Girls’ flag football is the fastest growing sport in Georgia high schools
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Girls’ flag football is the fastest-growing sport in Georgia high schools, according to the Georgia High School Association.
Dunwoody High School senior Kate Perry ed her school’s team last year.
“I’ve tried so many sports in my life and it’s really such a unique experience,” Perry said.
According to Dunwoody High’s Coach Montez Swinney, the rise of the game doesn’t surprise him.
In his first year of coaching, 50 girls wanted to the team and the number grows each year.
“I quit coaching boys football just because I had so much fun coaching these young ladies,” Swinney said.
It was the Atlanta Falcons and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation that started working to elevate the sport six years ago.
The goal was to get girls flag football sanctioned to promote gender equality in sports at the high school level.
“Football is such an incredible, important sport for our state,” Amanda Dinkle, Atlanta Falcons Director of Community Relations, said. “And we said ‘why aren’t we giving girls access to play this too?”
What started in 2018 with 19 teams, has turned into close to 240 schools with girls’ flag football.
It is now an officially sanctioned sport with the Georgia High School Association as a varsity sport.
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