CU flag football team setting up a play during their practice at Kittredge Field on Sept. 18, 2026. (Photo by Peighton Lemp)
Lexi Manzo dug her cleats into the turf and took off, weaving through defenders, her flags slapping against her legs, the football secured under her arm, the end zone in sight. The noise from the sidelines of Allegiant Stadium followed her as she broke free, sprinting toward the finish she had spent years dreaming about.
Then she crossed the goal line, scoring a touchdown. She had won the high school state championship in one of the newest and cutting-edge stadiums in North America.
“It was a really nice full-circle moment,” Manzo said. “It’s just one of my dreams.”
Manzo’s love for flag football did not end with a high school state championship. It followed her to Boulder, where she is building opportunities for women to continue playing flag football at the collegiate level by starting a club.
For a moment, Manzo looked toward the sideline and found her coach’s eyes. Amid the celebration, the significance of the moment began to sink in. The person who led her to a state championship was the same teacher who had first introduced her to the game.
“My PE teacher who taught me how to play was actually my coach for that game,” sophomore wide receiver Manzo said. “So, it was like a really nice full circle moment.”
Years after first learning the sport in a PE class, Manzo was standing on a state championship field, no longer just learning how to play, but helping her team win it all.
According to the NCAA, women’s flag football has been on a national rise, from a sport that was not high school sanctioned just five years ago, to a sport slated to make its debut in the 2028 summer Olympics.
NFL Flag correspondent Bobby Kownack explained that 69,000 female students across 40 different states participated in flag football during the 2024-25 calendar year, a 60% increase from last year.
“It’s no longer a men’s sport. Flag is for the world. We call it a global sport,” Kownack said. “It’s different from football, but it has unique natures and so many of the values that are so valuable to kids as they grow up.”
With schools like the University of Colorado Boulder, a sanctioned Division I team remains a goal for the future.
In the meantime, Manzo, alongside junior quarterback Melissa McMillin, worked to create a space for women to play flag, even if it’s at a lower level.
CU flag football team setting up a play during their practice at Kittredge Field on Sept. 18, 2026. (Photo by Peighton Lemp)
They took the initiative to start a flag football club at CU Boulder during the fall of 2025. Getting the club approved by the administration seemed to be the easiest step, only needing two people to start the club, but developing the team posed a bigger challenge.
“The hardest thing was getting people to come to practices, especially last year,” Manzo explained. “It was trying to get numbers, trying to get field space, just trying to spread the word and having space to actually play flag here.”
After a slow start, the club now has enough members to support a recreational team as well as a travel team.
“I think it’s great to see the growth,” sophomore Staia Yohe Savage said. “To see all the different levels of people who just want to come out and try and play.”
However, the growth has presented its own challenges as the travel team now faces a new hurdle: funding.
“We have to go through a different funding process for it in the next few months,” McMillin said. “So, we will see how that goes, hopefully smoothly.”
Manzo and McMillin explained that building the club means more than simply adding another sport to CU’s campus. It is an opportunity to create the kind of path that Manzo imagined, one where young women can learn the game and have somewhere to take it next.
“A lot of people here have literally never played before, which is fun to teach them and help them get better,” Manzo said. “It’s fun watching them try for the first time.”
Contact Guest Writer Peighton Lemp at peighton.lemp@colorado.edu
