The New Sport On The Block, Women’s Flag Football

Kate Rex catches a football at the Flag Football tryouts. Photo creds: Merritt Powell

Merritt Powell, Staff Writer for the Powderhorn

The fastest growing sport in America has come to Watauga. It’s not soccer and it’s not ballet. It’s flag football, the sport with more strategy than tackling. Though the sport is brand new to the high school and the world, there has been no shortage of students who are willing to give the sport a chance. 

After becoming a sanctioned sport in May, Women’s Flag Football was introduced to Watauga High School for the 2026 season due to its rise in popularity and the student body's interest. The 7 on 7, non-contact sport, provides opportunities for female students to participate in another fall sport. It’s being coached this year by Andrew Wilson, a math teacher, basketball coach, and former football coach at the high school. 

“In May, when they made the announcement, I saw that they were going to do it, and I was like all right, that’s cool. I wondered who was going to coach it. I hadn't thought about myself,” said Wilson.  “The job was posted for a little bit, and then I really started thinking about it, and I’ve got some football experience, so I decided that I wanted to get back into it and this would be a nice opportunity to do so.”

Wilson’s prior experience included coaching football in 2020 and has since been doing film on Friday nights for the team. He held tryouts for flag football on August 31 and September 1 with the first game being held on the 16. Though they had sent out an interest form in May, they still didn’t have an idea of how many people would actually come. 

“I’m excited for the number that we had come out, not only to tryouts, but the workouts before,” said Wilson. “There could have been only fifteen people come out and that’s what you got. It’s a lot better than much smaller schools that are starting this year, they definitely have smaller numbers.”

Senior Kate Rex and sophomore Carlie Engle along with many other students came to the workouts before the tryouts. The workouts provided an opportunity for the players to get to know the sport a bit more before the tryouts. Since it’s brand new this year there were varying levels of knowledge.

“Powderpuff made me want to do it,” said Rex. “It was a lot of fun just getting to run around and play a sport that we don’t get to play in the normal school year. And then Strickler [the principal of Watauga High School] actually came and talked to me about starting a flag football team and it just seemed like a lot of fun.”

While some people had experience, the majority of people came into it completely blind. The workouts and tryouts were important to get players to want to join. 

“Honestly, at first I was just doing it for fun, because I wanted to be a part of that community,” said Engle. “But as workouts started, it just got more and more competitive and I like competition. My favorite part is the sport, but I also love just being with my teammates.”

While the players enjoy the competitiveness of the sport, Wilson struggled to find other teams for them to play. The schools around Watauga such as South Caldwell, Alexander Central, and Freedom all decided not to have teams. In search for teams to play, Wilson found schools that are further away than Watauga would usually play. 

“We’ve been looking for only non-conference games and the issue is that we are used to traveling up here, that’s no problem for us. We have to travel to so many places,” said Wilson. “But places down the mountain, they don’t have to, as much. And so trying to get them to come up here is sometimes a chore. Sometimes it’s not something that they want to do.”

While other teams may be hesitant to come far to play games there’s plenty of motivation within Watauga’s team. Despite this being a brand new sport and team, they already started getting close during the pre-season workouts and tryouts. Players such as Engle, hope they continue to. 

“I hope that we all get really close relationships, like inside and outside of playing football,” said Engle. “I love being with my teammates and we just have a lot of fun together. I want to encourage people to join, because it’s a really fun experience.”

This year there are high hopes for the team and sport as they go into their first ever season. Though the season didn’t fully start until mid-September, Wilson has hopes they will soon be able to get a full season starting in August and that the sport will continue to grow enough that they can introduce a JV team soon. 

“I really hope that it blows up. I hope that we continue to have it,” said Wilson. “Hopefully everybody else in the conference and everybody will have games and so we won’t have to travel very far.”

The players see this new sport not only as an opportunity to play a new game, but also as a way to connect with peers inside and outside of school. It has introduced a whole new team dynamic and culture to Watauga. 

“So all the team is supportive and everyone’s kind. I guess it’s just like having another family. We get to rely on each other,” said Rex. “We get to spend time together and we’ll grow in this totally new sport that no one's played before. I hope that it carries on.”