Golden Eagles soaring to new heights

by Matthew Ondesko: Managing Editor

Photos: Kaila Stefanini, stefanini.photography

Women’s Flag football is sweeping the nation. In the last couple of years, flag football has becoming one of the fastest growing sports in the country. High school and colleges are adding the sport as more and more girls are signing up to play the sport.

At SUNY Brockport, flag football was just a dream. The school had not yet had a team either varsity or club. In the fall, Brockport hosts an event called club craze. That’s where the clubs at the college set up tables and see what interest that can garner.

Kat Althouse had a flag football table at the event, and the rest is history.

“Every semester Brockport hosts an event called club craze in our recreation field house. This gives all the clubs on campus the opportunity to set up tables and recruit,” stated Althouse. “Our first table in the fall was a huge success with over 100 emails put down on our interest sheet. Since this whole thing was my idea getting started I posted polls and reached out to people on multiple platforms to get a rough estimate of people who were interested.”

Althouse was the mastermind of starting up the club team from scratch. That’s a lot of work for a college student. She needed to do everything that a head coach would do. She had to build a schedule, secure fields, get refs and so on.

That is a lot to put on a student who also has her own classes to worry about, among other normal things a college student does.

“It's hard because I had to do a lot of things that administrators or coaches usually do such as, reaching out to teams and setting up games, reserving fields, setting up fundraisers, hiring referees, etc.” stated Althouse. “Before we brought on officers I had to do practically everything by myself, I didn't have anything handed to me as far as how to run a team. Now we have more students as a part of our leadership staff to help take care of those kinds of things. Even now figuring out what the best options are for the program can be difficult. We're all students so it was difficult finding time to do practices that work for everyone as well as setting up policies that make our program the best it can be without making people too overwhelmed. At the end of the day we're still a club team so we can't push everyone into the box of varsity expectations.”

While it has been a lot of work in the beginning, the payoff has been well worth it. At the recent Buffalo event, Brockport had one of the bigger teams amongst the four that were participating. The coaching staff had the girls well prepared as they went 3-1 in the event, and looked really good,

For Cymbri Jefferson getting a chance to play football was a once and a lifetime opportunity.

“I became interested in playing flag football because of the fast popularity of the sport. I have only heard of guys playing football and the occasional girl on the team, but other than that it wasn't an idea of mine that I would be able to play at this level someday,” stated Jefferson. “One day Kat and I decided it would be a fun club sport to start and learning a new sport would be a really cool experience.”

The experience even meant playing out in the snow and cold. While the Buffalo tournament was played in the Buffalo Bills field house. Their first game was played in frigid conditions, with snow falling at the stadium.

While the weather wasn’t ideal, it was fun to finally get out there and play against another team.

“Despite the weather, it was exciting to get out and play a game against another team. Stepping out on the field the first time knowing that we were going to communicate, work as a team, and putting our talents to work felt amazing. Finally getting to face another team and put everything we’ve been working on was such an adrenaline rush,” stated Delisa Cameron. “The weather definitely added an extra challenge, but as a team we pushed through it a focused on the next play. It felt amazing to see how all our hard work paid off in a real game situation, and it was a great opportunity to see where we stand as a team.”

With the club monicker attached to it, people don’t think these girls take the game seriously. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Club sports in general are played at a high level. If you have been able to catch a Brockport game you can see the athleticism displayed on the field.

Cameron, and the rest of the team, want to be pushed to be their very best. This is why they play teams like Villa Maria and Cortland. Every team has elite players who are out there to prove they belong on the biggest stage.

That pushes the girls of Brockport to push themselves to be their very best.

“The level of competition that we have from teams like Cortland, Villa, and so on is elite. We may be in the club sports division currently, but these teams push us to be our best every time we play. They've built tremendous programs with players who are dedicated and very skilled, so playing against them pushes us to our limits and prepares us for the next level,” stated Cameron. “It's a great experience to compete against schools that are pushing the boundaries of what can be done in flag football, and it shows us how to learn, adapt, and improve. While club sports will never receive the same level of coverage as varsity, to be able to compete with these powerhouses shows how talented we really are, and it will inspire us to keep reaching for greatness. Each game is an opportunity to push ourselves, and competing with the best of the best makes us even better.”

