams ever since we got teams,” Cheney said about the Mat-Su. “It’s great that they’re coming in now. We’ve got a lot more travel than we’ve had before but we’re excited to get to compete with more teams.”

In Fairbanks, both West Valley and Lathrop high schools have had teams for the past 11 years. In the Valley, Wasilla High has had a team for the past couple years.

Unlike the Anchorage teams, which have competed in the Cook Inlet Conference tournament each year, the Fairbanks teams didn’t have any regional or conference postseason. The team with the best overall record would be unceremoniously crowned Mid-Alaska Conference champion.

“We are so excited to have a real state championship,” Cheney said. “We’ve just had our local championship and we’re ready to have a true state title (on the line).”

The last domino to fall to gain sanctioning was the addition of the co-op of Palmer and Colony high schools, which formed last year.

“With the Valley piloting the program last year and now Redington has a JV or C-team, we’re able to have a state championship now,” Dimond head coach Pete Mandel said.

He has seen the interest in the sport grow even more exponentially in Anchorage with his own program.

“Our numbers have surged,” Mandel said. “We had a huge 15-freshman group come out and two are on varsity.”

Next year, the Mat-Su will have three teams as both Palmer and Colony are slated to have their own programs and will no longer be a co-op.

“We have over 30 girls registered for Colony High School alone playing flag football, and there is another 14 from Palmer that are on the team,” Fischer said.

She says that more than half of the student-athletes enrolled in sports for the fall season at the two schools are female, and that having flag football available as an additional option for the second year in a row played a “huge” role in making it happen.

“Just having that interest in something to do in the fall is absolutely amazing and super exciting to see,” Fischer said. “Interest is booming and we almost doubled our numbers from last year.”

While last year was the first that Palmer High School fielded a flag football team, the interest and participation in the sport had been brewing at the middle school level for the past handful of years.

Many of those girls who wanted to stick with it had to play with the boys in tackle football once they matriculated.

“Last year, multiple of the middle schools out here in the Valley had two or three different all-girl teams at the middle school level,” Fischer said.

Fischer never played flag football growing up but she’s coached other sports in the Mat-Su, including basketball and volleyball. Just before the start of last season, she was encouraged to join the staff by her co-head coach Dustin Wilson.

“He was like, ‘Hey, you can learn flag football,’ because I had never played before and he asked me to come on and help him coach since the teams would be coupled,” Fischer said.

Wilson has previously coached girls flag football at the middle school level and was making the transition to high school.

“He acts as the head coach during the games because you’re only allowed to have one, but we coach practices and do all the other things together,” Fischer said.

In addition to looking forward to a chance to hoist a state championship trophy, the growth of flag football can pave a way for Alaska girls to earn scholarships to play the sport collegiately while pursuing their degrees.

“Now that we have a state tournament, these girls are going to be trying to get scholarships and it is all going to start happening very quickly,” Fischer said. “It all builds on each other, so to be able to have that brings a lot more validity to the sport.”

The state tournament will be played Oct. 17-19 in Wasilla.

Perennial powerhouse among top contenders

When it comes to flag football, Dimond High has been Alaska’s predominant power since its inception in 2006.

The Lynx have won 11 of 18 Cook Inlet Conference titles, including each of the last four. Now that flag football can have its first sanctioned state championship through ASAA this year, their primary objective is to continue their reign by becoming the first team to be crowned Alaska state champion.

“That is the goal for sure,” said Mandel, who is in his first year as head coach. “That’s what we’ve said from the beginning.”

Last year’s CIC runner-up, South Anchorage, was voted by different athletic departments in the Anchorage School District to represent the state at the third annual Nike Football Kickoff Classic.

“We kind of figured or thought that we’d be the team that got the chance to go, but the district chose somebody else and I talked to the South coach at the meeting and just said, ‘Good luck,’ ” Mandel said. “We would’ve loved to have been in that game, but other decisions were made that were beyond our control.”

South represented the Last Frontier well in Beaverton, Oregon. Last Thursday, the Wolverines shut out reigning Louisiana state champion De La Salle 13-0, returned home and improved to 4-0 after beating East 16-6 on Tuesday night.

The only other team that boasts an identical record to South is West, which still has yet to give up a single point this season after shutting out Dimond 24-0 on a rainy Tuesday night at home.

“They’ve been beating up on us for years and years and we’re kind of tired of it,” West head coach Antonio Wyche said. “We have the kind of mentality this year that we’re not the villain, but we don’t like some other things that have gone on, like South getting to go out of state, and we don’t get the recognition of being the best team in the state — so we’re going to go show it.”

The Eagles have their sights set on being the first team to be crowned state high school flag football champions. At the onset of the season, they appear to be both highly motivated and well-equipped to make it happen.

“It’s big for us,” Wyche said. “It’s the first state championship and it would be an honor to be the first state champions.”