On spring weekends throughout the St. Louis space, girls are filling football fields as soon as dominated by boys — pulling flags, scoring touchdowns and constructing one of many area’s fastest-growing youth sports activities.
Now, that development could quickly attain the high school degree, as the Missouri State High School Activities Association strikes towards making girls flag football an official sport.
MSHSAA member faculties voted final 12 months to designate flag football as an rising sport, placing it on a path to full accreditation. There are 53 faculties statewide providing the sport, together with 17 within the St. Louis space.
That complete clears the brink for the following step within the course of, which is to make flag football provisionally interscholastic. That will occur for the 2026-27 school 12 months.
For girls flag football to make the ultimate bounce and develop into absolutely interscholastic, that very same variety of faculties would want to maintain taking part in and faculties must vote to approve it. If that occurs, flag football would develop into an official high school sport within the 2027-28 school 12 months, full with a state championship.
“Our goal at MSHSAA is to get as many students as possible involved in sports and activities,” mentioned Andrew Kauffman, director of communications for the affiliation. “To [potentially] add another sport, and give another opportunity, is great.”
Missouri would be part of neighboring Illinois and Kansas, which have already sanctioned flag football on the high school degree.
Chiefs behind flag football push
Part of that development has been pushed by the Kansas City Chiefs, who’ve pushed to develop the sport throughout the area. Their efforts paid off when the Kansas State High School Activities Association voted last week to sanction girls flag football.
Kansas turns into the 18th state to undertake the sport, with a state championship set to start within the 2026-27 school 12 months.
The Chiefs have launched dozens of youth packages within the Kansas City space aimed toward introducing girls to the sport. They’ve additionally backed high school packages in St. Louis, including one at Lutheran South. Sheila Sickau, the Chiefs’ director of football growth, expects participation to proceed to climb.
“It’s going from that club pilot program to giving the same validity as if I were to say I played for my high school basketball team, my high school soccer team, my high school tackle football team,” Sickau mentioned.
Once girls graduate, there could also be a path for them to play in faculty and even professionally. The NCAA has added flag football as an rising sport, and the NFL is launching skilled flag football leagues forward of the sport’s debut within the 2028 Olympics.
“Now we’ve created a path for you to make it all the way professional, Olympic, get a college scholarship, and just trying to make that same pathway that men have access to play tackle football,” Sickau mentioned.
Illinois faculties see success
In Illinois, the place girls flag football has been sanctioned for 2 years, participation continues to develop. The state topped its first champions final season, and extra packages are being added annually.
Alton High School just lately introduced it will add flag football for the 2026-27 school 12 months. Alton will compete towards groups within the Southwestern Conference, which incorporates faculties like Edwardsville, Mascoutah, East St. Louis and Belleville East and West.
The latter two faculties saw great success in the first season however needed to journey lengthy distances simply to play video games. At the time, a lot of the faculties with flag football have been in northern Illinois. Now, with extra faculties within the Metro East including groups, the journey schedule shall be a lot simpler.
In Illinois, flag football is a fall sport, and girls play on the identical time as the boys. However, in Missouri, most groups have been taking part in their video games within the spring. The final choice on when the video games shall be performed will come right down to MSHSAA member faculties after they vote to make the sport absolutely interscholastic.