Bedford Central: Girls flag football coming to Fox Lane

By JEFF MORRIS

Among the varsity and junior varsity level sports available at Fox Lane High School for the fall 2024 season, soccer, cross-country and volleyball were listed for both boys and girls. But football was only available to boys. That is about to change — at least, in terms of flag football.

At the Oct. 9 Bedford Central School District Board of Education meeting, the board voted unanimously “to include Girls Varsity Flag Football as a sanctioned sport in the spring roster of sports activities and ensure necessary resources are allocated for coaching, equipment, and facilities to support the program effectively.”

Since it got started in March, Fox Lane flag football has been working toward the goal of establishing girls flag football as a varsity sport, and players began participating in intramurals in the spring — work that is about to pay off.

The 50th anniversary of Title IX, which played a significant role in opening doors for girls’ participation opportunities in sports, was celebrated two years ago. The growth of girls sports at the high school level went from a meager 294,000 participants in 1972 before Title IX’s implementation, to 3.2 million participants by the 50-year mark, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. That growth was driven by sports like basketball, volleyball, track and field, softball, cross-country and soccer, along with opportunities for girls in swimming, golf, tennis, spirit, lacrosse, gymnastics, field hockey, ice hockey and others. Flag football is widely seen as the next emerging sport.

Most of flag football’s growth across the country has come in the past five to seven years. Currently, nine states have sanctioned the sport for girls, and New York is one. The New York State Public High School Athletic Association held its first girls flag championship in June after several years as a pilot program.

In 2023, about 500,000 girls ages 6-17 played flag football, a 63 percent increase since 2019, according to NFHS, which notes more universities are beginning to offer flag football for girls. That will certainly enhance the appeal for girls playing the sport at the high school level. And internationally, the sport received a huge boost with the announcement of flag football as an Olympic sport for men and women at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

In the resolution passed by the BCSD board, it said it “recognizes the importance of providing equitable sports opportunities for all students,” and “including girls flag football in the spring sports roster aligns with our commitment to fostering an inclusive athletic environment.”

The resolution also states that the administration will provide regular updates to the board regarding the implementation and participation levels in the girls flag football program.

Board president Gilian Klein noted that there had been some confusion in the community, with people thinking this had been part of last year’s budget vote; she said they wanted to know why the board needed to pass a separate resolution to make it so.

“If you go back and look at the presentation of athletics, this was put in as a wish list item; it was never part of the superintendent’s proposed budget that the board voted on and the community voted on,” she said. “So this was not in the budget, and it was very clear in that presentation, but I get why it’s confusing, so I just wanted to clarify that.”

Trustee Robert Mazurek suggested that in the future, there be a separate item in the budget presentation when adding a sport, because, while it may be an insignificant portion of the budget, it is significant to the operation of the athletics department.

“It’s not an insignificant thing to add a varsity sport to your existing varsity sports,” he said. “There are some tradeoffs that we would need to discuss, and putting that into the budget machine is not the best place to evaluate that, in my opinion.”

Superintendent Robert Glass said he thought a way to handle that could be to highlight it as a subcategory within the athletics budget presentation. But, he said, there are always adjustments that are made after the budget is set, and it isn’t a huge problem.