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Women’s flag football is one of the fastest-growing sports in the country. Just in the last several years, Troup County has seen that growth firsthand. Both colleges — LaGrange College and Point University — and all three public high schools — Callaway, LaGrange and Troup —- have started up programs over the last several years. Now, the Troup County Parks and Rec department is adding flag football for young girls too. Girls aged 9-10 and 11-13 will have the chance to be a part of the inaugural season this fall.

“We are trying to bring in something new for the girls,” said Devin Hardy, who will oversee the program. “Doing my research, I started to realize what a great opportunity for the girls this is, give them something to do outside of the usual sports like softball and cheer, and they won’t have to split time with the boys like with soccer and basketball. This will give them something else that they own.”

It has been brewing for a while, but flag football has picked up steam in the last year and now felt like as good of time as any to add it to the available sports for young girls.

“There was a lady named Tracy Tucker that told us about her story about wanting to play football growing up but wasn’t given the opportunity to, and now she will get the chance to coach her grandkids,” Hardy said.”She’s really the one that explained the interest and helped get the ball rolling.”

This will be a fall-only sport with all the games taking place behind the Williams Griggs Center. The amount of teams and participants remains unknown with registration set to start on July 22nd. What is known is that excitement is building in the community.

“We have been getting feedback from the flyer that we put out there and it’s all been good,” Hardy said. “I’m expecting us to have big numbers. Probably around four to five teams per age group. With the amount of shares we’ve seen on Facebook, the amount of comments we have seen in feedback leads me to believe that we should have a good number this year.”

Flag football will inevitably draw athletes from other fall girls’ sports like softball and cheerleading, but Hardy believes it might also bring out some girls who are not currently involved with the parks and rec programs.

“I think he will pull from other sports because one of my softball coaches is already interested in doing it,” Hardy said. “At the same time, I think we will get some girls that don’t play other sports out there as well.”

It all starts soon. With registration set for July 22nd, practice set for late August and games soon to be scheduled for early September, football is in the air and this time, it’s a girl’s game too.