California Lutheran University Athletics will add women’s flag football to its list of club sports, with the intent to develop the program into a Division III, National Collegiate Athletics Association program by the end of the 2026-2027 school year.
“Women’s flag football, throughout the nation and our area, is really growing considerably fast and is growing at a rapid rate,” Director of Athletics Howard Davis said.
Davis said that the National Football League has invested a lot of money into women’s flag football, which is the main reason the game is increasing in popularity. Davis also said that the NFL is currently paying Reigning Champs Experiences, a company that works to maintain and start sports programs for youth and college athletes to actively promote the sport. RCX offers grants to colleges to get women’s flag football started, Davis said.
“They [RCX] gave us $15,000 in seed money to buy equipment and get the program going,” Davis said.
Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator Brianne Talboom said that Cal Lutheran also started to gain interest once girl’s flag football had become a sanctioned California Interscholastic Federation sport.
“We knew that a lot of high schools would be picking up girl’s flag football and playing and a lot of those young women are going to be looking for places to continue to play. There is a lot of interest out there and we wanted to see if we could be on the cutting edge of it,” Talboom said.
Davis said that in the spring of 2027, he anticipates moving the girl’s flag football team to intercollegiate status where the team would be made up of mostly recruits. Anyone remaining from the club team may also participate, Davis said.
“There’s a lot of interest, and quick. Our plan is to join a club league that we are kind of putting together. We have a meeting on November 1st and there are quite a few teams,” Talboom said.
Talboom said the Nov. 1 meeting will include all schools in the area that are interested in playing flag football including Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles, Northern California, Ventura County and the Inland Empire.
According to Davis and Talboom, Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference teams along with Cal Lutheran, that have shown interest in joining a SCIAC women’s flag football league consist of the University of Redlands, University of La Verne, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, Whittier College and Chapman University.
“I feel really good about the plan. We just need to be sure to implement it in a manner that is going to make it a viable and elite program at Cal Lu,” Davis said.
Davis said that in order to create an elite program, the team will need proper staffing, coaching, support services, strength and conditioning, athletic training and all other additional needs.
“I’m pretty excited. I have watched some highlights of other levels and I think it is going to be a pretty fun sport. I am excited to see if a bunch of athletes do double sports or if we just have a lot of hidden talent already,” Sports Information Director Kieran Cantwell said.
Cantwell also said he will try to give a little extra attention to the women’s flag football team because it will be a new sport for everybody. He said he wants to capitalize on something new and appealing.
Davis said adding a women’s flag football team will benefit the school in many different aspects.
“With our enrollment dip, we thought that adding a sport would help with enrollment, will help meet a student need in our area. A lot of girls play it in the Oxnard, Ventura area and here in the Conejo Valley, it’s huge. Anytime you can add a sport that meets student demand, it’s good to do, especially when it is a female sport,” Davis said.
Davis said the new team would also help Cal Lutheran meet Title IX regulations by meeting the interests and abilities of the demographic area.
“It helps us as far as Title IX when it comes to offerings for female student-athletes. So, it is another opportunity to have another female sport and to get more female student-athletes involved,” Talboom said.
Since women’s flag football will be a spring sport, Davis said he is not concerned about conflicts with field space.
“The spring makes it available. There are still going to be impacts, but now we have William Rolland and Memorial Field as excellent facilities, and North Field is up in the air too. We feel like we are going to have the field space to accommodate it and all current sports as well,” Davis said.
Davis said Cal Lutheran will have a club women’s flag football team in spring 2025. There will be an interest form and announcement being sent out as early as next week to all female students at Cal Lutheran about the club, Davis said. He also said that if interest in the team continues, the team will be under club status again in the spring of 2026.
