A partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs is generating enthusiasm and support for high-school girls flag football in Lee’s Summit. This team enjoys the day at Lee’s Summit High School. Erin Woodiel Courtesy LSR7
Flag this news: The Chiefs are inspiring young women to explore the game of football.
A partnership with the Kansas City Chiefs is generating enthusiasm for high-school girls flag football in Lee’s Summit and throughout the region. The NFL team is also providing financial resources to launch this new sport.
One local team’s winning ways during the inaugural season resulted in several unique opportunities with the Chiefs. Flag football athletes from Lee’s Summit West High School attended the Chiefs training camp, appeared in a local commercial promoting the sport and hung out with Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs provide game equipment, jerseys, and funding for coaches and officials. They also help with transportation to games. All three Lee’s Summit R-7 high schools initiated girls flag football teams last year, taking advantage of the program.
“The partnership with the Chiefs makes this really easy for us to get started,” said Mike McGurk, the Lee’s Summit North High School athletics and activities director who was also instrumental in bringing flag football to the school district. “It’s a great partnership, and they have made it as easy as can be to start from the ground up with a program.”
The sport is growing, McGurk added, with NFL teams throughout the country assisting high-school teams. Nationally, high-school flag football participation has nearly tripled in just three years, jumping from around 15,700 in 2021-22 to approximately 43,000 last year.
“It’s starting to get more traction,” McGurk said, “and with colleges starting to offer scholarships and it being an Olympic sport now, I see it continuing to grow.”
Jarrod Pughsley, head coach of the Lee’s Summit West High School girls flag football team, said flag football is an opportunity for the girls to play a sport that they were not able to access before.
“Football is the most watched sport in America,” he said, adding that unlike other sports, there hasn’t been both a men’s and women’s option. Until now.
Lee’s Summit North flag football players have fun on the field. Courtesy LSR7
“With flag football on the rise, it gives those girls an opportunity to play the sport that they inevitably end up watching growing up as well,” Pughsley said.
Lee’s Summit North junior Bailey Wirth was quarterback for her school’s first flag football team in spring 2024.
“I always wanted to play football when I was younger, but there was never a girls team — so hearing that it was going to be here ... the first year, I was like ‘OK, I’m going to try it,’” said Wirth, who is also a Kansas City Chiefs fan.
One of the benefits of flag football is that the girls are often on a team with a different group of students than they usually interact with, McGurk said.
Wirth agrees.
“I met girls I haven’t met and I got to know them,” she said. “I really liked the team, and the girls we play are awesome.”
Around 20 area high schools launched girls flag football teams in spring 2024. Lee’s Summit North High School hosted the first end-of-season tournament. Lee’s Summit West captured the championship, which resulted in several once-in-a-lifetime moments for team members.
Patrick Mahomes hangs out with the Lee’s Summit West High School flag football team. Courtesy LSR7
“The Chiefs provided an opportunity for our team to be in the flag football commercial that’s shown locally and at timeouts during the Chiefs games,” Pughsley said. “The girls got to go up to the Chiefs training camp and they met Patrick Mahomes, and he provided them all with Oakleys.”
The Lee’s Summit West athletes were also on the Chiefs field for the home opener and brought out a Super Bowl flag during the opening ceremony. They also appeared on the Arrowhead jumbotron during timeouts, he added.
“I try to tell the girls what a big deal it was last year when we won,” Pughsley said. “This is the beginning of something big. I think some of them grasp it a little bit, but it’s kind of hard to realize that you’re at the beginning of the precipice of a sport.”
With the support of the NFL, including a flag football commercial during the Super Bowl, the sport is becoming more mainstream in Missouri and throughout the nation.
“At the high schools, we treat it like a sport, and it is also on a Missouri State High School Activities Association ballot to become an emerging sport,” McGurk said.
The flag football season currently includes eight games, along with an end-of-the-season tournament. Teams compete on Fridays and Saturdays at Paragon Star Sports Complex and at the high-school stadiums. Each team has seven players on the field at a time with the schools fielding varsity, JV and a C division for players new to the sport this year. The teams all have their own offensive and defensive coaches at each of the three levels.
The 2025 flag football games begin the weekend of March 28, with the end-of-the-season tournament on May 10 at Lee’s Summit North High School.
Enthusiasm among the students began well before the spring season this year with a number of girls attending the interest meeting, McGurk said.
“There are some kids who don’t do anything else who catch me in the hallway and ask me about flag because they are excited and ready to go,” he said.
“It’s really easy to provide an opportunity for girls to participate and feel like part of a team. When you talk about that sense of belonging, it certainly meets one of our school and district goals.”