Edgemont flag football thriving
Why it’s one of the district’s fastest-growing sports.
Safe but fun Many parents view flag football as an alternative to rough-and-tumble traditional football.
Edgemont resident Paul Papapostolou has two children, 9 and 11, who love athletics. There was, however, one sport he wanted the kids to play, but couldn’t find just the right team for: flag football, a non-contact version of football where players use flags instead of tackling to stop whoever is carrying the ball. “For the longest time, we tried to find something locally within Edgemont or even one of the neighboring towns that had something like a flag football league,” he said.
He enrolled his son in a sports-camp-type league, and yet it still wasn’t quite what he had in mind. “It was more instructional, getting the kids acclimated to the game, understanding the rules, et cetera,” he said. Then, about three years ago, he learned that a good friend was coaching an NFL Flag League team called Mad Dog. “My friend said, ‘It’s really nice. Why don't you come check it out?’” Papapostolou remembered. “He showed me some videos, showed me how they played, and it looked great.”
This past spring, Papapostolou signed up to coach in the league with his friend. “Our team did really well. We finished in third place and now in this fall league, I am coaching another league for another team,” he said. Papapostolou got to know the Edgemont chapter’s founder, Mike Song, and the experience of coaching so rewarding that he now oversees another team, the Chiefs. “The teams with kids that are predominantly from Edgemont are coached by Edgemont parents, and teams from other towns are coached by parents from those towns,” he said. (The teams are all named after NFL teams; Papapostolou’s youngest son plays in a team called the Ravens.)
Building bonds with nearby towns
As for his son, “I don't coach his team, but he's zero and two at this point. It’s exciting very fun,” he shared. Many of the kids in the league are from Edgemont, but a lot of them are from surrounding towns as well. “It’s nice because [our kids] have gotten to know some of the other kids they play [from other towns]. Right now we have kids from Ardsley, Eastchester, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, White Plains, and Scarsdale as well,” Papaostolou said. Because many of the children participate in multiple sports, they now know some of the players on local Little League and basketball teams, making flag football a vital bond in the kids’ sports community.
Papapostolou and the other coaches try to keep teams well matched. “In some instances, because we want the kids to have fun but also feel a sense of competition, we don’t want to be in a situation where one team is overly stacked with older players, or kids that have played together for many, many years in a row,” he explained. To prevent that situation, the coaches reorganize the composition of teams when necessary. “On our team, we have seven kids from Edgemont, one from Greenburgh, and three from Dobbs Ferry,” he said. “It's nice because they've been playing together for a few weeks now, and they get to meet some new friends along the way.”
Honoring girl power
There are also different leagues now: a co-ed one, and a new one that started this year and is exclusively for girls. “We needed to get enough girls to come in and participate in order to have enough teams to make it competitive and fun. The whole purpose of that league is that we’re trying to attract more and more attention to get more girls to play,” Papapostolou explained. The coaches try to make sure each girls’ team has an even distribution of girls of different ages, and they are more lenient with the younger ones to promote learning and enjoyment.
You go, girls! A newly formed girls’ league has been extremely popular.
The strategy has worked well. “Most of the girls opted for the girls’ league,” Papapostolou said. “Many of my son’s friends who are girls are also amazing athletes, but were a bit timid about signing up for a flag football league that was dominated by boys.” That impediment is now gone, and girls are happily signing up. There are about 17 Edgemont teams in all, and there are also four age brackets in the co-ed league—1st and 2nd grades, 3rd and 4th grades, 5th and 6th grades, and 7th and 8th graders.
Recruitment challenges, but incredible growth
Fall can be a tough time to sign up flag football players, Papapostolou noted. “We compete with all the other sports that are going on, like soccer, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse. It’s really tough to get the kids to choose a third sport, and certainly one that's not necessarily associated strictly with the town—this is more all of Westchester,” he said. There are other recruitment obstacles as well. “Sometimes it could be a bit of a drive going to the games, and some parents don't understand the sport or are new to the sport, We're trying to build up the league as best we can all over the place, so we can get more and more teams. It's exciting, it's competitive, it's fun, and kids love it,” he explained.
Already, though, the number of kids across all divisions and ages in the local leagues is approximately 300, and approximately one-third of the children are from Edgemont, so clearly the teams are catching on. In fact, “right now flag football seems to be one of the largest growing sports that we have, and we're just trying to increase that,” Papapostolou said. “I believe White Plains now has a girls’ flag football team at the high school.”
The sport may be gaining popularity as an alternative to football. “When the kids are younger, at least in my opinion, there's a reluctancy to play physical, violent sports. General football has gotten this stigma that it's dangerous and so many kids get hurt. I myself and some of the other flag ball coaches feel the same way,” Papapostolou said. “We want our kids to start off playing flag, where there's the same athleticism, but less physicality. And it still teaches kids mechanics, like how to try to catch a ball and not get hurt, and how not to just run into someone and try to tackle them.”
To learn more or sign up your child, visit here. “Our objective as parents is to recruit as many children that want to play flag football and enjoy it,” said Papapostolou. “Let's make sure they have fun.”