It’s Wednesday, August 19th and the sun is beating down on the Benninghoven field. It’s day three of tryouts. A group of girls in white shirts, with tryout numbers written in black sharpie stretch before drills start. 

“Okay, name, grade, and how your day was,” junior Reagan Irwin asks the group. 

The question bounces around from girl to girl, accompanied by arm and leg stretches.

At water break, assistant coach Hannah Mott starts braiding a girl’s hair. Nearby other girls talk about team hairstyles. 

Then, it’s time for sprints. The whistle blows, and the girls dash towards the 10-yard line then the 20, all at different speeds. 

“Look like a team!”office receptionist, Nicole Shay, yells out to the girls.

Back in March, Shay didn’t expect a spontaneous conversation with the athletic director to become a serious commitment. She simply said she would be interested if the chance came up. At the time, she wasn’t thinking becoming a flag football coach was a real possibility. 

Then it happened.

On April 23, the Kansas State High School Activities Association board of directors voted 61-1 to sanction girls flag football as an official high school sport. The decision made Kansas the 18th state to pass this law with the sport starting during the 2026-2027 school year.  The decision followed a push from the Kansas City Chiefs “Let Her Play’ campaign, which more than 11,000 people signed.

Suddenly what Shay had just mentioned in March has become a reality.

“I guess we’re doing this,” Shay recalls thinking.

The sport is new to Kansas. And for most of the girls and the coaches on the Benninghoven field, it’s new for them too.

“I didn’t even know how to catch a football whenever tryouts started,” junior Bella Butler said.

Butler had never played a team sport before, only cross country and wrestling which had both been individual sports.

“There were so many things I didn’t know, not because I was trying to be difficult. I just didn’t know how to do it.” Butler said.

Butler wasn’t alone on this, most girls coming into tryouts had never played a real game of football and neither had the coaches.

Something as simple as a route running from cone to cone could send the whole group into the wrong direction. A dropped pass could draw blame before anyone knew how to catch it in the first place.

It wasn’t only the game they didn’t know. They didn’t know each other. Varsity and JV players stuck to their separate corners barely speaking. 

“JV girls supposedly thought we hated them so they hated us,” junior Shayla Perry said. “I don’t really know why it was like that.”

The tension wasn’t always obvious, it didn’t erupt into any big fights, instead it settled who did and didn’t talk to you, a hunch that the girl sitting next to you probably doesn’t want you there. 

There was one girl on the team that Butler didn’t get along with. The two had history dating back to freshman year and the feeling was mutual. But during an interception drill in August, the girl stepped wrong and went down, leaving her ankle bent in a bad angle. It was one of the hottest days of practice and the field had no shade.

Butler walked over anyway.

“Hey, is it okay that I’m here?” Butler asked.

The girl said yes. Butler picked her up and carried her all the way down to the trainers. The two talked on the way down.

“I don’t want to sit here and be best friends with her,” Butler said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let her sit in pain as my teammate. She’s not some rando anymore.”

It took a sit-down at practice and a first game to start closing that gap.

 . . .

It’s 7:00 p.m. on a Wednesday and it’s 93 degrees. The sun is so bright it’s difficult to see across the field, and the Shawnee Mission Northwest girls flag football team is about to step on the field for the first time ever.

“Know your spots, you don’t even need to huddle up, just go!” Dan Shay, Nicole Shay’s husband, calls from the sideline.

The group of varsity girls in white numbered jerseys and pink flags around their waists huddle up.

“1-2-3 Cougars!” the team chants, before breaking into their spots. 

In the stands, parents and siblings watch as the girls rush to their positions.

“Starts by the 10, not the four! That’s the wrong spot!” Dan Shay yells out. 

A voice from the crowd responds, “mind you, none of these girls have played football before.” 

Into the second quarter, junior Kenley Dearing scores the first touchdown of the season.

  The intercom announces: 

“Pass made by number 55 Kenley Dearing. Catch by number 19 Reagan Irwin. ”

A white 6 appears under the guest sign.

“Me and Reagan just made history, that was our first ever touchdown. It was a wow moment, like we’re going to go down in history as the first ones to ever get a touchdown,” Dearing said.

The girls didn’t win their first game. But after the final whistle a group of girls started dancing.

“This was our first game ever,” Butler said. “We should be more excited about that. We could sit here and be upset about losing, or we could be happy and thankful we were even able to play.

Not everyone felt that way, some players were frustrated, but for Butler and a few others the loss didn’t change what the night truly was, a vote from five months ago turning into reality.

Last Saturday, the Shawnee Mission Northwest girls Varsity flag football team played their third and fourth game of the season. The girls lost both games, the first one 7-0 and the second 56-6 

Five months ago, none of this existed — not the sport, not the team, not the friendships of the girls who now know each other’s names. 

Being a team to Shay isn’t about who scores the most or is the fastest, it’s a lot simpler. 

“Don’t leave anyone in the dust,” Shay said. “Yes, you want to look good as a player, but also, they’re not looking at you as one single player. You are a team. So act like a team.”

After the loss, the team piled around four pushed-together tables at Johnny’s Tavern for a team lunch. JV and varsity sat together, even though it had only been a varsity game. Dan ordered chips and salsa, nachos and fried pickles for the table. Boyfriends and water boys showed up later, too. Shay hugs a player from behind. Laughter and conversations carried across the table in the freezing cold restaurant as they ate their food still in their jerseys, for a moment, they look like a team.