Loading summary
Transcript55 lines
- [00:02]
A
Dive into the dynamic world of high school sports. Whether you're a seasoned athletic director, a newcomer to the field, or simply curious to learn more about this exciting profession, this podcast is your go to resource for inspiration, education, and a deeper understanding of the game changing decisions that shape the world of high school athletics. Welcome back to another episode of AD360. I'm Greg Vandermayd, and today we have a very special topic to cover. Girls flag football has been on the rise over the past few years. It's gained a ton of popularity, and it seems like the sport is only going to continue to grow and expand. We're seeing many schools and districts across the country beginning to add that. So today we're excited to have Jeff Sullivan of Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland join us. Montgomery county has recently started a girls flag football program, so we wanted to get Jeff on to be able to talk through the nuances of getting a program started.
- [00:54]
B
So.
- [00:54]
A
So we're extremely excited to have you on today, Jeff. We can't wait to really pick your brain about how you add a program and all the nuances of it. So thanks for joining us today.
- [01:05]
C
Great to be here.
- [01:07]
A
And as always, Scott Rosenberg, my co host. Excited to cover this one. Are you as pumped up for this one as I am?
- [01:15]
B
Yeah, I mean, I really am. Listen, I've been out of the job from the ad job for about three years, and flag girls flag football was very much in its infancy. And I was, we were a small school. I was looking into it, you know.
- [01:27]
C
Right.
- [01:28]
B
Kind of like on my way out. And I just think there's so many great possibilities, so many opportunities for kids. And I'm excited to hear from Jeff. I've known Jeff for a little bit, and Montgomery county and Jeff have always been on like the forefront of lots of new things, whether it's technology, whether it's sports. And so if anybody wants to sort of hear how to do something but also do something well and Right. Jeff is the person to talk to. So I'm really excited about it.
- [01:58]
A
Yeah, as am I. And Jeff, again, thank you so much for joining us today. I feel like we can kind of just start diving into the topic at hand because I'm sure there's a lot of questions and a lot of side questions that will probably come about from some of the responses because this is something that ads across the country are definitely investigating, wanting to learn more about. So if you guys are all ready, I think I'm going to hit Jeff up with the first question, which is going to be in terms of, you know, when. When you're looking to add that program. Can you kind of walk us through the initial steps when you're looking to launch a program like girls flag football?
- [02:32]
C
I think the initial steps is you want to take is looking at your stakeholders, engaging them in the process from the onset. And in a district our size, we're the 14th largest school district in the country, so we have 25 high schools and 40 middle schools. We have a lot, I mean, a lot of people, diverse communities and different interests. So when you have a new sport, really engaging your stakeholders from the onset and also benchmarking, talking to some people that have already done it. So we did our homework and from the onset of girls flag and the whole initiative, working with our student athletes first and foremost, engaging that interest, working with our booster club and our parent communities, our coaches, our athletic directors, our principals, as well as the central office, and just making sure that we had the support throughout that process and hitting those benchmarks. So again, the big advice, just like many initiatives, is to get people involved early and get those voices infused with the process. Another big thing is thinking forward. I'm a big timeline person and capturing here is the end. This is our end goal. Where we want to be, here's where we are now, and establishing those checkpoints along the way so that people can see how this would unfold over time.
- [04:01]
A
I think that's a great perspective on it because really what you're doing is you're. You're not eating an elephant all at once, right? You're chopping it up a piece at a time because there's so many things that are at play. I like the use of the milestone markers of where we need to be and the fact that you guys were able to do this in such a large scale. Like, the second you said 25 high schools, the first thought in my mind was that is a lot of coaching onboarding. That is a lot to get done in a short period of time. So really great perspective on that.
- [04:37]
B
I love. I love number one, Jeff, the. The backwards design. I remember, I was in education. I remember that lingo, the backwards design approach. But in the end, it's actually the smart approach, right? Like, where do you want to be in the end and then start working on how to get there? I think that's a really smart approach to something like this. How did. Already off topic, like, how did the other coaches react for, hey, like, we're going to introduce a new sport in a season where I coach and am I Going to lose some athletes to another sport. And was there any, like, pushback there?
