Flag football fun

For more than a decade, the Mat-Su Sea Hawkers, with help from the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, brought the Play 60 program to the Valley, encouraging youth to exercise at least 60 minutes per day.

Following the guidance of the NFL, the Seahawks and the Sea Hawkers have pivoted with the attention turned toward organized flag football, a growing trend in youth sports. For the second straight year, the Sea Hawkers, a nonprofit organization that delivers tens of thousands of dollars each year to local youth and athletic interests, and the booster club supporting the pro football franchise, hosted a flag football clinic at the Menard Center Thursday in Wasilla.

Nearly 200 kids, ages 6 to 16, participated in the two-hour event that featured Seattle Seahawks offensive lineman Abe Lucas, Seahawks assistant coach Neiko Thorpe and Mario Bailey, a former pro wide receiver and Division I All-American at the University of Washington.

“The last few years I think the kids are really interested in flag football,” Sea Hawkers president Tom Spindler said.

Girls high school flag football is an emerging sport in Alaska. In 2023, a pair of co-op prep teams (Colony-Palmer and Wasilla-Redington) were formed in the Valley. The teams will hit the turf again in the fall.

On Thursday, groups of participants toured nine stations that focused on skills such as throwing, catching, agility and change of direction.

“That's going to be a good start for these kids getting that base foundation,” Spindler said of the clinic.

Seahawks executives Becca Stout and Mike Flood, and ‘Blitz’, the popular mascot, also made the trip to the 49th state for an itinerary of outreach. The Sea Hawkers and the Seahawks visited places such as the Anchorage Ronald McDonald House, Providence Children's Hospital and Alaska Native Medical Center, and hosted the Sea Hawkers annual dinner and auction at Everett’s in Wasilla.

Spindler said the group raised about $15,000 at the dinner and auction alone.

The Sea Hawkers have also been a part of the Kicks for Kids campaign, which provides Nike athletic shoes to children in need, and has raised more than $101,000. Part of that is thanks to a major contribution from the Mat-Su Health Foundation.

Spindler said about 2,000 more pairs of shoes will be distributed in youth in the Valley and surrounding area in the coming months. This adds to the exponential growth in the last two years, with a start of 250 pairs to a jump to 750 last year.

The group already disturbed 325 pairs in the Anchorage area on July 10.

The Mat-Su Sea Hawkers have long been known as one of the most successful Seahawks booster clubs in terms of community philanthropy throughout the reach of the franchise. Spindler praised the NFL organization.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” he said. “They’ve helped us build this program.”

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at editor@frontiersman.com.