In an effort to provide students with an alternative to tackle football, the Pittsburgh Public School District (PPS) has partnered with the Pittsburgh Flag Football League (PFFL) to provide flag football as an interscholastic sport! 

The integration of flag football into PPS is a product of a new partnership between the school district’s athletic department and the PFFL. On September 18th PPS launched the inaugural season of flag football.

Considering that middle school students must wait until they reach high school in order to try out for the football team, flag football will allow PPS middle schoolers to participate in a version of football whose risk for injury is considerably lower than tackle football.

Each team will play an 11-game regular season. Immediately following the regular season, all schools will compete in a playoff tournament at Cupples Stadium on the South Side.

Although many kids distinguish flag football from “real football,” no school suffered from low turnout during after school tryouts. In some cases there were as many as 30 students trying to make a 15-player roster.

At Westinghouse several students who tried out for the team were disappointed after learning that they were not selected to the team. The one silver lining for players who were not selected is that the rosters are subject to change after school officials review the academic and behavioral records of the students that were selected.

One of the common misconceptions about flag football is that girls are either prohibited or discouraged from playing. Unlike most sports flag football is coed. Although the boys are dominating the rosters, the PFFL is pleased to see that several girls will be playing this season.