On Thursday, the HHSAA officially announced the sanctioning of girls flag football as a sport to be played and officially recognized at the high school level.
The announcement was made at McKinley High School’s field in conjunction with the Department of Education. All 44 Hawaii public schools will get the chance to compete.
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Thursday’s announcement was another feather in the HHSAA’s cap, the first state organization to sanction girls wrestling in 1998. Hawaii will become the 12th state to officially sanction girls flag football.
Though there are details that have yet to be finalized, the tentative plan is for the season to start in the middle of February and end with the state tournament in April.
“Although the Hawaii High School State Athletic Association started girls wrestling and that was the first (state to do so), I never got to experience the first because that was long before my time,” HHSAA executive director Chris Chun said on Thursday. “Being able to witness all the trials and tribulations and the positives and maybe work on the negatives, it’s super exciting because this will be our thing that we can bring this year and we can just expand and make it better for years to come.”
As opposed to gridiron football, where there on 11 players on each team on the field, flag football features seven players per team on the field. Although there is no set roster minimum, Chun estimates that 18 to 20 players would be a safe number per school.
The current plan for the games themselves is to play with two 20 minute halves with a running clock in accordance with NFHS rules.
Because the season runs during the spring and not the fall, the hopes is for more officials to be available for the games. It is estimated that three or four officials are needed for each game.
Schedules will vary per league, but the current plan is for the season to last nine weeks, which involves three weeks of coordination and practices, five weeks of regular season play and a 12-team state tournament, where the top four seeds get a bye and the remaining eight teams play on the first day. Chun said the HHSAA is hopeful the state tournament can expand to two divisions in the future.
Tough the ILH wasn’t a part of Thursday’s announcement, Chun said the league supported the sanctioning of girls flag football during a board meeting. The ILH is currently planning ways to get their own schools involved with the sport.
Regardless of who fields a team, only one team is allowed per school, meaning schools won’t have JV teams in 2025.
Thursday’s announcement came four years in advance of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which will feature flag football for the first time.
“It’s really hard to get buy-in for everyone so I’m excited that all the leagues bought in to this and that’s why we can offer this as a state tournament,” Chun said. “Just the exploding popularity as a sport coming in on the college level and the Olympics. Hawaii is the 12th state but that being said, there’s 25 other states that are sanctioning it that are starting it this year. Hopefully some of them sanction it and it will bring us up to 37. I’m just really excited that we’ll be able to participate.”