Youth Girls Flag Football Clinic Success

On Saturday, January 31st the Palos Starlets held a winter clinic to prepare for the upcoming inaugural spring season. The Starlets is a brand new youth girls flag football league serving girls in grades 3rd-8th. While other girls only leagues exist, the Palos Starlets is the first in this area.

70 girls came out to see what flag football is all about.

The sport has been growing in popularity over the last couple years, especially among girls. IHSA even made Girls Flag Football an official high school sport two years ago.

The Starlets program will be helpful to community in many ways. This league is giving girls an opportunity to learn and compete while staying active. The league will be beneficial for the high school programs where these girls will end up one day. Currently, high school coaches find athletic girls that want to play but they have never played before. There's a lot of teaching the basics and a lot to learn. Having a youth program will increase the number of girls going into a high school flag team that already know how to play. Meaning the teams can become even more competitive and more successful.

Coach Saja Alnajjar from the Stagg girls flag was in attendance at the camp to help out. A few players from Staggs team also came out to help the girls.

The Palos Starlets Winter Clinic started out with a video introduction to explain what flag football is and the differences between flag football and tackle football.

Some of the girls in attendance have played football or flag football before, but many are brand new to the sport.

After the intro video, the girls headed into the gym where coaches divided the girls up at different stations. Each station focused on a different skill.

Coaches showed them what to do and then everyone had a chance to try it out themselves.

The energy was happy and positive the whole time. Getting groups of girls together for sports is something special. They are always encouraging to each other and form bonds quickly.

From ladder races, flag pulling, throwing and passing, the girls learned so much about the game. Everyone had fun!

The inaugural season will begin in Mid March and go through May. Online registration is open until February 14th, so don't wait to sign up!

Visit the Starlets Website for more details and to register: Palos Starlets Website