Carlton Rosemond spent half of last season trying to instruct the newbies on the basics of flag football in the first year of the Evanston Township High School girls program.
He spent the other half trying to keep opposing coaches --- and officials --- up on the rules of the game.
So Rosemond is the logical choice to take the ETHS program forward next season in Year 2. No one has more experience in the sport than Rosemond, who has played in a coed league in the city of Chicago for 15 years and as a volunteer assistant guided an Evanston defense that allowed just two touchdowns per game last fall.
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When Luella Gesky decided not to return as head coach next year, Rosemond stepped up to the challenge. He’ll try to build off last year’s surprising success, a 9-4 won-loss record achieved with rookies who knew virtually nothing about the 7-on-7 sport until they stepped on a practice field for the first time.
Rosemond plans to raise the bar as far as expectations on the field. But he wants it to be fun, too.
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“With the majority of the team returning from last year, with a full year under their belts, the expectation now is that they’ll develop their skills to a more advanced level,” Rosemond said. “It was OK just for us to be competitive last year. Now we want to be better.
“I played all those years in the city for fun. Now that experience turns into a purpose. It’s so exciting to be in on the ground floor of this, and I think this sport is going to skyrocket in the next few years to where even the colleges will be putting teams together to compete.”
The Illinois High School Association announced last month that it will sponsor a state tournament series in the sport next fall. The details still need to be ironed out, but the finals will likely be held at the Chicago Bears practice facility in Deerfield.
In a press release announcing the transition of girls flag football to a full-fledged varsity sport recognized by the IHSA, Executive Director Craig Anderson noted that “The addition of Girls Flag Football furthers the IHSA mission of creating participation opportunities for high school students in Illinois. The sport has experienced significant growth in a short amount of time, and our member schools are excited to see it become an IHSA sport. The Chicago Public Schools Athletic Administration and the Chicago Bears both deserve significant praise for their grassroots efforts in shepherding and supporting the growth of girls flag football in Illinois.”
More than 100 schools have already committed to fielding teams and participating next fall, including Central Suburban League schools Deerfield, Glenbrook South, Niles West, Maine East, Maine South, Maine West, New Trier and Glenbrook North.
The Wildkit girls could play a 20-game schedule over the 8-week season and Rosemond hopes to field three levels of teams --- varsity, junior varsity and frosh-soph --- if enough players turn out.
Even as a volunteer coach, Rosemond was busy promoting the sport in the Evanston community. A long-time assistant in the girls basketball program, he is also an assistant softball coach at the high school and recognizes the value of building relationships (and a potential feeder program) at the elementary and middle school levels.
He reached out to the Junior Wildkits tackle football program to help schedule clinics so potential players could learn more about the sport and they’ve worked together on three clinics so far.
“Outside of fourth and fifth grade, there’s no flag football after that, so I wanted to be proactive,” Rosemond said. “I asked Leonard English of the Junior Wildkits about maybe putting in a flag football division and they were gracious enough to give us space in their own clinics. We’ve had three clinics so far and we’re planning to have three or four more leading into our summer camp. My goal is to keep those kids engaged in the sport as they transition out of fifth grade.”
Rosemond didn’t play high school football but has played competitively in Chicago for a coed adult team that has featured former ETHS athletes like Kim Davis, Billy Survillion, Lorenzo Stephens and Angela Watt. Now the high school programs are using basically the same rules featured in that league, and Rosemond, a defensive back, forcused on that side of the ball while Gesky led the offense last fall.
The new head coach will also have the opportunity to coach his two freshman daughters, too. Brielle Rosemond and KyNia Hunt, who also played for the ETHS varsity basketball team as freshmen, are among the players returning for the Wildkits.
“It was so much fun for me to see them gravitate to a sport I’ve loved for 15 years, and for them to pick my brain about so many things,” said the coach. “I asked them both beforehand if they thought it would be OK for me to volunteer, and they were fine with it. It helps that they both played offense and I coached the defense. It’s so important to me to have that extra time with them and it makes my heart so happy that they’re both involved.”
Rosemond hopes that other young girls will follow the path of freshman Jardon Pringle, who played for the JV squad last year and hopes to move into the starting varsity lineup as a cornerback next season.
About 35 girls stuck with the program last fall and the new coach would like to boost the numbers, especially if he can find players like Pringle, who couldn’t find a niche in other sports.
“I played other sports (in junior high) but I never really found a fit,” Pringle said. “I explored all the other options and then one of my friends told me maybe we should try flag football. I was skeptical at first --- I know I have some ability but I really didn’t think of myself as an athlete --- and then I decided I wanted to try something new. I had never really watched football or played it.
“I was kinda surprised how much I enjoyed it. It was hard because it was my first year of high school, trying to manage my time and everything. The hardest part was putting my brain in that space where you have to listen and respond effectively in certain (game) situations. You have to be able to apply what you’ve been taught in real time, and that’s challenging when you’ve never done it before.
“I really like the team aspect of the sport and the team moments were what was so special last season. It’s great to be part of something new, something that’s ground-breaking like this.”