- [05:16]
A
So there was.
- [05:17]
C
I wouldn't say pushback. I think there's some fear with adding a new sport, right? What's the impact going to be on the program? And what we had heard from some other districts is that girls flag creates new opportunities. It's not pulling from existing sports. So we shared some of that. But like many things, people want to see it and they want to experience it to see. What we found in Montgomery county was that was factual, our girls flag taking the 9th graders out of the equation because they're obviously new athletes to the program. So we pulled them out. We looked at the 10th through 12th graders. 71.4% of those athletes did not participate in our fall program previously.
- [06:02]
A
That's a staggering number.
- [06:04]
C
A staggering number. That's a powerful number. And when you see that unfold and the fact that field hockey, soccer, cross country, everything else is still thriving and you've introduced this new opportunity as well, it's just an overwhelming win, you also look at the opportunity equity. And equity is one of our raised core values here in MCPS athletics, right? In providing new opportunities and targeting our female student athletes and providing that a lot of our soccers, field hockey, volleyball are very much on the club circuit, right? You've got to be playing, you've got to have some experience at many schools prior to high school, you know, to have an opportunity, right, because it's, it's competitive. A lot of these sports have become year round. When you introduce a sport like girls flag and everyone's starting together, right, it's an equal opportunity for people to engage. And what was so awesome to see across all of our schools was just how that energy came. And it came very quickly and how all of our schools were thriving with this sport. And it was genuine. And so it was just awesome to see. And once everyone saw the impact of that, the stress level or that fear kind of dissipated. And we're rolling forward. I mean, we're thinking, all right, how can we make this even better in year two? And then how does this get on a path at the state level to become state sanctioned?
- [07:45]
B
That's why we have you on here. Because I think a lot of people would be thinking what I asked, right, like, how is this going to impact everything else that's going on? And obviously that 71 doesn't mean it's going to be that same at another school, but it's a great starting point. And I also love what you said about the equity aspect and like being able to come in and start a sport fresh without having to have spent $6 million on club sports before you get to high school, having to have been playing since you're in second grade, that. The equity aspect behind that. And then just like all shape sizes, right. For a sport like flag, anybody can kind of come out for a sport like that. And there seems to be a place for almost everyone. So, man, I'm so high on it, it's amazing.
- [08:33]
A
Well, I'm just blown away by the fact that it was the 71%. That's going to be a number that just sticks in my mind for quite some time because, you know, I thought that there would definitely be some new comers to the athletic department, if you will, from a student athlete perspective. But seeing that it's that large of a number and just for your department as a whole, that's such a major win, taking the, the new sport out of it for a moment and just looking at how many more student athletes you're getting engaged into, your athletic department that previously wouldn't. Would most likely not have been a part of it. Right. So like the, the, the opportunity that it presents. That's fantastic to hear.
- [09:11]
C
No, it is. And it's genuine, it's real. And I think it's. It's so powerful to watch every step of the process, from the initial skills clinics and the coaches clinics, the officials clinics, all the way through to the state championships. And we were fortunate one of our teams won that. The inaugural, you know, one with multi counties, and it was at Raven Stadium at M and T Bank. And it was, I mean, goosebumps. All the feels right of watching this and just the high level of play, the student athletes, the coaches coaching, the officials, just in such a quick, short amount of time, how it evolved. It was just really fascinating to watch. I'm still overwhelmed, as you could probably hear my voice talking about it and reflecting on this fall because of just how. How powerful it was and empowering for our female student athletes.
- [10:14]
A
Please tell me that somebody did the Ray Lewis dance when they went into the stadium, because otherwise I feel like it's almost all for not.
- [10:21]
C
I don't know if it was Ray Lewis.
- [10:24]
B
He's.
