Flag football is chartered as a club for the 2023-2024 school year, according to an email from Athletic Director Joanna Butcher.
Flag football is coached by Matt Robbins, the father of one of the players, Coach Robbins said.
“We’re just as competitive, just as fierce,” Robbins said. “(We) train just as hard, but we’re doing it (practicing) three days a week instead of five,” he said.
Senior Arial Rodriguez joined the flag football team after hearing about it from a fellow team member and the athletic director, she said.
“(We’re) all learning together and growing together,” Rodriguez said.
The team focuses on a series of plays with a focus on misdirection and strength (of players), Robbins said.
“This is a new sport for most of the team, and they’re extremely athletic with most of them playing other sports and excelling,” Robbins said. “I’m doing a lot of teaching about the rules, strategies, and fundamentals, as well as trying to design a playbook. I’m trying to utilize what they’re best at,” he said.
One of the biggest challenges is learning the strategies and the terminology of flag football, Robbins said.
“Football is a different sport in that you have a bunch of action, and then you stop, and you get together and you make a play,” Robbins said. “There’s way more opportunity for strategy and planning in football,” Everything is meticulously designed. All seven people do something different on all 24 plays.”
Routes, a specific pattern or path taken by offensive players during a singular play, have been challenging to learn, Serena said.
“There’s nine different routes; they’re all numbered,” Robbins said. “I’ve got to teach them the formations of where to stand, the plays, and play-actions of how to fake to one person and give (throw) to another person and then pass forward to another person and what to do in different situations,” he said.
The team is anticipating their very first game, Rodriguez said. The team has not participated and joined in tournaments yet, she added.
“We are totally going to beat them,” she said.