WOODY JOHNSON: Making flag football official gives girls a chance to catch their futures
On May 4, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association made girls flag football the 35th sanctioned varsity sport in the state. The vote took a few minutes. The work behind it took 15 years.
Sanctioning girls flag football as a varsity sport makes opportunity official. Too — turning years of grassroots effort by parents, educators, coaches, students and us into lasting equity through stable funding, structured competition and a clear pathway for girls to advance.
Football has always been a powerful force for connections — bridging communities, generations and backgrounds. Too often, access to the game has not matched its promise. Opportunity, resources and the simple assurance that a girl belongs on the field have been unevenly shared. Girls flag football is changing that, not through symbolism, but through sustained commitment, real belief and decisive action.
That belief has been matched by investment. Since 2011, the New York Jets have supported more than 260 teams across three countries, reaching over 7,000 young women each year through more than $2.5 million in funding and grants. What began as a question of possibility supporting roughly 20 schools in New York City’s Public Schools Athletic League has become a movement, and with it, a responsibility to keep pushing forward.
For us, the numbers have never been the point — they’re just evidence of what happens when a community commits to making room. New Jersey’s vote is the latest, and most personal, milestone in that work. It is the culmination of a five-year effort led by students, coaches, schools and advocates who believe the game deserves equal standing.
That journey began in earnest in 2021, when the Jets launched New Jersey’s first high school girls flag football league with eight schools, all located within a short drive of our Florham Park facility. Within two years, that modest start grew into a league of more than 100 schools and 1,000 athletes, expanding statewide and into Long Island and the Hudson Valley.
From the outset, the goal was clear: girls flag football should stand alongside soccer, lacrosse, softball, and yes, boys tackle football, as an official varsity sport. New York reached that mark in 2023. New Jersey now joins it, closing an opportunity gap that has been open too long.
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Most recently, the Betty Wold Johnson Foundation has been central to that progress. Its mission reflects the values my mother lived by: expanding opportunity, opening doors and measuring success not in words but in impact.
Today, the commitment spans every level of the game. We helped the Eastern College Athletic Conference launch the nation’s largest collegiate women’s flag football league, supported by a $1 million grant from the Betty Wold Johnson Foundation. We continue to invest in youth and middle-school programs that strengthen the pipeline. Internationally, we have helped establish the first NFL-supported girls flag football leagues in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
With flag football set to debut as an Olympic sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the pathway is now visible end to end — but only if the first step is real. That is what sanctioning delivers. Varsity status moves girls flag football from a promising program to a permanent part of high school athletics, unlocking sustainable funding, structured competition, dedicated coaching and the long-term infrastructure that any serious sport requires.
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A girl playing her first season in a New Jersey high school today can see, clearly and without imagination, the steps from her school field to a college program, to a national team, to the Olympic stage. And because varsity status takes the sport out of the discretion of any one school, that pathway becomes reliable for the next class of athletes as well. Nearly 160 New Jersey high schools are expected to field teams next season — a clear sign that this is not a moment of attention. It is a structural shift.
It is also a moment that does not belong to any one organization. It belongs to the parents who advocated at school board meetings, the educators who listened, the athletic directors who made room on the calendar, the coaches who built programs from inception and the students who showed up, competed and made the case for themselves on the field. This movement has always been powered by community. The Jets’ role has been to have the vision, invest, build the path and make sure the door stays open.
Together, we have made New Jersey a national model for equity in sports — and ensured that the next generation of female athletes no longer has to ask for a place on the field, because opportunity is finally official.
They already have one.