Sierra Smith began her freshman year at ASU in the fall of 2023 and she realized right away that something was missing. There was no way for her to play the game she'd grown to love for her university: flag football.
Flag football has been growing in the Valley of the Sun and across the country. The flourishing sport saw 474,000 young women aged 6-17 hit the field in 2023 alone, a 63% participation increase from 2019.
The sport's growth in Arizona is due in part to the Arizona Cardinals' efforts. The team recently invested in three flag football fields made of the same Bermuda grass the Cardinals play on. Last fall, the Cardinals also became the first NFL team to broadcast a high school flag football game, eventually airing eight games this season.
The Cardinals' investment in flag football comes after a nearly two-decade-long push for recognition. Desert Ridge High School was the first local high school to get into the sport in the 2006-07 school year, but it took until 2022 for the Arizona Interscholastic Association to sanction flag football.
Sierra Smith, a sophomore sports journalism major, had to take matters into her own hands if she wanted to see flag football take off at ASU. That's exactly what she did with the help of her twin sister, Sophia, a sophomore studying parks, recreation and sport Management, and her parents, Sidney Smith and Susan Casper.
Hamilton High School, Sierra Smith's school, was the third Phoenix area team to play an official game. She played for her high school and Club HBHF Arizona before coming to ASU.
Calls were made, countless meetings were scheduled and local sponsors were acquired. One of the team's first actions was organizing a youth camp in June 2024, where over 100 middle and high school athletes showed up.
Then, the club team held tryouts last September and began preparing for the inaugural season to kick off this year. January 31 was the day Sierra Smith was finally able to see all her hard work come to fruition for the club's home opener against Grand Canyon.
"Honestly, it's just so exciting," Sierra Smith said. "All of us are so excited to be out here today, myself, my coaches and we've been working since September to get to this point. I'm just over the moon; it's great."
ASU head coach Brian Coger volunteers his time to help the club get off the ground, and he said he feels they've already proven everything they set out to.
"Sophia and Sierra have kind of proven that if you put your mind to something, and you're dedicated enough, you can make anything happen," Coger said. "As far as the other girls on the team, they're essentially doing something that most people have said women can't do, and that narrative is changing."
For the Smith sisters, the path to get to this point wasn't easy, but they had each other to lean on when building their club team from the ground up.
"Every day and every night I'm doing stuff for this organization, so having her as my mental support, as my physical support, is great," Sierra Smith said. "We do everything together; she lifts me up when I'm down and it's great to be able to play with her as well."
"It's been great," Sophia Smith said. "She's done all of the hard work, I'm just glad that I get to be there by her side through everything. We've done everything together, she’s my ride or die at the end of the day, so I'm just so excited and extremely blessed to be out here by her side again continuing to play flag football in college."
Sierra Smith has already made a significant impact at ASU, but she believes setting a precedent matters most.
"I think that what we've been able to prove is that women can play this game, too," Sierra Smith said. "That's been our biggest thing, we've been trying to empower and inspire women to participate in this sport, especially in the collegiate space."
Despite the club's best efforts, the team ended up losing its inaugural game to GCU 24-6, with Sierra Smith scoring the sole touchdown.
"Words can't even express how proud we are," Sidney Smith said. "When you think about ASU and innovation, this is innovation."
Available seating was filled within minutes before the game's start, and by the middle of the first quarter, nearly the entire sideline for fans had reached capacity.
"We have a saying in our family that I taught them years ago," Casper said. "We walk in grace, and we run in excellence, and both of them have that tattooed on their arm. That's just a mantra that I believe in, and to look and see this entire sideline filled, I get emotional because this is what it's all about."
Sierra Smith remains confident the club will grow in popularity as time goes on. Building a flag football team even got the Barrett Honors student thinking about her own future after athletics.
"In my future, my goal is to run a sports public relations agency and to just empower and inspire women in sports," Sierra said. "That’s my whole goal, to be an advocate for change, especially in sports like this with limited resources."
ASU's new women's flag football players may have lost their home opener, but they won over plenty of new fans as the sport continues to grow.
Edited by Jack Barron, Sophia Braccio and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporter at holtzingerethan@gmail.com and follow @EthanZinger6 on X.
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Ethan is a sophomore studying sports journalism. This is his first semester at The State Press. He has also worked at Blaze Radio.
