Byram Hills

Growing up in a big family of die-hard Jets fans, Byram Hills senior Angjelina Vataj grew up loving football, both watching and playing.

“Especially during family barbecues and anything like that, we would just play in the backyard,” Vataj recalls. “I have a very big family, so we would all just make teams and play.”

Della Gonzalez, Vataj’s classmate, grew up loving the sport and frequently playing pickup games with her father and brothers.

“I always loved throwing the ball,” she says. “I always had a good arm naturally.”

But for both girls, football was a sport they assumed they could play only informally, in scrimmages with family and friends. Organized football, particularly at the varsity level, was for boys, just as professional football was for men.

Now, years later, Gonzalez is the starting quarterback for Byram’s varsity flag football program, while Vataj is the starting center. Heading into their final season, they are part of the first graduating class that saw girls’ flag football offered as a varsity sport throughout their high school tenure.

A Fast-Growing Sport

In New York State and in Section 1, girls flag football has seen its popularity skyrocket in the five years it has been offered as an organized sport.

“As a lot of people have said, it’s one of the fastest growing sports in the state and in the country,” says Scott Saunders, Director of Health, Physical Education and Athletics at Byram Hills Central School District. “It seems like every year more and more schools are hopping on board.”

Byram Hills got in on year two, in the Spring of 2023, after only a handful of schools took part in the inaugural 2022 season. The program has grown from under eight schools in Section 1 fielding a team to 35, nearly half of all districts.

“We love that Section 1 has poured a lot of time and effort into this, and I just think it’s a great offering for athletes,” says Saunders.

The NFL has been a prominent booster of the sport. The league has allocated grant money to any district establishing a team to help the program get on its feet. They’ve also held promotional events, including a 2023 jamboree in Somers featuring Daniel Jones, then the starting quarterback for the New York Giants.

At Armonk, the push for a team initially came from some of the students, who approached Rob Castagna, then the Director of Health, Physical Education, and Athletics, in 2022 and expressed interest in playing should the school launch a program, Saunders says. The first year, 2022, the district launched an intramural program during the offseason to see if there was sufficient interest to launch a varsity program.

“When we started that first season, we had nearly 40 participants, and the girls were really excited to get going with it,” Saunders says. “There was a lot of energy there.”

Jennie Croke, a Physical Education teacher, served as head coach for the first two varsity seasons. She asked Simon Berk, who also coaches the boys varsity football team, to get on board, and Berk took over as head coach last year.

“I am a father of four girls, and I’ve been coaching boys’ football for the past 22 years,” says Berk. “The idea of getting to coach football for young women was a really awesome opportunity.”

Different Style Of Play

Though both football, the boys and girls versions of the sport are very different games. A “tackle” in the girls sport is simply grabbing the opponent’s flag, rather than bringing her to the ground, making it a much less physical sport. Blocking is also not allowed – though players can set what are akin to moving screens – and linemen are allowed to go out for passes. And there are seven players on each side of the field rather than eleven.

“Although they are both football, the X’s and O’s and the style of play is still so different,” says Berk.

But while the big hits of the boys’ game are absent, Berk sees it as a misnomer to call it truly non-contact.

“It’s a ‘non-contact sport’ in the same way that basketball and soccer are non-contact sports, and by that, I mean there is a lot of contact,” he says. “You are teaching the skills of the game, and the rules that we play with in New York State, there is no blocking, but people still block. It is no tackling, but it is still a very physical sport. So, I think that has been the trickiest part, teaching that physicality within the structure of the rules.”

Gonzalez believes flag football has the right balance of physicality without the potential risks of tackle football.

“Obviously I don’t want to be playing football with a bunch of boys and getting hit,” she notes. “But I feel like it’s so great to be in a league where you could play competitively with other girls that actually want to play.”

The program, like the sport, has come a long way in its first few seasons. In its inaugural year, Gonzalez says, many of the players saw it as less intense a commitment than the more established varsity sports. But the game has grown more competitive as the team has become more established.

“I feel like a lot of the girls on the team didn’t have a passion for football before and they just joined it for fun. But once they started, they slowly started to love the game.”

Last year, Byram Hills went 7-8-1, advancing to the Section 1 quarterfinals.

Still, Vataj says, the team is inviting even to students who have not played varsity sports and had little prior football experience. She noted that flag football does not make cuts, so anyone who works hard can at least expect a roster spot.

“This gives them an opportunity to play a sport that they like even if they are not at that advanced varsity level yet, so that they can learn the sport, get a feel for it, get better at it, and overall, just play a sport that they are interested in.”

Additionally, because the sport is new, girls joining in high school will not be at a disadvantage going up against athletes who have played the sport since childhood. But that may be changing.

Bigger And Bigger

There are now options for girls as young as preschool. Three years ago, Berk and his friend John Praino launched a youth program called Girls Flag Bedford. The program offers league play for girls as young as six and seven, with clinics for younger athletes. The league has a significant Armonk contingent, Berk says.

And both locally and nationally, the sport continues to rise in prominence. Horace Greeley in Chappaqua now also has a varsity team. And in 2028, flag football will be introduced to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles for both men and women.

Still, Gonzalez believes that the program still has a way to go before it is taken as seriously as more established sports. She noted that their games bring friends and family to the stands but do not draw the big crowds that the boys’ team does.

“I feel like it is just small steps that we have to take to prove that we are a real sport,” she states.