After three years of advocating, girls at Del Mar are making history with the launch of the school’s first-ever flag football team, which is now part of the school’s official lineup of fall sports.
Although the program is new this year, many of the girls have played other sports, and some of them have even quit other fall activities to join the flag football team instead.
Sam Diaz is a senior on the team and a newcomer to team sports. She has participated in many combat sports, including wrestling. She also holds a black belt in taekwondo and is an MMA fighter outside of school.
“[Combat sports] are all about me and the match,” says Diaz, “Flag football is everybody working together […] and I think it’s so cool to see how everybody is doing their own job, and how it comes together.”
Kyle Ghazanfari, also known as Coach G, is a physical education teacher at Del Mar and is now the head coach of the girls’ flag football team.
“Flag football, I think, has been an official sport for like, three or four years […] so yeah, it’s very, very new and it’s growing very, very fast. Participation is going through the roof, and almost all the schools are putting out teams now,” says Ghazanfari.
Ghazanfari has previously coached at Kathleen MacDonald High School, Santa Clara Lions Youth Center, and Del Mar – this is Ghazanfari’s first year coaching a women’s team. Despite the new challenge, he said he is very excited to work with a new group.
“I think [the girls] have a unique opportunity to get involved in something that’s going to take off. To my knowledge, colleges are even starting to get scholarships – if they aren’t already, they’re doing it very soon, and they’re adding teams as well.”
Additionally, he talks about the importance of sports, particularly women’s sports, in schools.
“Girls’ athletics, or athletics in general, the numbers have been going down, participation has been trending downwards, and we’re trying to fix that,” says Ghazanfari.
He is right, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), participation in high school sports has declined significantly. Their website states, “a total of 7,937,491 participants is a decline of 43,395 from the 2017-18 school year when the number of participants in high school sports reached an all-time record high of 7,980,886.”
This being said, Ghazanfari highly encourages students to try out for the team next year. He hopes that next year the team can grow big enough to have a Junior Varsity (JV) team.
“It’s not every day that a new sport is popping up here at school, you know? It’s very rare,” says Ghazanfari, “Right now we have a good turnout of girls, but hopefully next year we can have a JV and Varsity team and just keep promoting it.”
The flag football team is very excited about their new program and hopes to lead a new legacy for members in the future. For now, the team relies on donations from friends and family to fund new gear and uniforms, and hopes to fundraise more to get even better equipment in the future.
“Obviously, we want more players, but support is the biggest thing,” says Diaz, “Come out, watch our games, […] the ticket prices really help us so we can have more to work with. [I want] people to come out and watch us see the progress that we’re making.”
Despite this being a new sport at Del Mar, we can see that the flag football team has a strong bond and brings a great attitude towards the game.
“I love everyone’s energy, participation, motivation, and showing up every day – they’re doing a good job,” says Ghazanfari, “I’m actually really proud of them, they’ve been doing the best they can.”
“Overall, I love all the girls. I think we all get along really nicely, which I love because I’ve been to a lot of schools and I haven’t seen [team bonding] in so many sports.” Diaz said, “I feel like everybody’s good. I love them all, we all love each other.”
Mark your calendars because the team’s next, and only home game, is on October 17th against Ann Sobrato High School. Congratulations to the girls for kick-starting a new program, and we can’t wait to see what you accomplish on the field.