- [10:24]
C
He's unique. But I will say this. And the Ravens were an amazing partner. And we've also been supported by the Washington Commanders. We've been where we're located. Just the benefit of having two NFL franchises, and that would be something I would strongly encourage those who are embarking on this journey to reach out to your NFL team for support. The Ravens. We had an official partnership with the Baltimore Ravens and Under Armour to launch the initiative and they have just been amazing. I can't say enough nice and amazing things about the Baltimore Ravens and, and what they have done not just for Montgomery county, but across the state of Maryland. And then we've also had the support of the Washington Commanders who have continued to support us as well. We're in the Washington Commanders market in Montgomery county, but obviously in the state of Maryland where, you know, Baltimore Ravens have been instrumental. So it's just been fantastic and to have that support. So you mentioned the Ray Lewis art. They had the same pyrotechnics and entryway for our girls flag student athletes at the state tournament that the Ravens have. They we got to use the locker. I mean it was amazing, top notch experience for our student athletes and really put a strong exclamation point on the season.
- [11:47]
A
That sounds like an amazing stuff for sure.
- [11:49]
B
I love that. And I've heard all the same things up here in New Jersey like the jets are the team right now, I think that sponsors most of it across the state of New Jersey, probably the Eagles a little bit in the south. And the professional teams have been amazing partners and all of this. So we have to thank them for sure. Hey Jeff, thinking about the initial reaction when we said, hey, we're going to actually do this, what was maybe some adjectives or thoughts that you heard from your kids, your parents, your communities, like we are launching flag here now.
- [12:24]
C
Overwhelming excitement. When we made the initial announcement, people were just extremely excited. I know that we made that announcement mid spring and there were some seniors who were going to be graduating in a couple months that were. I wish we were doing this. Oh man, I wish I had one more year. We heard that as well with our seniors this year who only had the one year to participate wishing I wish this I had three more years or another year with that. It was just overwhelming excitement. But also how is this going to happen? Right? How are we going to get there to forming teams? And back to the initial question, my response about the timeline and just painting that picture right, you've got to paint that picture for community right across all stakeholders. And I think one of the things that we did that was extremely successful was we wanted to build the excitement for girls flag at the end of last school year so that we, we had strong momentum going into the summer months. So we weren't just coming mid August with the start of fall sports with oh, by the way here's girls flag. We ran a series of skills clinics and the Baltimore Ravens were instrumental in helping us with that. But we had three geographically based skills clinics and we had eight schools. Eight schools and then nine schools at those. And we had hundreds of girls come out for those initial skills clinics. A chance for every girl to play quarterback or learn about receiving. We had station set up so it was an exposure to the sport and to the skill and that we had a lot of media coverage around that and that really set the stage for us to be successful because then schools were able to have school based summer practices consistent with some of the rest of our program and they were able to carry that momentum in to the summer. So by the time we got to the middle of August and launch fall sports, we were well on our way to having a strong foundation for that first season. So that's something I'd highly recommend for districts thinking ahead and building that. We did a similar thing with our coaches. We had our coaches training up at the Ravens facility. Phenomenal. As well as our officials training as well. You've got to hit all of these touch points, right. To make sure not just the students but the coaches know how to coach, the officials know how to officiate. Right. And really getting all of those necessary components of a successful sport. So all of that was done in advance so that by the time we hit go in the season, we were ready. Great.
- [15:15]
B
I'm interested in the referee side. Did you get like men's football guys coming over, do you think? It was like a new crop of people? I never thought about it until you just.
- [15:28]
C
So we started with our, our tackle football officials association and we drew the officials from, from that group from the onset that was consistent with some of the other school districts and how they were handling the officials piece of it and work through those training sessions. The Ravens and NFL flag were, were instrumental in that because we were using rules that because it's not state, state, state sanctioned at this point and the NFHS had not established rules. We were using, you know, kind of best practice rules that we all agreed on. There were three other school systems in Maryland that were part of girls flag this past year. So we agreed upon those rules and then we worked with our officials to train them and we used three person officiating crews for, for our games.
- [16:21]
A
Similar question to Scott's, from the coaching perspective, were you getting new to the game coaches or were you getting, you know, maybe there was some tackle or 11 man coaches that were interested in coaching the Flag side of it. Where did you kind of draw that, that crop of coaches from?
