For years, there has been a substantial gap in boys and girls participation in athletics at Aragon and high schools around the nation. According to “Just Women’s Sports,” only 60% of girls are participating in school sports in the United States compared to 75% of boys. However, due to the recent addition of flag football in the San Mateo Union High School District, there are now more opportunities for girls to become involved in athletics.
Over the summer, the California Interscholastic Federation officially added girls flag football to its list of sanctioned sports for the 2023-2024 school year.
“It was an absolute honor to be able to coach the inaugural season with this amazing group of girls,” said flag football coach Barbara Beaumont. “I volunteered because I felt it was important for the team to have a female coach especially since it feels like the majority of coaches are men. I wanted there to be more female representation in not only sports but coaching as well.”
For most, flag football has become an outlet for exercise and socialization for female athletes who otherwise would not have played a fall sport at Aragon.
“Girls may be less inclined to try out for school sports because a lot of the teams are very competitive and there’s quite a lot of experience needed from some of them,” said sophomore and flag football player Madison Britt. “One thing that made flag football so great was that it was new for everyone and so we all got to bond over learning a new sport. It was also cool knowing we were making history by playing in the first ever season.”
Across the district, girls of all grades were eager to try out for the flag football team this fall. Over 70 girls filled Beaumont’s classroom at the informational meeting on Aug. 18. With so many interested athletes, the team had two weeks of tryouts with two rounds of cuts before settling on a 26 player roster.
“I’m definitely going to try out for the team next year,” said sophomore Amora Grover. “I heard how successful they were this season and it sounds like a really fun opportunity to bond with other girls at school. That and football has always looked really fun but I’ve never been able to play it.”
Title IX contains a clause that prohibits gender-based discrimination within school athletic programs. It mandates that there be no barriers or differences in access to sports for boys and girls. Despite the fact that girls and boys have statistically similar opportunities to play sports at Aragon, girls generally participate in school sports less than boys do.
“The numbers are that there are fewer females who participate in sports across the state and across the nation,” said athletic director Steve Sell. “Part of that can be attributed to the fact that football tends to have higher numbers of players. Until flag football came along, there was nothing to counter that number.”
However, while the football team made no cuts and has a combined roster of over 60 players from JV and varsity, flag football could not take more than 30 girls.
Sell believes that part of the gap may be credited towards the popularization of club sports. Instead of the former trend of playing a school sport in every season, Sell claims that more girls are beginning to drop their other sports in order to focus on just one all year long.
“We still have girls playing sports, but they are just not filling up the rosters like they used to and like we want them to,” Sell said.
In order to ensure that female athletics do not get overshadowed by male sports, Sell says that the district makes it a priority to give both girls and boys sports equal funding, as well as field time, equipment and updated uniforms.
However, while Sell recognizes the difference in opportunities for female athletes as a problem that still requiring attention, he is very hopeful about the future of the girls flag football program and what it means for the future of female athletics at Aragon.
“I am very excited,” Sell said. “I think the program is going to grow immensely. I envision a day where the flag football games get the same turnout as the varsity football games.”
