When the AHSAA announced the addition of girls flag football for the fall of 2021 late in the 2020-21 school year, it left schools scrambling to try and figure out if they could field a team on short notice.

Here on Sand Mountain, just one team declared for the sport a year ago, when Guntersville initially said it would try to field a team. But as the summer drew on and school started, numbers dropped and ultimately the Wildcats opted not to field a team last season.

That was the case around the state as nearly 70 teams originally stated their intention to have a flag football team, only to see that number drop to around 45 when the season actually began.

With a year under its belt, just under 60 teams have declared for the 2022 season of flag football, including Albertville, who will be the lone team in the area to field a team this year.

For the Aggies, the combination of turnover in the athletic department combined with the late announcement of the sport by the AHSAA a year ago led to the school holding out until this year to field a squad.

“We’re doing it,” Albertville Athletic Director Matt Lambert said. “We’re going to be full-blown, coach has the schedule going, working on all that right now, so we’re going to roll with it this year.

“I became the AD in July last year, and you have to declare fall sports around Christmas time, so if you’re declaring a winter sport, you have to have it declared in March. So about six months in advance you have to declare, and everything last year was already declared and on the books for next year before I became AD.”

Despite not having a team last season, Lambert said that when the school year started last fall, that a number of students and teachers reached out to him about the possibility of adding a team for next season, and for Lambert, once the school was able to secure the funding for travel and coach stipends, it became a no-brainer to add flag football to the school’s list of growing extracurricular activities.

“I had a bunch of students and some teachers who came to me back in the fall and said they were interested in doing it,” Lambert explained. “And so the name of the game is to do what’s in the best interest of the kids. We had a good discussion with the administrators and teachers who wanted to start it and made a commitment to raise the funds, and then once you do that, you need board approval for coach stipends, and once all that got approved, we declared back in November.”

Heading up the team is Quinton Williams, with Lambert noting that over 20 girls have come out for the team, with the season set to start in late August or early September.

Lambert said that while a schedule hasn’t been finalized yet, most games will most likely be played on Mondays and Tuesdays.

“I wasn’t sure how many girls we would have when we did this, but our head coach, Quinton Williams, he’s one of those guys who gets along with everyone, and he’s 100 percent bought in to changing kids’ lives,” Lambert noted.

“He wants them to be good people, he’s worried about them growing up to be solid people. The kids are drawn to him. He’s the type of guy that’s easy to play for and he’s done a good job of spreading the word, and I’m sure as this takes off more and more kids will get involved.

“For our first year out in an unknown sport, I feel like we’ve got a lot of good interest.”

From there, the season plays like traditional tackle football, including State Championship games at the Super 7 on Nov. 30 at Jordan-Hare Stadium at Auburn University.

Albertville will play in a three-team area in its first season, which features returners in Oxford and Anniston, who Lambert said the school has leaned on to help learn the ins and outs of the sport and what all goes into fielding a team.

But above all else, the decision to add a team came back to Albertville’s growth as a school, and the chance to give students more opportunities to do activities outside the traditional classroom experience.

“You have a school the size of Albertville,” Lambert concluded. “We’re just trying to create opportunities for our kids to do more than just be a student, and the more experiences you have the more well-rounded you’ll be, and you’ll learn life skills you can’t in a classroom.

“When we have opportunities to expand our reach and get more kids involved, if we can afford to do it, we’re doing it.”

Flag football is played 7-on-7, with no padding like shoulder pads, pants or helmets.

Instead, the players wear flags at their waist and are “tackled” when one of the flags is pulled from their waist while holding the ball.

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