- [16:37]
C
That's a great question. And it was one that we wanted to, we were interested to see. And we had a full spectrum. We had some, some coaches that were new. We had some coaches that were successful in other sports. And we had one coach who was a two time state champion tackle football coach, 4A, our highest classification and won two state championships as a tackle football coach. Had stepped away from football and his daughter played at the school. Mike Neubezer at Poolsville High School. And he came back and coached in the inaugural season. What a great story that was. So we had a couple of coaches that shifted over and came from other sports. So it was, it was cool to see how that unfolded. And while we're on the coaching topic, it was immediate in terms of film breakdown, scouting, all the things. Right. That you see in every other sport. It's not like that took maybe that's a year, two thing or halfway through the season. No, we had scrimmages unfolding. People wanted that film. We have the automated cameras in our stadiums that go into bid swap and the film editing side of things. And right away it was scouting, where's the film? How do I get that film? And the coaches just did an outstanding job with that piece.
- [18:09]
A
That is great to hear. That is absolutely great to hear. So thinking through, you know, a little bit backwards visibility, if you will, what unexpected challenges popped up, things that you were maybe not anticipating to be an issue when adding a new sport. Were there any kind of like surprise moments or gotcha moments of like. Oh, we didn't think of that.
- [18:35]
C
Not so much a surprise. I think one of the things we have to the officials perspective, continuing to make sure that you know the rules and the training piece of that because you have so many officials and for us being the district of our size, we need so many officials to be able to officiate games right. When you're fielding a league for 25 schools just in Montgomery County. So continuing to support our officials in their training. And that's something that we're working collaboratively with our officials association. In the off season, the NFHS is going to. We're anticipating they're going to release some, some rules for girls flag. There's a committee that's been meeting and so we will use those NFHS rules similar to what we use for other sports and work with our officials for that training. I wouldn't say a challenge, but that's something we've got to really emphasize as we go into year to the field constraints.
- [19:37]
A
That's immediately where my mind went. Like. Yeah, that's immediately where my mind went.
- [19:42]
C
So it is, it is a challenge. Right. And so we have, you know, the two football, tackle football teams, we've got four soccer teams, we've got two field hockey team, like where, where does girls flag? How do we fit that in? And not to get too far into the weeds, but you know, officials, we have officials numbers. We have to accommodate with a district our size, certain number of games on certain days. We don't have the luxury of saying, okay, well all the field hockey games are going to be on Monday, all the soccer games are on Tuesday. It's not with just the sheer volume of what we have. We have to scatter things and look at field availability. And half our schools have artificial turf, half do not. So how does all of those things play in? And I think that's a challenge. And right now we just have the varsity team. There's definitely the interest there to expand to jv. And as part of that conversation, in addition to the budget and how the finances play out, how does that junior varsity, when we get to that point, fit into the overall field availability? So that's something we knew and it didn't stop. We had some games were at 3:30, some were at 6:00 clock in the evening. We had some games Friday night lights. Right. Where we played the varsity game, tackle football game on Thursday and we had the girls flag on Friday and it was great. We saw student sections both Friday night lights. But also I, I went to some 3:30 games where the student body came out after school and just went right into the stadium and supported the teams and were there. And you would have thought it was Friday night with the type of crowd that was in the stadium. So we've seen that energy and support from our communities.
- [21:35]
A
That's great to hear. Yeah. And talking through the, the facility piece, that was the first thing that came to my mind was, oh man, how do you juggle that? We had the, the location I was at, we were very much a small campus in size and field space was at a premium. So the first thing when I'm reading through this and seeing all the, the things that you've been able to accomplish immediately, it's like I go back to my old seat and just think like, oh my God, how am I going to juggle all these field space requests and things like that? So definitely good insight on that. Appreciate you sharing that with us.
- [22:09]
B
Jeff. Any in your Research. And in this process, anything that sticks out to you in terms of the rise of popularity of flag, like, any specific reason why it seems to be exploding across the country at this point?
