The lights from McCracken Field shine into the girls eyes as they take the field. The turf already rumbling in their shoes before the game has even begun. Eye black lays painted under their eyes. The ball is snapped, it’s game time.
Starting in the fall of 2024-25, MCHS created a girls flag football team, a new sport approved by the IHSA for this fall. Female students were highly interested in the sport being a part of MCHS.
“We started this year because of the sheer demand and interest from our school,” says Athletic Director Chris Madson. “It was an IHSA sport already but we did an interest survey that led to about 90-100 girls showing interest.”
The school ran a summer camp sponsored by the Chicago Bears before the school year started. Many female students at MCHS were excited for this new opportunity.
“I really enjoyed powder-puff and when I heard flag football was gonna happen I wanted to join,” says senior Gabby Diaz.
“I’ve always had a thing for football,”.said sophomore Eleanor Diakow.
But adding a new sport into the department isn’t a piece of cake.
“You have to go through a lot of different analyses,” Madson said, “like the impact it’s going to have on funding. How you’re going to staff it … then you try to figure out as well how it’s going to impact the rest of the school … It fits in well in the fall, like in spring it might have had a bigger issue [on athlete numbers].”
With over 60 girls playing flag football for the Warriors, several coaches were required, as were varsity and JV teams. Luckily, several MCHS teachers stepped up to help the teams.
“It was a unique opportunity that I had,” says PE teacher Kyle Just. “I talked to coach Hutchinson and he really wanted to kind of spearhead this and I coached with him in the past. I was like yeah that sounds awesome…it’s a really cool opportunity to work with some great athletes.”
“Everybody is learning and they’re all putting each other out there,” said math teacher Makayla Mitsch. “It’s just nice to be able to be the hype man for them.”
While flag football has its differences from real football, they are more similar than one might think. Many skills and drills are the exact same.
“We don’t tackle,” said head coach Dennis Hutchinson. “We pull flags. They don’t pull flags. Otherwise it is the same schemes, offense, defense, everything’s essentially the same.”
Going into this Friday’s game, both varsity and JV have currently only one loss on their record. The team has been working hard to fix their mistakes and come back harder every game.
“They are excited to win and that always feels good but they are ready to continue to work, to keep that going,” Just says.
The bleachers erupt as the girls flag team wins once more. Cheers can be heard from streets away as the lights flicker with victory.