THOUSAND OAKS — Elena Johnson had a flag football homecoming on Friday and Saturday, traveling back to Southern California with her team at Arizona State.
“I get to bring the heat home,” Johnson said. “I feel so lucky.”
The college freshman played flag football for Westlake in its inaugural season as a CIF Southern Section sport. Now, she’s playing for the Sun Devils and had the opportunity to help grow the sport in her own backyard at California Lutheran University’s inaugural women’s flag football tournament.
The seven-on-seven flag football tournament was the first of its kind to be held in Southern California and featured Cal Lutheran, Irvine Valley College, Claremont Colleges, University of Redlands, ASU, Miracosta College, Saddleback College and National University.
“I’ve said it for a while now — ever since I’ve been in the flag football space, flag football was growing,” Cal Lutheran and Westlake coach Brandon Alexander said. “It was high school first, and then the Olympics. And I was, like, OK, so what’s after high school then? It has to be college.”
Girls flag football remains the fastest-growing high school sport in the nation and experienced a 105% increase from the 2022-23 season to the 2023-24 season. A total of 20,875 girls participated in the former season and 42,955 participated in the latter.
Seventeen NAIA colleges have launched varsity programs that offer financial assistance and many junior colleges are starting up club teams, but the NCAA has yet to make it an official championship sport.
The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics made a recommendation in early February for schools at the Division I, II and III levels to sponsor legislation to add flag football to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.
Forty schools must sponsor a sport before it can be considered for championship status. ASU is among the Division I schools advocating for women’s flag football to have its own championship.
“(ASU is) supportive and there’s growing support — and it’s not just support within the school,” ASU coach Jesse Pap said. “There are businesses and organizations locally in Phoenix and in Arizona that are offering support that they want to give sponsorships. They want to push for it to be larger.”
The Sun Devils had competed in three 5-on-5 tournaments this spring but the Cal Lutheran tournament was their first 7-on-7 event. They did not hesitate to travel out of state for the two-day tournament.
“We need more teams than anything else,” Pap said. “So, for now, when we want to get in games and tournaments — if we have to travel, so be it. We’ll make the sacrifices that we have to make to do that.”
College flag football is the missing link between the high school and Olympic levels. Johnson said some current Westlake players have expressed to her that they’d like to play in college, but their schools don’t offer the sport in any form.
Tournaments like Cal Lutheran’s play a vital role in showing high school flag football players that they can develop their skills for the elite level.
“This is really a turning point in the validation of the high school girls sport,” said Newbury Park coach Steve Wood, who attended the tournament. “Now, these girls can come out and watch what they can do at the next level. And I have no doubt in my mind that the girls on both my JV and varsity team could come out here and play with these girls right now.”
Johnson decided to try out for ASU’s team after learning the college had formed a club program. The college level has brought more intense training, film sessions and new teammates who honed their skills from playing for years in the state of Arizona.
She’s risen to the occasion. When she wasn’t sacking quarterbacks in the Cal Lutheran tournament, she found ways to disrupt opponents’ passing offense.
“She has a burst that is just different,” Pap said. “She knows how to get to that extra gear once she’s close to the quarterback and she just sniffs it out and just closes. She’s a special player on our defense for sure.”
Johnson is taking the next step in her flag football career and wants to continue playing for her four years of college as part of the effort to pave the way for future college players.
“When it’s a new team, it’s hard to connect everyone immediately,” she said. “So it’s just supporting everyone and being the hype person and just trying to be very positive for everyone.
“I want to stay in it for four years and I see it being NCAA, hopefully by 2026. Just by growing and being more organized and having a fully-committed team, I see it being great.”