Westcliff Women’s Flag Football Slated for ’24 Start

By Brandon Petersen

Women's Flag Football is an emerging sport in the NAIA, and now it's headed to Irvine as one of two new programs the Westcliff athletic department will introduce in the 2023-24 school year. 

Women's wrestling, the other new program, will begin in the winter of 2023, while women's flag starts in the spring of 2024. 

Since Dean of Athletics, Shawn Harris, took over the athletic department four years ago, Westcliff has prioritized emerging sports in order to be on the cutting edge of college athletics. 

"Don't wait for the right opportunity, create it," Harris said. "To see an opportunity, we must be open-minded. Opportunity is everywhere, the key is to develop the vision to see it."

Westcliff was the first athletic department in the world to offer surf athletic scholarships, it was the first-ever men's beach AVCA national champion, and when futsal kicks off next season, the Warriors will represent the lone college program in the world. 

Now, women's flag enters the fold. 

"Girls flag football is a new sport in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), and the Southern Section, at the high school level," Harris said. "Women's flag is among the fast-growing sports in the United States and Westcliff Athletics is one of the fastest-growing NAIA programs in the country.

"Why not us?"

Women's flag, which is played in a 7-on-7 format, became a college-sanctioned sport a year ago, when the NAIA teamed up with the NFL to kick-start the program nationwide. 

The 15 original teams to compete were awarded a $15,000 stipend from the NFL to aid in the on-boarding process. 

Three schools to originally participate were Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including Xavier in New Orleans, Florida Memorial and Tougaloo in Mississippi. 

Currently, the only other women's flag program on the West Coast is Cal Pac rival La Sierra in Riverside.

The Warriors will play a nationwide schedule right out of the gate, but Harris believes it won't take long for women's flag to find the success so many other burgeoning Warrior programs have. 

"The goal always is to win championships," he said. " We understand that there is a process to achieving success. We embrace that process and believe that our 5Cs culture will be the foundation for the consistency and mental endurance required to hoist a championship trophy in our inaugural year.

"We understand the difficulties that lie ahead. But we are relentless in our pursuit to achieve greatness, and in our ability to foster an environment of inclusion that promotes diversity and equity in all of our sports. That's what set us apart from our competition."

If you would like to be involved with Westcliff's new women's flag football program, the athletic department is currently in its coaching search.

To apply, send your resume to Associate-ad@westcliff.edu. 

"Westcliff Athletics dominates emerging sports," Harris said. "We embrace being the tip of the spear — trailblazing — and modeling the way for others to follow."