Flag football has been eyed by many schools around our state. With over 51 schools participating in 2025, that number seems to have doubled now. CDH has decided to be one of the additions with a girls flag football team. Science teacher Chad Anderson is set to become the staff leader of the club as he has had some experience with coaching Varsity-level football for over 32 years at various institutions and has some experience of playing flag himself in his youth years. He wants to create connections with students, like all coaches, and allow girls to play this sport, thus improving their skills. To create a true team spirit, he inspires to make relationships with the individual players that will eventually find and learn their role on the team which helps everyone support each other collectively. Furthermore, he wants to strive to make the team known for CDH’s ‘championship culture.’ With these efforts, he plans to hit the ground running and start the foundation for this club, which he believes will become a MNHSL sport in next 2 years, so someone else can later on take over his spot and be head coach in years to come.
Currently, he believes there will be two teams, Junior Varsity and Varsity, but later on there will be an addition of B-squad and freshman teams once flag football has developed at CDH and around Minnesota as a whole. Around 185 girls signed up to join the flag team. In these future players, he hopes to see full commitment and the ability to strive for excellence while not being afraid of making mistakes. Anderson did say cuts will be made, but he knows there will be a mix of all grades. He knows that cuts will be the hardest part of establishing this new exciting club, but it is necessary
“I want to build for the future and because it’s also in May, I might lean more heavily towards younger athletes,” replied Anderson as he reveals more behind the scenes information on how cuts are going to work in the spring.
During the season, players should evolve and pick up traits such as spirit to represent their club, companionship and comradry, and understanding their work ethic is what creates success. Anderson sees the typical practices being 2 nights a week and double headers on one day of the week for 4 weeks, with a by-week. The Varsity would play 2 games on Sunday and the JV would play 2 games on Tuesday. There are opportunities to join some tournaments, especially hopes that they will join the Vikings tournament. For all girls flag football clubs and teams, the coaches are planning on assembling the basics and fundamentals for all players.
