A new phenomenon has made its way to Illinois high school sports: girls flag football.
In 2024, IHSA made it an official state sport. More than 200 schools have established a team, but LFHS is not one of them.
There is interest in changing this, however. Athletic Director Tim Burkhalter said in the next few years it is very possible LFHS will have a girls’ flag football team.
Freshmen Mimi Webber, Caroline Granach, and Zeena Taha each said it would be a great idea to bring a flag football team to LFHS. This has been a subject in their friend group for quite some time, as they saw other schools in the nearby area competing.
“I think this would be something fun to bring to our school, especially since we have so many people who are interested in it,” Webber said.
Interested players might have to settle for an intramural team first. Burkhalter said one could start as early as next year. A boys team, which currently has 24 members, started this year.
“One of our process steps for any sport being added to our school is to [first] see how much interest there is by people participating during the intramural phase,” Burkhalter said. “When there is a high attendance, it shows the school that student are truly engaged in the sport.”
Sometimes there’s high interest in the sport at the start of the year, but as the weeks progress, people end up forgetting about it. Which, in turn, prevails less of a push for the sport.
One challenge: LFHS is one of 25 schools in the state that has a girls’ field hockey team.
“Of the girls that approached me this year, I asked how many of them were fall athletes. I think, of the 15, 12 of them were in a fall sport,” Burkhalter said.
Libertyville High School recently added a girls’ flag football team as of last year. Senior Grace Hodge has been on varsity since they established the team.
“Last year, they had to cut over 50 girls who tried out because they only had two teams,” Hodge said.
This year, LHS added another JV team so more girls could participate. Practices mainly focus on conditioning and drill-based activities. They also scrimmage a lot and usually have divide teams among different skills levels. This helps players prepare for upcoming games and build their technique to become stronger.
“The sport, however, is not just something you join to mess around. If you are able to put in the work, you can play. It is a hard sport,” Hodge said.