- [22:24]
C
You know, someone had mentioned the Caitlin Clark effect and some of the enhanced interest around girls in female sports. You know, that's part of it. I think the support that the NFL certainly I feel seems like anything the NFL touches turns to gold and is a success. And I'm not being paid to say that. It's just been. There's been a lot of support, right. And I think for us. And you've heard similar narratives around the country in terms of the support of. Especially in public school systems where, you know, operating budgets are tight, it's hard to put anything forward. And you've got to look at, you know, other avenues for funding. And I think the NFL is supported and had at a backing. So I think there's been a support there. This is long overdue in terms of providing, you know, enhanced opportunities for our female student athletes. And, you know, we're very excited to be at the forefront of this in Montgomery county again. It aligns with our core values of creating opportunities. And, you know, people ask me all the time, like, what's your job? Like, what do you do? And I'm like, you know, I create opportunities for people to thrive. In my head, that's. That's whatever that is. I'm creating an opportunity and then watching that opportunity unfold and blossom. And I think this is definitely one that, that is true. It's genuine. And for the school districts and schools that are thinking about it, be ready, right? Because once you start and hit go, I mean, it's. It's on. It's going to come, the students are going to come, the success is going to come and just be ready for it. And I think back to, you know, that forward thinking of being strategic and just like change management, right? The impact of the fields. Our athletic directors were problem solvers, right? We have them all in the room, all 25 in the room. We have genuine conversation about those challenges and where are those touch points and how do we overcome them. And I do want to commend our. Our 25 ADs, because this doesn't happen without their leadership. And our 25 high school principals, our superintendent are the leadership of our district and then our board of education. You've got to have that collective support around an initiative.
- [24:43]
B
You really do. I know Roger Goodell is a steady listener of this podcast, and I mean, Jeff Sullivan would be a great first Commissioner of the Women's Flag League. When that happens, no doubt.
- [24:57]
A
You know, kind of piggybacking a little bit off of Scott's question just now. When, when you're looking at it from, from your perspective, have you seen the perception, you know, the public perception, the campus perception of girls flag football kind of evolve since it's been introduced?
- [25:17]
C
I have just seen so much positive energy, not just during the season, but I'll use an example. Two weeks ago, the Commanders reached out and of course, a lot of excitement with the. With Jaden Daniels. The Commanders make advancing to the NFC championship game. Certainly I was excited as a longtime Washington fan and wanted to do a pep rally and a celebration for the Commanders, but also use this as an opportunity to celebrate the Clarksburg High School girls flag team who had won our state championship earlier in the fall. So we brought that together. The Commanders supported. We had a whole school pep rally at Clarksburg the Friday before the NFC championship. Had two assemblies because the gym's not big enough to hold the whole school. So we did it twice. We had two parties completely supported by the Commanders and, and utilizing that platform not just to celebrate them in the NFC championship game, but to celebrate the girls flag state champion team. They were brought out in front of the entire school, celebrated, presented with a state championship banner from the Commanders that they can hang proudly in the gym. And just the excitement around the girls flag team. I talked to the coach, who's an outstanding guy, Casey Landefeld, and he's got a great staff of assistant coaches there as well, who have rallied around it. He just said, jeff, this is a party that just never stops. He's like, I just, I never could have imagined a year ago, you know, taking this on. And, and I said, I feel the same way. And I. And I also feel like we are just getting started. Like, it's just we're. We've already started crafting out our schedule and how we're going to do things. We've had those conversations already and the energy is just constantly. It's snowballing. So it's just. I'm really excited to see how this unfolds because not just in Montgomery county and not just in Maryland, but nationwide. I just think you're. You're going to see this continue, this momentum continue because people are just going to watch how authentic it is.
- [27:34]
A
I love the fact of how much people have gotten behind it and the excitement around it. I mean, I'm a football guy at heart, you know, so anytime you see more engagement in the Sport. I think it's fantastic to see and as you're saying, like, how it's continuing to evolve and people are already planning out schedules. You're going to flash forward from now and it's going to be the same thing that you see across all other sports. There's going to be strategic planning in terms of what your schedule is set up like, and then you're going to have some of the, the, the mega powers, if you will, that are looking like, how do we get into like some, some national notoriety? We need to start playing teams out of state. It's like that's going to be probably the next steps forward is like it just continues to grow and evolve into what you're seeing across all other sports. And that's just, it's fantastic to see that level of growth that rapidly, you know, because I've. I remember back when, when I sat in an 80 chair, you know, we were on the west coast. So I'm going to sound a little bit blasphemous when I say this, but lacrosse wasn't exactly a huge sport at the current time. And it began to build and we started adding more and more and more to it. But it was kind of a slow build. Right. Whereas flag football, I feel like it was, you turn the lights on him, game on. You know, because there's just such a level of interest in it and it's, it's really, truly something special to watch.
