For area youth and their families who have seen the national commercials for NFL Flag Football and wanted to be part of that movement, your time to sign up is now. In fact, the sign-up deadline is this Friday at aftonwyoming.sportsites.com as the Afton Recreation League is encouraging as many kids as possible to register.
“We’ve always had flag football here in the fall and this year we wanted to take it a step further,” stated Allen Simpson who helps with the Afton league. “So we got in touch with NFL Flag Football and we submitted an application to come here to Star Valley. One of the stipulations is that you can’t have a league within [a certain] amount of miles and we were like, we don’t have any towns. But, we were recently approved for NFL Flag Football here in Star Valley so it’s going to be pretty cool.”
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Kids who play will get an official flag football jersey with an official NFL team.
“We get to pick the teams and the jerseys will be reversible and they will get their own flags with that,” Simpson added.
The league will come with some organizational advantages and helps the league be a bit more exciting he also noted. There is a growing interest across the country for flag football.
“I’ve talked to a lot of kids and they are most excited about the jerseys,” Simpson continued. “The big thing that started this push around the nation is that it’s going to be an Olympic sport for the 2028 games and it’s got kids extra excited.”
With this league is an expanded option for area girls to play including those aged 7th grade through seniors in high school.
“Girls flag football is really started to take off,” Simpson said. “There are 17 states that have it as a sanctioned sport. I think it would be a huge thing for girls here. We will put the games at 7 p.m. on Wednesday night in the month of October, so, October 1 through October 29. I’ve heard a lot of excitement from girls who want to come and play but we need players. So we are trying to get 20 or more so we can have a lot of fun with this.”
Interested kids and parents can sign up through the Town of Afton website or by going directly to aftonwyoming.sportsites.com. The deadline of this Friday, September 19, is a bit of a hard deadline according to Simpson.
“This is so we can get the jerseys and the flags ordered,” he stated. “The cost is $50 for the season and there were be five or six games. This covers the jerseys, flags and insurance. It’s going to be a lot of fun, 5-on-5 and a fast-paced game and they can be part of a team with the NFL logo on your chest. We’d love to put a girls flag league in as well so get registered and let’s play football this fall.”
