Flag football fever hits Dexter: new co-ed league set to kick off in April

As employees with the Dexter Parks and Recreation Department were looking for ideas to add to their schedule, one thing kept surfacing on their radar: flag football.

According to Recreation Programmer Miles Urhahn, it became obvious that flag football was taking off nationally, and could draw a significant amount of interest.

“The flag football league will be co-ed,” Urhahn commented. “And I would say that about half of the names that have signed up already are female.”

Urhahn explained the flag football league will be following the NFL Flag Football organization, which will include jerseys of actual NFL teams.

“It’s a relatively low cost,” Urhahn said. “For about $30, a child will receive a belt with flag attachments and a jersey.”

In addition to playing under the name and logo of a professional NFL team, the Dexter program will likely follow the schedule set by the NFL Flag Football League.

“We’ll set our own schedule this first year to see how things go,” Urhahn explained. “I’m sure there will be some trial and error; but after a while, we will probably go along with the NFL’s flag football schedule.”

The NFL’s flag football program, NFL FLAG, began modestly in 1994 with a youth camp series at the New England Patriots stadium. The program’s popularity quickly grew, with leagues popping up across Massachusetts and eventually spreading throughout the United States by the early 2000s.

Today, NFL FLAG has over 750,000 participants and continues to expand. It provides opportunities for female athletes to play in college and for tackle athletes to compete in the off-season. Despite its growth, NFL FLAG remains committed to its original mission of providing a fun and inclusive environment for all children to play football.

“Flag football is actually being added as a girl’s sport in some high schools,” Urhahn noted. “The NFL makes it really easy to work with them and to put this league together.”

Urhahn explained that the parks and recreation department started taking sign-ups in January and has already received approximately 25 signatures.

“Children have until March 6 to sign up, so I anticipate there will be several more involved,” Urhahn said. “For this first year, we will keep the age groups from kindergarten to fifth grade, and probably expand from there. I’m expecting we could have as many as 200 kids sign up for this.”

The flag football league will be an alternative — or for some children, supplemental to ­— the Heartland Youth Football League that involves areas throughout the region, including Dexter youth,

“We actually received some good community input with this,” Urhahn noted. “Between seeing how it was growing at the national level and the number of requests we received from people in the community, it was a pretty easy decision to start this.”

The deadline for sign-ups will be March 6, and teams will be assembled immediately thereafter. Urhahn said he anticipates games to begin in early April.

“We’re excited to see how all of this goes,” Urhahn said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”