The college has taken notice of all the hard work the flag football team has put in and just recreantly named it the 24th varsity sport. A chance to become a varsity sport was never on the radar of the girls when they started this team this season.

They just wanted to go out there and compete.

“Everyone has worked so hard to make this program what it is, everyone from the leadership staff and coaches, to all the players who show up every day ready to get better. Now we have been named SUNY Brockport's 24th official varsity sport and it all paid off,” stated Althouse. “It's been hard to try to teach girls who were new to the sport while also getting the experienced girls to get better but we all knew the potential of the program and everything we did was to grow the sport. I'm extremely proud of everyone who trusted the process. This is a huge step for women and it's so unreal, I never thought after a lifetime of loving football that I would ever get the opportunity to play it.”

Added Jefferson: “I am so excited about becoming a varsity sport. This is a huge opportunity for girls to finally be able to play flag football at the college level. I am just amazed at the time line of the whole thing. Where we started vs where we are now only took a year when we thought it would take 3-4 years to get to where we are now.”

If there is one thing that surprised those who started playing is the physicality of the sport. They call it flag football, but there are times this games turns into more that that. While the contact isn’t on purpose, there still is contact.

The first time you feel it takes you a little by surprise, until the player gets used to it.

“Flag football is classified under mid level physicality but I think it's more physical than people would think. I'll admit even before I started playing I was like well this is a no contact sport so how physical can it really be but as we have a lot of new players to the sport, sometimes the girls don't know how to properly execute certain things,” stated Althouse. “Flag pulling for example, when learning how to flag pull you're definitely going to end up grabbing somebody and their uniform by accident, but that's how you learn. Even for the more experienced players, a lot can happen when you go to dive for a flag or to make a catch, a lot of the game is still similar to tackle football.”

As the team moves to the varsity level next year, the players on the current team are auditioning for the new coaching staff, when they are hired. They know the coach will recruit, and bring in some of their own, but the team also knows if they play well they have a good chance of sticking.

“I truly think that this season is a sort of audition for every one of us, whether returning players or new players. You never wish to get too relaxed when playing any sport, particularly if you're trying to be at a higher level such as changing to varsity. There's always going to be something that we can work on, and we must continue pushing ourselves to get better every day,” stated Cameron. “Hopefully, our coach this year will be the one that's coaching us next year on the varsity team, but whoever it is, it's a good idea to treat every practice and every game as an opportunity to prove what we're capable of. Whether it's being dedicated, a leader, or practicing on our skills, we all must stay hungry and determined to get better because you never know when you can get better. It's about consistently striving for excellence, no matter what level you’re playing at.”

Added: Jefferson: “I 100 percent think this is an audition. I think this should be the motivation our team needs to work harder and play harder. If people want to make varsity they're going to really have to want it and do what it takes to get to that level. I think getting this experience now before it becoming a varsity sport next semester is huge, especially for girls who haven't played before our club.”

As Brockport continues to play in these tournaments throughout the spring, the girls are looking to get better. Wins are always important, but working on the little things is just as important. That means working on the route running, or pulling of flags.

Or even getting used to the contact.

“As an individual player I want to build on focusing on perfecting my routes and training my body to withstand harsh conditions. As we move into the remainder of the season and into the tournaments, I think the biggest thing is going to be becoming consistent, in our play, as well as in our team communication,” stated Cameron. “We've shown we have the skill, now it's about honing our plays, staying disciplined, and making sure we're all on the same page, most importantly when pressure is attached. I also want to stress building our mental toughness and staying positive and concentrated even when things get tough. The competition will continue to get better, so we will have to keep building our teamwork and flexibility. Every tournament and game are an opportunity to improve, and I'm excited to see how far we can progress by the end of the season.”

Added Althouse: “I really think we have such potential, seeing other teams and learning from our games will be the biggest thing. We have the pieces, we just have to finish the puzzle. We have a lot of work to do as far as team chemistry goes as well, you can have great players, but you're nothing if you can't play as a team. Playing as a team has been our biggest improvement but I can't wait to build on that even more. As we do more team bonding and spend more time with each other, that chemistry is something I hope will reflect on the field in our game play.”