Last weekend, people across the country had a chance to watch nationally-televised NFL-sponsored Youth Flag Football Championships.
A few years ago, the IHSAA added Unified flag football. And four years from now, flag football will be an Olympic sport.
The Southern Roads Conference, of which Columbus Christian is a member, has added flag football for this fall. The Crusaders, who are not a member of the IHSAA, plan to field a team that will play against other non-IHSAA schools and members of the conference, which is a mix of IHSAA and non-IHSAA schools.
“With soccer, we couldn’t get the amount of kids we needed, and we couldn’t get a group to sustain together year to year,” Columbus Christian athletics director Kevin Roth said. “So a couple years ago, the conference talked about doing eight-man football. But with insurance and the cost of equipping each player, it was going to cost quite a bit. So last year at our spring meeting, we asked what everyone would think about flag football. Everybody thought that was a good idea, so we adopted it as a conference.”
The SRC flag football will be 5-on-5.
“There’s really no physical contact that’s allowed,” Roth said. “Even blocking, in reading the rules, it’s like setting a screen in basketball. You can’t initiate contact. You just have to stand in a still position and make the defender go around you.”
Roth said he has about 12 or 13 kids that have shown interest in playing. Coaches Vince James and Chris Higbie will meet with prospective players and parents at 6 p.m. Monday at the school and will do a light evaluation in the gym.
The Crusaders will play their home games in the outfield at Wayne Park, where their baseball team played this spring.
“It’s very inexpensive,” Roth said. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of money. Talking to both of the coaches, Chris and Vince, they said it will help the basketball players because of the conditioning. Like Vince said, with the NFL giving it that publicity and being an Olympic sport for 2028, it might be an alternative for kids that don’t want to be involved with the tackle aspect.”
