Hurray! Girls can finally play flag football

Four days after a Super Bowl ad showed Mexican national flag football quarterback Diana Flores running away from National Football League players and celebrities trying to capture her flag, the ad was viewed more than 4.5-million times on YouTube. In the Super Bowl ad, tennis superstar and activist Billie Jean King helps Flores. King won 39 Grand Slam tennis titles and led the fight for women receiving equal prize money and equal treatment in tennis, starting in 1970. "Having her there was great to chart the path trodden together in this empowerment fight and showing our greatness in and outside of the courts," Flores was quoted in an Axios story. The unprecedented commercial ends with the statement: "To the women pushing football forward, we can't wait to see where you take this game." "Flag football is universal, inclusive, fast and fun, and with this creativity," said NFL chief marketing officer Tim Ellis, "we are thrilled to not just elevate flag but specifically highlight how women are changing the game, driving the future of football forward and inspiring generations to come." In flag football, no one gets tackled and a play ends when an opposing player pulls a flag from a belt around the ball-carrier's waist Flores, 25, has played for the 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022 Mexico Women's Flag National Teams and led Mexico to a 6-0 record and a gold medal at the 2022 World Games, according to the NFL. Flores, now team captain, though, was often asked growing up why she would play a rough and injury-prone game meant for boys. In several interviews, Flores credits her parents for encouraging her to follow her passion of playing the sport. "And I think thanks to them, I've always had this mentality that gender doesn't matter. It just matters how passionate you are about your dreams, how hard you work for what you want to achieve," Flores said. "And that you will always demonstrate what you're made for, depending on the hard work you do. So I've lived through that (negativity), I have experienced that. And I think that it has been one of my biggest blessings to be able to experience for myself what sport can do and how gender barriers get broken when you follow your dreams and you connect with other people through your passion." The California Interscholastic Federation recently approved girls' flag football to be a high school sport starting in the 2023-24 school year. Schools from across the Sac-Joaquin Section will be allowed to start up girls' flag football teams that can play others across the region. It's about time that girls be given the same chance to play the sport. That's why we pumped the story, "All-girls' flag football team in Granite Bay beats boys' team" by our sportswriter Aaron Jackson in last week's Lincoln, Loomis, Rocklin and Roseville newspapers and also the Granite Bay View magazine. A young all-girls' flag football team in Granite Bay is already showing that 10-year-old girls can not only keep up with the boys' team but win the games. And more girls wanted to be on the inaugural team but had to be turned away because of space limitations. Flores' flag football commercial drew loud cheers at Superbowl parties on Feb. 12 throughout south Placer, many from parents hoping to one day soon introduce their daughters to the sport We hope that flag football teams for girls across south Placer form as quickly as possible. Then commercials such as the Superbowl flag football video will be the norm, instead of being a nice surprise.