A labor union and youth development program are touting the expansion of girls’ high school sports in the Capital Region.
Starting this spring, girls’ flag football will be available at 12 schools across Section II. In flag football, players have flags that can be pulled to signal a player has been “tackled.” Everything else remains the same as traditional American football. Speaking in Glenmont Wednesday on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Troy City School District Superintendent John Carmello says the trial run, which began in 2022, opened doors he didn’t realize were closed.
“A lot of them were just girls that had not played organized sports for our school. And so it was a whole new group of girls, and a whole new group of student athletes that joined which was really, really exciting,” Carmello said.
The league is funded by a $30,000 grant from the New York Giants, with additional support from the Laborers' International Union of North America Local 190 and Kidz First Youth Development Network.
John D’Antonio, President of KidzFirst, says he and Carmello approached Shenendehowa Athletic Director Chris Culnan in the hopes of making the formal league a reality.
“One thing that Chris really liked about this program was the training recruitment program that we were going to attach to this Girls High School Flag Football League. He was really sold on that, he really liked it. So he said, let me get back to you guys. Within three weeks, we'll set up a meeting and we'll go from there. Well, three weeks was three days,” D'Antonio said.
In addition to Troy, teams competing in Section II are Albany, Shenendehowa, Bethlehem, Shaker, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, Schenectady, Albany Leadership Charter, Columbia, Saratoga Springs, Colonie, and Niskayuna, all members of the Suburban Council.
Dakota Dayton is a senior center with the Troy Flying Horses. She says being out on the field is an experience like no other.
“It's powerful, it really is. You hear the crowd, you hear everyone, even like your teammates on the sideline. You're encouraged,” Dayton said.
Culnan says the program complements a workforce training program run by the union.
“I think we have an opportunity to not only put girls’ flag football in our schools, but with the work that KidzFirst has done to try and we can take some lessons learned from that and we can begin to look at athletics and that educational partnership I think is going to be very strong,” Culnan said.
The season starts April 10 with the first sectional in May.
Tara Belinsky is Community and Youth Football Manager for the New York Giants. She says she grew up watching her brother play football in Section VIII in Nassau County.
“I always envisioned myself being the running back that he'd hand the ball off to you and I'd be scoring the touchdowns. And that was just my imagination. So standing up here today to be able to talk about the reality that girls are now playing football girls are now competing, they're part of a team, because of the game of football, is something that is pretty surreal,” Belinsky said.
Belinsky says the future of the sport in New York is bright.
“There are colleges that are now offering this sport, it was just announced in 2028, it will be an Olympic sport. And these girls competing in Section II are one of the first to be exposed to the sport, and there could potentially be an Olympian in this group. So I think that that's something that again, never could have dreamed of this 10 years ago,” Belinsky said.
