El Paso Matters – El Paso girls flag football players chase titles while Texas weighs the sport’s future

Na’Sya Atkins does not know if graduation will actually feel like the end of high school.

On June 5, the Americas High School senior — a member of the Trailblazers’ girls flag football team — will walk the stage at the Don Haskins Center alongside her classmates, accepting her diploma as part of the annual rituals that normally bring closure to a student-athlete’s final season.

But Atkins may have to return to campus days later.

If Americas wins next week’s Region 19 girls flag football tournament, scheduled Monday-Wednesday, May 18-20, at the Socorro Independent School District’s Student Activities Complex, Atkins and her teammates will continue practicing after graduation. They’ll do so in preparation for the inaugural girls flag football state championship — a newly created event backed by the National Football League’s Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans that is scheduled June 14-15 at the University of North Texas in Denton.

“It’s not really about this school, it’s about my team,” Atkins said during a recent afternoon practice at Americas High School. “This is what we wanted last year. So, yeah, we’re not just gonna stop. We’re going for state.”

That uncertainty — whether the season is truly over, whether the sport itself has fully established a long-term place in Texas high schools — mirrors the broader moment surrounding girls flag football across the state.

The sport will make its debut at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. NFL organizations have invested in leagues and championship events across Texas. Some colleges have begun offering opportunities to female players. Yet, the University Interscholastic League that governs middle and high school athletics still has not sanctioned girls flag football as an official high school sport, telling El Paso Matters in a statement it is monitoring participation numbers, geographic growth and long-term sustainability,

In El Paso, however, the game has already expanded rapidly.

Last year, nearly 40 public, charter and private schools from across El Paso County participated in the inaugural Region 19 season, with Americas ending the year as the league’s champion. This spring, programs throughout the region returned with larger turnout numbers, growing local attention and a new possibility waiting at the end of the postseason: a first-ever state championship tournament.

Building a sport before Texas sanctions it

“It really is kind of a community, a true El Paso community event,”  SISD Athletic Director James Nunn said.

Teams play two consecutive games Mondays in stadiums throughout the city. The standard football field is divided into two 30-by-70-yard fields for four teams to play concurrent games on using a 13-ounce ball. 

The 2026 regular season concluded May 11. Americas ended the year with an 8-1-1 overall record. The Blazers earned a first-round bye in the regional tournament. They will take the field at 8:30 p.m. Monday at SAC II to face the winner of an opening-round matchup between Clint and Hanks.

Teams often share practice space with other sports. Coaches juggle athletes who simultaneously compete in softball, track, soccer and basketball. Some programs still operate without dedicated class periods tied specifically to flag football.

At Americas, head coach Elizabeth Boulden said roughly 80 girls initially showed interest when the school launched its program.

“Then, we narrowed it down to 24, 25 kids,” she said.

Interest remained strong enough this year that Americas again had to make cuts.

“We don’t have the class like other sports do,” Boulden said, referring to the class period devoted to a sanctioned sport or activity that can substitute for a student’s physical education credit. “We have to crunch in everything really quick.”

Even without UIL sanctioning, local administrators said participation numbers and interest from younger students have continued to climb.

“We’ve had middle school girls that, as they were registering for high school, they started asking, ‘How do I join flag football?’” Nunn said.

That local momentum has coincided with increasing investment from the NFL and its Texas franchises.

The Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans sponsor programs across the state and helped launch the inaugural girls flag football state championship tournament that will take place next month.

Last season’s Region 19 championship game between Americas and Harmony School of Innovation at the SAC drew more than 1,000 spectators and appearances from former NFL players, team executives and mascots from both franchises.

For districts throughout the Borderland, the visibility surrounding the sport has reinforced the idea that the region has become an early testing ground for what girls flag football in Texas could eventually become.

“I think what El Paso has done to kind of promote this,” Nunn said, “is provide a positive example of what it could be.”

‘I’ve always wanted to play football’

During a recent afternoon practice before the season finale at Americas High School, footballs spun through the wind as players rotated between drills, shouted across the turf and teased each other between repetitions.

Some athletes arrived from softball practice. Others came from track, basketball or soccer. A few had never played organized football in any form before last year.

Now, many talk about the sport as if they have been waiting for it most of their lives.

