Group wants girls football in the Mat-Su Valley

WASILLA — Sammy Becker is a multi-sport athlete at Wasilla High School. The senior is currently competing on Wasilla’s varsity volleyball squad and she’s also the starting goalkeeper for the Warriors girls soccer team.

But there is one other sport Becker would love to play while wearing the Warrior red and white of Wasilla High School.

Becker is among of a number of Wasilla students who want to play girls flag football.

“I really want to play,” Becker said recently. “It’s a tough sport, but I know a bunch of the girls who play in Anchorage and they love it.”

Becker wants to see the Mat-Su School District follow in the path of Anchorage, which added girls flag football to its falls schedule three years ago.

“There are a lot of girls who want to play,” Becker said. “We have over 50 that wanted to play, and even more have come up to me and asked.”

With the help of Chuck Pfeifer, an assistant coach with the Wasilla football team and a longtime boys football coach in the Valley, a group from Wasilla worked to try to bring girls football to the Valley this season.

“For the last two years girls have come up to me and asked me to help them get this going,” Pfeifer said.

Pfeifer said he and Becker had rounded up enough talent to field multiple teams, he found funding to cover expenses and even received a letter of support from the National Football League public relations office.

Pfeifer brought the idea to the Wasilla High administration and the Mat-Su School District. Pfeifer said the school district did not oppose the idea, but was not ready to commit to the plan for the 2008 season.

Wasilla assistant principal Dan Michael said the administration welcomes ideas that would bring more students into activities but stressed there is a process when it comes to adding a competitive sport.

“Any time you get more kids involved in activities, it’s good,” Michael said.

Pfeifer does hope to organize an unofficial round-robin tournament sometime in September.

“We want to give them a taste, and hopefully it gets rolling,” Pfeifer said.

Pfeifer said the tourney would be open to high-school aged girls from all Mat-Su schools and it would require only a nominal fee to participate.

Much of the interest for the sport has been generated by students at Wasilla. Becker said there are also students from other schools who are hungry to play.

Palmer activities director Jeff Thiede said there is occasional talk of the possibility of girls flag football, and most of that correlates with “powderpuff” an annual tradition in which girls participate in a flag football game during their school’s homecoming week.

“I think we could make room for it,” Thiede said. “It seems to be fairly successful in the Anchorage area.”

Thiede said time conflicts would be the primary problem that schools would face when adding another fall outdoor sport.

“If we had the turf it would be a lot easier, but otherwise we’d have one or two more teams vying for time on the same grass,” Thiede said.

Becker said the addition of flag football would give high school girls another chance to participate in athletics.

“A wide variety of girls could all come up,” Becker said. “Girls of all shapes and sizes.

“Now for girls, all we have is volleyball or cross country,” Becker said. “Girls wouldn’t make the boys football team.”

The Anchorage School District features eight girls flag football teams. Alaska Schools Activities Association director of special events John Andrews said, judging by what he has seen during the last two seasons, flag football is having success in the ASD.

Andrews said he’s heard talk of people in communities outside of Anchorage who want to add flag football.

“Nobody’s gone past the point of discussion,” Andrews said. “It’s been loosely talked about, but nobody has come up and said we have ‘x’ amount of schools. I know its’ talked about in the Valley, in Fairbanks and probably in Kenai.”

Girls flag football won’t be on the schedule as a sanctioned sport in 2008, but Pfeifer and Becker remain eager to bring it to the Valley in 2009.

“That’s what we’re hoping for. It’s a bummer I’m a senior, I’d love to go out for it,” Becker said. “But I’d love to get that sport out there for other girls to play.”

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