There are a lot of ways flag football differs from tackle football, including field size, first downs and even the number of players in a game.
But in Kansas, there’s now one more similarity between the two sports. The Kansas State High School Activities Association voted on Thursday to sanction girls flag football as an official sport, making it easier for teams to participate in statewide competitions and secure equipment and funding.
Sheila Sickau, the Kansas City Chiefs’ director of football development, said it also gives the sport as much validity as tackle football. She said people automatically think of homecoming “powderpuff” games when they think of flag football.
But that’s not the case. The NCAA added it as an emerging sport for women and the NFL is launching men’s and women's professional flag football leagues. The sport also will make its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028.
Sickau said sanctioning the sport is one of the first steps for Kansas to support athletes representing them at that level.
“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 to play tackle football,” Sickau said.
The association said on social media that Kansas is the 18th state to sanction the sport. Girls will be able to compete for a KSHSAA state championship in flag football starting in the 2026-27 school year.
Nearly 11,000 people signed a petition as part of the Chiefs’ “Let Her Play” campaign to get girls flag football sanctioned in Kansas. But Sickau said the effort has been a few years in the making.
The Chiefs have helped launch pilot programs in schools across Kansas over the past three years, providing equipment, jerseys and funding to girls flag football teams. Just three high schools in Kansas and four in Missouri competed during the program’s first year, but it’s been quickly gaining traction.
Sickau said last fall there were 29 girls flag football teams in Kansas, exceeding the state association’s threshold of 24 teams to sanction the sport. In Missouri, there are 55 high schools with teams, but the state follows a different process to sanction high schools sports.
The state got one step closer last year after the Missouri State High School Activities Association voted to make flag football an “emerging sport.”
It’s Blake Iles’ first year coaching at Olathe East High School and the school’s second year of having a girls flag football team. He said sanctioning the sport recognizes how hard his team works and how good they are.
“It's not just an activity … it is a sport because they are competing at a very high level,” Iles said. “They deserve the recognition and they deserve the platform that the other sports get.”
The high school originally held girls flag football practices as an evening activity for students to play after other sports practices. But the school decided to move it after school to get more girls involved.
Iles said the time change worked — about 60 girls came out for the team, allowing the school to create varsity, junior varsity and third-string teams. He said some girls had played flag football in local clubs, but a lot of the students had never participated in a team before.
And some girls grew up going to Olathe East football games, Iles said.
“They've grown up with it, so they wanted to get to be a part of it and kind of show girls can do it, too, and they're pretty darn athletic, and they're pretty talented as well,” Iles said.
There’s been some hesitation for schools to create their own team, including concerns that it could take student athletes away from other sports — but Sickau said she’s trying to change that narrative.
She said it’s a small percentage of girls who may leave a sports team like volleyball to play flag football.
“For these larger schools, you just opened up a spot on the volleyball team for a girl that got cut to move that spot up and then have a position over here,” Sickau said. “So it's about creating opportunities, not taking anything away.”
Sickau said girls flag football may be a smaller undertaking than schools anticipate because field sizes are smaller and games are shorter, making it easier for teams to hold multiple games in one night.
Iles said starting something new is always a challenge, but the benefits of starting a girls flag football team greatly outweighed the challenges. He said that includes the smiles on students’ faces when they’ve accomplished something they’ve never done before.
“Many girls have never scored a touchdown before,” Iles said. “Many girls have never caught a pass before, so just seeing those small victories week in and week out and practice far exceeded any of the struggles that went along with it.”
