As flag football continues to become one of the most popular sports, girls are taking over the field and seeing more opportunities to play in school and more.
MCLEAN, Va. — In light of the NFL draft, we are hearing more about the popularity of flag football and how more girls are playing and receiving support on the field. WUSA first reported that Montgomery County Public Schools are piloting a girls’ flag football program this fall.
Now the growth of the sport is inspiring younger girls here in the DMV.
While on the field you often hear offense gets you far, but the defense gets you further, it’s even harder to beat a person who never gives up.
The challenge gets tougher when you’re up against Gayatri Setty.
“It was definitely a little nerve-wracking when you’re the only girl,” flag football player, Gayatri Setty said.
RELATED: Girls flag football coming to MCPS
She’s tackled a field of obstacles to play flag football here in the Flag Star League.
“When we think about girls’ flag, we think about Gayatri and what she means to us as a program,” said the Director of Elite Flagstar Program, Sam Appel.
“In the beginning, it was a little frustrating for her to be the girl,” Amanda Setty said. “Sometimes the boys wouldn’t pass to her or she wouldn’t make the cat something like that and she would come home and be like I didn’t do this and I would be like but you got to keep trying.”
Even her male teammates appreciate the qualities she brought to the team.
“She’s brought a different emotion to our team, emotion of hope and emotion of happiness,” teammate, Aarehan Rusthei said. “Girls haven’t always been allowed to play football, but I think they can, and they have just as much of a right as anyone else too.”
“She’s really good and it just expands the community,” teammate Benjamin Vanterve said.
Girls’ flag football has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
“It’s really cool to watch and definitely nice to see that I’ll, like, have a place in sports when I get older,” Setty said.
“I think it’s fascinating the girls’ program is, like, really on the rise,” Appel said. “I think girls are starting to believe in themselves more that they can be football players.”
Her coaches say they’re preparing to see more girls signing up to play.
“We have one all-girls team right now in the league, we’re trying to expand that over the next few seasons, hopefully, get to four next seasons, and then just continue to see it grow,” Appel said.
Setty has always played some type of sport since she was a kid. She said she saw girls in the WNBA, specifically the Washington Mystics – that her family has season tickets for.
“It’s just nice for girls to have people to look up towards,” Amanda Setty said.
“The future of flag football is really growing and there’s a lot of potential for these girls to play in high school, in college, potentially the Olympics one day,” Appel said.
Setty remains humble in the end zone and credits her environment for her success.
“It’s really fun,” Setty said. “I love everyone at Flagstar and like all the coaches are so supportive and everyone’s like really kind.”
She said she hopes to run it a yard further now that it’s being added as an Olympic sport.
“There’s so many more opportunities and this is just another way for her to show her strength, for her to challenge herself,” Amanda Setty said.
Flag football will be added to the Olympic games in 2028 in Los Angeles.
“The Olympics and I think that would be really cool if I could get there,” Setty said. “And also know it’s starting to now be a D3 sport so I think that would be really cool if I could play in college.”
Flag Star has teams from 4th up to 9th grade. Flag Star has a few co-ed teams and one all-girls team in the league currently. If you know someone interested in joining their league you can click here.
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