“I’ve always wanted to play football,” said Arianna Miranda, the Trailblazers’ starting quarterback. “My dad and my brother, they’re, like, big-time into football. But, my dad didn’t let me play tackle football when I was a kid.”

At Americas, many players said flag football offered them the chance to participate directly in a sport long culturally associated with boys in Texas.

“It was a new thing that the school was providing for us, and I just thought it would be a fun thing for me and my friends to just try and see if we make the team,” said Zaryha Wheeler, a junior wide receiver and defensive back. “And we ended up making the team, so, it was just a fun experience for us.”

The transition into flag football has also created unusual rosters filled with athletes whose backgrounds often complement one another in unexpected ways, Boulden said.

Soccer players bring footwork and conditioning. Basketball players adjust to spacing and timing. Softball players track deep passes like fly balls. Coaches said many athletes picked up the strategic elements of the sport quickly because they already understood how to compete at a high level elsewhere.

“You can teach football,” Boulden said. “You can’t teach athleticism.”

Players said the environment around the team has helped strengthen friendships and create a level of visibility that surprised many of them during the league’s inaugural season.

For seniors such as Atkins and Bianca Alarcon, the sudden growth surrounding the sport has altered what they imagined their final years of high school could look like.

“For me, I just have fun,” Alarcon said. “If we have fun, it’s gonna come out in a good, positive way. So, I feel like having fun is a majority of sports. If you don’t have fun, then what are you doing it for?”

From El Paso to Team USA

Long before girls flag football gained traction, Laneah Bryan was carrying a football around recess fields.

“Ever since I can remember, honestly, I loved football,” Bryan said. “I was a big Cowboys fan.”

Bryan, a 2014 Franklin High School graduate and University of New Mexico basketball player from 2014 through 2018, now competes with USA Football and is attempting to secure a place on the roster that will represent the United States at the 2026 International Federation of American Football World Championships in Düsseldorf, Germany.

USA Football serves as the national governing body for American football in the United States and oversees the selection and development of Team USA athletes in both tackle and flag football disciplines, including teams that will eventually compete in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Bryan is one of six Texas athletes currently included on the initial 24-player U.S. Women’s National Team roster announced in March. Another player with El Paso ties, Ariel Blair, also has competed within the national team pipeline.

For Bryan, the rise of girls flag football at the high school level represents something she did not have growing up in El Paso.

“There wasn’t space and opportunity for girls to have a pathway,” Bryan said.

Instead, Bryan pursued basketball. She played her two years at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque, where she helped the Hawks to a state championship, before eventually earning all-city honors at Franklin. She continued her career at New Mexico. After college, she began playing flag football in a local El Paso league before eventually traveling to tournaments where she was identified by scouts from USA Football. She is currently in her fourth season with Team USA.

“It would be everything,” Bryan said when asked what UIL sanctioning could mean for players. 

“There are so many girls here that play this game,” she said. “And so you have these girls that, you know, have this love and this passion and this, uh, ability, and we need to provide them space and opportunity to play it.”

Bryan said she invites the visibility and representation she and her Team USA teammates bring for the sport. 

“I want better for the next generation,” Bryan said. “If I’m being honest, nothing feels unattainable at this point.”

Waiting on Texas

Even as girls flag football expands across Texas, uncertainty still surrounds what the sport’s long-term future inside public schools will ultimately look like.

The University Interscholastic League stopped short of sanctioning the sport during its October legislative council meeting even as the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans continued helping launch programs across Texas. More than 160 high schools across roughly 20 districts had already started girls flag football programs by last fall.

Bryan said formal UIL sanctioning would represent more than institutional recognition for athletes across Texas. She also pointed toward the broader implications tied to scholarships and long-term opportunity.

“If they’re really good at this sport and they can get a scholarship opportunity that, you know, completely alter the trajectory of someone’s life,” Bryan said, “I think it’s really, really important that we can get Texas and try to push Texas to getting it sanctioned.”

For now, the future of girls flag football in Texas remains unsettled. The UIL continues studying the sport. School districts continue building programs. Players continue showing up after school for practices squeezed between other sports and academic schedules.

And for some seniors at Americas High School, graduation may no longer mark the finish line.

The post El Paso girls flag football players chase titles while Texas weighs the sport’s future appeared first on El Paso Matters.

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