Still a long way to go, but it’s a start.
Our Lady of the Lake University is running a new play in collegiate athletics.
This fall, the school will become the first in San Antonio and the second in Texas to launch a women’s flag football program. The OLLU Saints’ women’s flag football team is set to take the field for the first time on February 10 of next year.
The move places OLLU among a small but influential group of early adopters. Only 35 National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics schools nationwide currently sponsor a women’s flag football team.
In February, OLLU hired Chris Seay as head coach of the new program. During his brief tenure, Seay has recruited students from across the country to join the team’s inaugural roster, pulling in the sport’s top recruits from Louisiana and Florida.
“Let the games begin,” Seay said. “This recruiting thing is a battle. It’s a total battle. But I’m excited about the opportunity to put this school on a map in a different capacity than the community is used to.”
Although Seay is recruiting students for their performance on the gridiron, he said the sport is an important way to provide scholarships and expand educational opportunities at OLLU.
“We’re using football to get the student athletes here, but we keep them for the education,” Seay said. “It’s an opportunity to coach them, to drive them to be the best that they can be, not just on the field, but off the field as well.”
Flag football’s momentum at the collegiate level has accelerated since the NCAA added it to the Emerging Sports for Women program in January. Seay credits the sport’s rise to its fast pace and lower injury risk.
“I’m sure we won’t be the only program in the city for long, but we’re setting a trend,” Seay said.
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Although college football is a $2.2 billion industry in Texas, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis, Ruiz-Graham said the state has been more hesitant than others to capitalize on the momentum behind women’s flag football.
Talent-rich states such as California, Florida and Kansas have led the charge and created three NAIA conferences in the Southwest, the East Coast and the Midwest, respectively.
“We are a football state, but here in Texas, men tend to take priority. I feel like young ladies have so much talent and eagerness to learn,” [assistant coach Elda] Ruiz-Graham said. “They’re excited that people are investing their time, are volunteering and want to see the sport grow when Texas hasn’t quite adopted it like other states quite yet.”
See here and here for some background. OLLU, which has as respected master’s program in library science, is an NAIA school. This story didn’t say what the first Texas school to adopt flag football as a varsity sport was, but a little googling told me that it was Concordia University, an NCAA Division III school in Austin. UT-Arlington will be the first NCAA Division I school to add it in 2027. The Big South Conference will have flag football on its roster that year as well. A lot more room for growth still here in Texas, but I believe it will come soon. I look forward to seeing what the first university in Houston is to jump on the bandwagon.
I am delighted that UTA is adding flag football, but I also know that this means it probably won’t add soccer anytime soon, which I was really hoping for. Buck ‘em!
All schools could afford flag football AND soccer for both genders if they just stopped funding CTE/Dementia-causing tackle football.
It’s so obvious it hurts.