As high school girls flag football arrives locally, Minnesota Vikings get on board

By Mick Garry, for Pigeon605

Flag football for women and girls is catching on these days throughout the country. Nationally, the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will include men’s and women’s flag football. Locally, flag football for girls is part of the South Dakota Junior Football program, and now its new high school league has received the official support of the Minnesota Vikings.

Both ideas would have drawn laughs 10 years ago.

“They’re really supporting girls flag football in places with an NFL presence,” said Brent Hubers, executive director of South Dakota Junior Football. “I think the Vikings, by supporting leagues like ours, are trying to get it going in the Midwest in states like Iowa, Minnesota and North and South Dakota.”

Attracting NFL interest is a big deal in this case. Among the benefits will be a football camp specifically for girls flag football in June that will include the support and presence of the Vikings organization.

“We’ll put on a clinic for the younger kids in the morning, and then in the afternoon, it’s geared toward high school girls and any coaches who will be in the league throughout the season,”  Hubers said. “We’ve partnered with the Vikings in the past for clinics, and I think they were always impressed with our numbers.”

South Dakota Junior Football  began offering flag football for younger girls two years ago, adding it to the other offerings in boys tackle and flag football. This will be the third year of the girls’ program overall and the first that will include high school-aged girls. The goal is to have the sport sanctioned statewide eventually.

“When the Vikings reached out to us initially, they asked about people to contact around the state who might be able to help start the process of sanctioning it as a sport,” Hubers said. “We already had the boys flag program going and the flag program for the younger girls. We thought we could get a grassroots program going for high school girls that might help the Vikings’ efforts as well as our own. They responded that they wanted to help us out financially to get it off the ground.”

Nationally, there are seven states that offer fully sanctioned high school girls flag football and award state titles.

“Our flag and tackle football programs for boys are way up, and it is up for girls too,” Hubers said. “We doubled the number of girls we had in our second year, and we’re hoping that trend continues. ”

The high school girls will play games on Sundays, with the season expected to start the third weekend in August. Teams typically practice twice a week.

“We are going to schedule the high school girls for Sunday afternoons so that it won’t conflict with any other fall sport they might be involved in,” Hubers said. “We really want multisport athletes to try football if they want to.”

Those interested in the high school girls league – or any of the other South Dakota Junior Football programs – can go to organization’s website for registration information.