As Lawrence High School’s girls flag football team built a commanding lead in the first game of the season, junior Lucy Godfrey kept glancing at the scoreboard.
“This is the first time in history this is happening,” Godfrey said she remembered thinking. “Like, this has not happened before. This is going to go down in the history books.”
Godfrey entered the season knowing little beyond the football knowledge she had picked up through cheerleading. She said she did not know how to throw a football when practices began, but her nerves eased once the opening game started.
“After that game started and I realized that I actually knew what I was doing, it became really fun and I gained so much confidence,” Godfrey said.
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Junior Zoey Barber, who plays wide receiver and defensive back, also realized she had a big learning curve ahead of her despite coming from a cheer background.
But in her first game, she made three interceptions, returning two of them for touchdowns. She also scored two offensive touchdowns.
“I want Lawrence to be known for flag football,” she said.
Girls flag football is in its first sanctioned season in Kansas, and Free State and Lawrence high schools are building programs around the new competitive opportunity.
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Free State coach Adam Barmann said the program began as a club team last year after students pushed to play. The Firebirds finished 10-2, reached the club-state semifinals and lost by a play short of a championship game.
Free State senior Sarai Preston grew up in a football family. She was in Florida during the team’s first few summer practices, training with her grandpa to help her movements be faster and more explosive.
For Free State practices, she gets out on the field with the team’s nearly 40 athletes from both varsity and junior varsity.
“We’re all just kind of like one team,” she said. “… We help each other, we push each other, because our JV is very good, as well.”
Preston has played with the team for two years, but said she’s blessed to be in the first sanctioned season.
“This is the team that’ll be remembered,” she said. “We’re setting the standard, and I feel like that’s amazing. I love to be a pioneer of this sport.”
Lawrence High also had a club program last year, but coach Silas Dulan was hired only three weeks before the sanctioned season began. The Lions started official practices Aug. 17, leaving limited time to install a playbook, teach terminology and prepare for their first game.
“There’s going to be lots of growing pains,” Dulan said he told the players. “Let’s just trust the process, trust the system. We’ll get through it together.”
For junior quarterback Macyn Ramsay, the move from club play to a sanctioned program has brought consistency. Different teachers and administrators sometimes led the group last year, but this year the team has a dedicated coaching staff that includes Dulan and assistant coach Olivia Lemus.
“It feels really good,” Ramsay said. “Knowing I can just count on him to be there every day, and also having our assistant coach here every day, counting on her.”
The Lions’ opening win — 44-7 over Olathe Northwest last week — felt especially meaningful because it was the first victory in the program’s sanctioned history.
“First W in history, and all of us getting to be part of that felt amazing,” she said.
More than a sport
Barmann said the sport has created room for students with a range of abilities and backgrounds. Free State’s roster includes students involved in soccer, basketball, dance, gymnastics, cross country and volleyball.
“There’s really a place for every skill set,” Barmann said.
Players who throw can play quarterback, while catching, speed, quickness and flag pulling can translate into roles as receivers and defense. The sport is fast, pass-heavy and more physical than some spectators expect, despite the lack of tackling.
Barmann compared it to a blend of basketball and soccer: athletes spread across the field, pass quickly and cut into open space.
The learning curve has been steep for Lawrence High players who came in without organized football experience.
Junior wide receiver LucyJane Juelsgaard, who previously played volleyball, said she had watched her older brothers play football but struggled at first with learning positions, plays and routes as a participant.
“I got into it, and was like, ‘Oh my goodness, I don’t know what I put myself into,’” Juelsgaard said. “It was definitely a struggle at first to understand the plays and my position and everything.”
But the sport has brought new friendships and an outlet for speed, she said.
“The people are great, my new friends,” Juelsgaard said. “In this sport, you don’t slow down. You just keep going.”
Barber said everyone on the team just loves to be there even when someone messes up.
“Instead of like, ‘Oh, why’d you do this?’ it’s literally just everybody’s laughing,” she said. “… Just really thinking about how you can make friendships through sports, it’s just beautiful.”
The Lions won their second game of the season against Gardner Edgerton 32-0 on Monday.
Building a culture
Dulan said Lawrence High currently has about 20 players split between varsity and junior varsity. He said the team selected captains for offense, defense, academics and culture, with the academic and culture leaders helping set expectations, connect teammates with support and shape team traditions.
The program is centered on Dulan’s “heart, head and hands” philosophy: players’ confidence and emotional well-being influence how they think, which in turn shapes their actions.
“The heart is where everything starts,” Dulan said. “Whatever’s in your heart is going to affect your head. Your head is going to affect your hands. Your hands are your actions.”
Senior Rilo Scholz, the team’s academic captain, said the new program has connected students who may not otherwise have crossed paths.
“I feel like we’re all just sisters,” Scholz, an award-winning art student, said. “… I would never talk to these girls — I’m just not in their groups … But when we pass in the hallways, or I see them in different classes, we always say hi to each other.”
Juelsgaard said the team went from separate friend groups to feeling like a family in only three weeks.
Both programs practice on a field marked in baseball outfields, and both coaches said expanded facilities could become necessary as participation grows.
For Lemus, an LHS alum who also coaches girls basketball, the start has shown what the school’s athletes can do when they’re given the opportunity to play.
“I think we could be the first flag football team to win state for the school,” Lemus said. “That would be huge to put that banner on and forever be cemented in that history.”
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Courtney Lane (she/her), reporting correspondent, has worked with The Lawrence Times since April 2026. Originally from Arkansas, she’s a graduate of KU’s Journalism school, where she worked as a reporter, opinion section editor, and eventually editor-in-chief for The Kansan.
Read her work for the Times at this link, and see her photography for the Times at this link.
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