A little girl, age 5, stares up at her TV screen that plays a football game. Closely observing the players and the aspects of the game, that little girl began to imagine a future where she could play football, too.
That little girl was Avery Kennedy (12), and her interest in playing football became a reality during her senior year of high school.
“I’ve always liked watching football, and I thought that it’d be cool sport to play,” she said. “I saw other schools were doing it, and I just thought it’d be fun to start one at Monarch.”
Kennedy wasn’t the only girl in the district dreaming of Flag Football. Girls throughout Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) had been fighting to start a team with little to no success.
“It was like we were just not taken seriously. Like, ‘Oh, you want to start girls playing football?’ That’s unheard of in our area,” Kennedy said.
In the last few years, girls’ flag football has quickly become one of the fastest-growing high school sports. On April 24, 2024, the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) voted to make flag football an official high school sport. This opened the door for Monarch to have a team.
“A lot of other districts were having flag football teams. And so there was this group of basketball parents that were really interested in getting flag football going,” Emerson Hebeler (10) said. “The players were really interested in doing it.”
Kennedy and Hebeler started to take the next steps with the help of Abbey Elalouf (12) after a meeting with Athletic Director Eric Gustafson who told them to find interest.
“Originally, we went to [football coach] Aaron Paddock, and we were wondering if he would be the coach,” Kennedy said. “Then we realized that we’d have to take this to the actual district levels.”
Elalouf immediately emailed BVSD Athletic and Activities Director Harry Waterman to discuss possible meeting times.
“We scheduled several meetings with him, and tried to figure out things like, what facilities we would use, what coaches and stuff we would get,” Kennedy said, “And then pretty much, they told us it wasn’t going to be a sport, and that it was just going to be a club.”
The possibility of the team just being a club was because of timing issues, due to the interest spiking in the middle of an intramural year.
“CHSAA goes in two-year cycles. This is kind of hard to explain, but in the 26-28 cycle, coming up, starting fall of 26-28, we’ll play a team at home in a sport, and then in the 2027 fall, they’ll expect us to go back and play them at their place. So we each play one home and away game during the cycle. This request fell mid-cycle,” Gustafson said
The girls were not willing to accept this as an answer. They wanted a real, CHSAA-sanctioned, varsity flag football team. Then girls were given a list of things that they would have to do in order to create the sport, including gathering interest lists and showing the possible longevity of the program.
“The thing that worked the most, and what actually got the team going, was going to the BVSD board, and bringing it up,” Hebeler said. “They had really gotten interested.”
The plan was to enact an intramural team for the fall season. However, with heavy interest across the school district, it was named a CHSAA varsity sport. With little time to spare, Monarch had to prepare to host an entirely new sport.
“We had to do it real quick,” Gustafson said. “We had to do in about a month what you usually kind of plan for over the course of six months, eight months or so.”
Still, huge questions were hanging in the air. Where would the team practice and play? Where would their funding come from? Who would be the coach? These issues were on the forefront of the minds of Elalouf and Kennedy.
“I got a call from Avery that it was cleared to become a team, and we were both really excited after all the times we got told no,” Elalouf said. “Then we were like, Okay, on to the hiring process.”
It was important to both Kennedy and Elalouf that the coach they selected was not only someone who supported them as football players, but also someone who supported them as people. When they met Colin Hart, they knew they had found their coach.
“We both knew from the second that Colin Hart walked in the room that he was going to be the coach that we wanted,” Elalouf said. “He was so ready.”
Not only did the team hire a fantastic head coach in their eyes, but every coach on the team brought the energy that the girls were hoping for.
“Our coaching staff is probably the best coaching staff you could have,” Elalouf said. “The amount of times they cry at our games because of how proud they are is just so cute. Our team motto is ‘play wild and free’ and that’s something that our whole team takes to heart.”
They started practicing immediately after the sport was approved, as it was crucial for them to prepare for the fall season.
“None of the girls out there knew anything about what they were doing. Like, they had no idea what was going on,” Elalouf said, “It was the first time I’ve seen a group of girls go home and learn what they had to do and come back ready to play.”
Despite the humble beginnings of the team, they were able to make it to the playoffs, earning a bye in the first round and being named number eight seed.
“I think it’s important for girls to follow their dreams and do what they want,” Elalouf said. “It ended up working out in the end, even if you get told no, just keep pushing. There’s no such thing as failure, you know? Go beyond and it’s a total success story”