- [28:52]
C
No, it is. And your analogy of turning the light, it is in a. That's what we experience. It is just like that. It's on. And I think that's why, as an athletic administrator, whether it's at the school level or at the school district level, being ready, being ready, this is not something where you can just build it as it goes or think, oh, what am I going to do? You've got to think strategically and hit these checkpoints and be ready because it's just constant in a good way. But we have to be prepared and be out in front to the extent we can. And that is something in looking back and reflecting that we're extremely proud of here. And that was the feedback we got was people appreciated the fact that we were strategic going through the skills clinics. We did build as much as it was happening fast, we thought strategically to make sure we were ready, and that's all the way through the state playoffs, of making sure that we were providing them the best opportunity for our student athletes. And I think that was very much appreciated across our communities.
- [29:58]
B
I'm excited to see the coaching pool expand at some point too because right now you don't have a lot of females I'm sure in that coaching pool because they haven't had the opportunity necessarily to play the sport. And so I remember like with girls lacrosse when that was growing, right, like you always, you wanted to have some role models. It was nice to have some female coaches, people who had actually played that game, understood the nuances, the differences between let's say boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse. So as those kids start graduating, having played three years, four years, as the opportunities increase for college and maybe some college teams out there and scholarships like, it'll be fun to watch the sport grow that way too from the coaching pool to college opportunities as well. You touched upon it for a minute before, but yeah, Greg and I were thinking a lot about the analytics side and that obviously growing by sport and football really being the first ones who really needed those like analytics all the way like at the high school level, started at the pro level understanding taking tendencies and breaking down film and things like that. So you mentioned that I think your girls coaches were using Vidswap and a coaching analytics tool and is that that really has become a thing?
- [31:19]
C
It has. And that was again with the forward thinking. What, what do we need to make this a success? Of course we need the video, right? We need, we need the breakdown. We need as an instructional tool and then college recruit. You know, we have a couple colleges here that are adding it as early as this coming fall. It's happening very quickly. We did reach out to Vidswap and ask and, and we're fortunate to have Vidswap as a partner for this initial season. And it was spot on in, in getting. Using our Pixelot cameras to. To capture the film using bit swap on the breakdown side. And when a camera was not working or there was for for some reason the, the coaches and the schools were communicating with each other to get that film. They were tracking tendencies. They were scouting very much so. And, and that was one of the things that we heard from our coaches immediately. And so it's not, you know, a varsity sport. Like it was full fledged from the onset in every aspect when we pushed go. And it was great to see just how quickly that unfolded. So again, that's another piece of it having the video analytics just like you would any other sport for girls flag. And that will continue to evolve, I'm sure as well as we transition into the next season.
- [32:52]
B
I love that.
- [32:55]
A
Well, I know we had, we touched on this a little bit earlier, but I wanted you to kind of get out your proverbial crystal ball and, and predict what is what. What do you see ahead in the future for girls flag football? How do you see this growing, expanding, just what, what do you anticipate as the years go on from, from what you've seen and what do you expect to see in the future?
