Women’ flag soccer: What to anticipate with the brand new CIF sport

The revolution is coming.

The entrance traces began forming with coaches like Corey Thedford, who signed on to educate Hawthorne Excessive‘s women’ flag soccer group within the Rams- and Chargers-sponsored League of Champions. It began with a primary sport that Thedford referred to as a “practice wreck.” Women simply got here out to have enjoyable.

Months later, Thedford had taught a run-pass choice offense to women who’d by no means performed soccer. Lightbulbs flickered on, and the novelty of an exhilarating out of doors sport sparked camaraderie. These had been athletes considering of switching their major sport of basketball or volleyball or soccer to at least one they’d performed for all of some months.

Hawthorne is totally invested in women’ flag soccer. So is Gardena Serra, which gained the League of Champions title Sunday. So is Lengthy Seashore Poly, and a large majority of Orange County and Corona-area faculties, curiosity multiplying via the guts of Los Angeles.

“I don’t actually assume everyone understands how huge this factor goes to be,” Thedford mentioned. “I’m going to sort of evaluate this to the U.S. girls’s soccer [surge] years in the past. … I feel it’s going to be one thing like that. I feel it’s going to be wildfire.”

After years of dialogue and proposal, the ultimate spark was set off Friday afternoon when the CIF Federated Council voted so as to add women’ flag soccer as a sanctioned sport. An enormous discipline of unanswered questions stand: budgetary issues, scheduling, teaching and extra.

The state will draw up particular bylaws for women’ flag soccer earlier than a last council assembly in late April. Till then, right here’s a information to what you might want to learn about women’ flag soccer within the Southland.

The rulebook

Till the Nationwide Federation of State Excessive Faculty Assns. (NFHS) creates a information, the CIF will use guidelines for women’ flag soccer offered by the Nationwide Intramural and Leisure Sports activities Assn. (NIRSA). There’s loads of enjoyable variations from sort out soccer guidelines:

—Video games are performed seven on seven, in keeping with Paula Hart Rodas, president-elect of the CIF Southern Part council. The CIF may suggest a roster of 15 per group, sufficient for separate offensive and defensive items, plus a substitute.

—Video games consist of 4 12-minute quarters, with the clock working constantly for the primary 22 minutes of every half earlier than particular clock stoppers (incomplete passes, new collection, and so forth.) go into impact throughout the last two minutes.

—Touchdowns are nonetheless price six factors, however groups can strive for further factors which are price extra at prolonged distances. A profitable conversion from the three-yard line is price one level, from the 10-yard line price two, and 20-yard line price three.

—Area dimensions are extra sophisticated, and topic to dialogue. The usual size is 80 yards lengthy by 40 yards large, however Metropolis Part sports activities info director Dick Dornan mentioned it’s doable the Metropolis goes 70-by-30 yards. Video games on the League of Champions event on Sunday had been performed inside a 53-by-25-yard formation to preserve discipline house.

The associated fee

The overall startup value for a program to discipline a women’ flag group, Rodas estimated, is between $2,000 and $2,500 for balls, flags, cones and uniforms. The Chargers and Rams, together with Nike and NFL Play, will probably assist with donations and stipends for applications that need assistance.

Teaching stipends get extra difficult, notably with public faculties whose budgets are managed by districts.

“They’re going to have to seek out the cash … what you’ve got for the boys, you should have for the ladies,” Compton Centennial athletic director Mike Stephens mentioned. “And it’s cheaper too.”

Who’s ?

Rodas mentioned that everything of the Corona-Norco district dedicated to fielding a group. Buzz in Orange County can also be constructing, notably in Anaheim Unified. And Compton Unified, Rodas mentioned, is treating flag soccer prefer it’s the subsequent huge factor for women.

Within the Metropolis Part, Dornan mentioned 35 faculties had proven curiosity based mostly on a fall survey. A priority, nevertheless, is the tentative plan to schedule women’ flag soccer as a fall sport.

Scheduling

Welcome to essentially the most contentious, and ambiguous, space of introducing the game. The primary problem is the matter of whether or not women’ flag can be performed within the fall or spring, which ignited debate throughout a fall Southern Part council assembly.

“I hope it could be within the spring,” Stephens mentioned, “however they’re going to place it with soccer season.”

One of many essential issues to a fall season is an absence of accessible officers. The Southern Part, Rodas mentioned, will discover recruiting new officers from youth flag leagues.

Based mostly on conversations with coaches and directors, there’s three faculties of thought as to when video games might be performed within the fall:

Monday: Internet hosting round-robin, tournament-style video games that may match a number of video games without delay onto the identical discipline Monday afternoons and nights, thereby conserving discipline house.

Thursday: Thedford introduced up an attention-grabbing suggestion to have the ladies play the precise reverse of the boys’ JV sort out group‘s schedule.

Friday: Play a doubleheader with the boys’ sort out group.

These day-of-the-week scheduling selections can be as much as particular person leagues after the state settles on the general variety of video games to be performed.

Who’ll coach

Thedford and Lake Balboa Birmingham’s Jim Rose wish to coach sort out and women’ flag on the identical time. General, although, the Southern Part can be pushing for extra feminine illustration in head-coaching roles below Title IX, Rodas mentioned.

“A number of the people are … combating it being a fall sport, as a result of our soccer coaches wish to coach it,” Rodas mentioned. “However that’s sort of not the purpose. It’s a girls’s sport that can be coached by girls.”

The thought, Rodas mentioned, is to not exclude males from teaching however to supply extra management alternatives for girls and to provide women a feminine function mannequin.

Playoff construction

There’s a faster path to a playoff bracket within the Metropolis Part than within the Southern Part.

Simply six faculties within the Metropolis, in keeping with Dornan, have to discipline groups so as to maintain a women’ flag soccer playoff bracket. However within the Southern Part, 20% of all faculties within the part need to have a group, and an preliminary season is required to find out the way to kind groups into divisions.

A sensible timeline: the Metropolis Part holds women’ flag soccer playoffs this coming fall in its inaugural yr — briefly scheduled for November, Dornan mentioned — and the Southern Part has its first playoffs within the 2024-25 faculty yr.

A state bracket, in the meantime, gained’t be developed till there are “viable part champions first,” in keeping with CIF affiliate government director Brian Seymour.

The long run

The CIF’s choice comes within the midst of an ideal storm.

Curiosity in girls’s sports activities has grown steadily throughout the nation. Endorsement alternatives for highschool athletes are infinite thanks to call, picture and likeness legal guidelines. And in keeping with the Related Press, the NFL is making a push for flag soccer to be added to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Thedford’s been recruiting throughout Hawthorne’s campus, making an attempt to achieve women who haven’t discovered their area of interest in sports activities. Promoting them on a dream. On doing one thing they by no means thought doable.

Life-changing alternatives are already unfolding. Gardena Serra is partnering with the Chargers to host a showcase for applications throughout Southern California on Feb. 18, enjoying in entrance of scouts from a handful of Midwest universities that play flag soccer. Thedford mentioned they’ll be giving out scholarships on the spot.

“It’s your time in historical past to do it,” Thedford mentioned. “The door is there, and all it’s important to do is take the chance.”