- [33:19]
C
I expect here locally us to add junior varsity at the, at the high school level. We have a strong interest in getting this started in our middle schools as well. And we're working at looking at some, some ways to incorporate that. Certainly there are budget constraints. And then, you know, for us we have 40 middle schools, you know, boys and girls teams. You know, that's the difference between 40 and 80 coaches. That's a lot of coaches, right, that we've got to coach up. But using a similar, we've got a playbook. So how do we use that to, to then get this into our middle schools? So that's some of the things locally, I think at the state level you're going to see this become a state sanctioned sport. In Maryland for us, we've got to get where there's 200 public schools. We need to get to 40%, 80 of those schools to entertain that conversation. And we're, we're getting there. We're hoping to get that number this coming fall and then potentially for the following fall be entertaining a conversation about, you know, state sanctioning in fall of 26. We'll see if that, if that happens. If it doesn't happen for that fall, I would imagine you're going to be seeing that shortly thereafter in terms of, in Maryland. And I think you're going to see this become a state sanction sport across the country. And as districts are trying, I know there's a lot of districts in Maryland that want to do this. The funding and just not just the initial funding. But then how are you going to sustain it over time has been a challenge for some. And you know, I think one of the things in addition to working with the NFL franchises or franchise that I would encourage schools and school systems to look at, look at grants. There's grant funding available and talk to your grant coordinator if you're in a school system to look at where there's opportunities to utilize grant funding to supplement years two, three and or four. So you now, instead of just a one year kind of package through maybe a partnership with the NFL, you've now created a four year Runway for a sport. Right. And then year five gets absorbed into an operating budget or into a school budget. So those are some of the things to think about and those are some of the strategies we took from a funding perspective. So that when I'm talking to our leadership about something, it's not a one year and then oh by the way, we're going to have to pay for it the second year. Well, we've got some grants and other things. Here's a four year funding package for this activity. Okay. And then once you see the energy, once it's unfolded, it unfolds in front of you. I can't. You know, I mentioned the support of our superintendent Thomas Taylor, who was with us throughout the season and of course all the way through the state finals. Watching this unfold and just being. You see it and you have that support, you know, from, from the top literally. It just means so much and you see that and then you're able to. To navigate some of those other challenges. So I would encourage our school system leaders and our school ads to look at some other avenues of funding if that's something that's a current roadblock has.
- [36:30]
A
Been such a great episode and learning and how to, to really launch this program and seeing some of the nuances that you dealt with and, and some of the best practices. I've really enjoyed this one today. Cannot thank you enough for joining us, Jeff.
- [36:44]
C
Well, it's been my pleasure. It's something I've been very passionate about. You can probably hear the enthusiasm and excitement still in my voice. It's just been a great ride and we're looking forward to watching this continue to evolve.
- [36:57]
A
Who are the top teams for next year? I'm not going to let you off that easy. Who's your prediction for the state state championships next year?
- [37:04]
C
Well, it's going to be hard. Clarksburg's are defending state titles so until someone knocks them off our state championship, they took the initial title. So until someone knocks them off, you got to go, you know. With Clarksburg, Northwest was also in the states in the state final four. They did an outstanding job. We had a lot of great teams. You know, Kennedy and Magruder, we've just got it. What was great about this and I want to end on this point. I talked about the diversity of our school system which is something we embrace very much so. Any way you want to talk about diversity, you see it and I think that's what has been so empowering about girls flags is across whatever socioeconomic race. It just the school communities. Girls flag was not just a home run, it was a grand slam. It was out of the park. And that's the beauty of this activity. And I encourage anyone that's thinking about it to go and push this forward.
- [38:05]
B
A lot of resources out there like you said, Jeff. So anybody, any ads listening here, if you need those resources? Jeff kind of mentioned, reach out to people in the state. People have started this already in your state, the NFL teams. You're not reinventing the wheel here. People have done it already. There is a process and one that you can mimic and it's important. And you're going to be providing all these different opportunities for, again, kids who may have not had opportunities before or just different ones for kids who have been involved already. Excited to see you grow.
- [38:39]
A
So much, Jeff. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and you really did provide a great amount of knowledge for all of our listeners. So those that were tuning in today, if you have questions, reach out. We'll be able to get you in contact with the with Jeff as well, and some resources as well. But also, if you like what you heard today, stay tuned for future episodes and make sure you follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast from. In closing, Jeff, thank you again for joining us. Truly appreciated the time today. From A.D. 360, I'm Greg Vandermade.
- [39:13]
B
I'm Scott Rosenberg. Thanks again.
- [39:15]
A
Until next time, folks. Take care.