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Ottawa University is gunning for its fifth straight NAIA women’s flag football championship this week at The University of Kansas Health System Training Facility, the Kansas City Current’s practice digs in Riverside.
“If you would have told me 10 years ago I would be coaching flag football in college, I'd have told you you were crazy,” Ottawa head coach Liz Sowers said.
Sowers — whose sister, Katie, became the first woman and openly gay coach in Super Bowl history five years ago — simply couldn’t dream of such opportunities growing up in Hesston, Kansas, because they didn’t exist.
“I grew up thinking I would coach college basketball,” Sowers said. “It's what our dad did. Football really wasn't an option to coach until Katie (now an assistant on Liz’s staff) was coaching it in the NFL, but then we thought the only version of football we could coach is men.”
Football hasn’t always been an option for women and girls.
“It's sad because you want to do it so bad — and not only do you have the whole world being like, ‘That's a man sport. You can't do that. You're just a little girl,’” Ottawa senior Addison Orsborn said. “It shuts down your dreams and, as a girl, you're like, ‘Wow, nobody has my back on this.’ It just crushes your soul.”
With apologies to Bob Dylan — the times, they are a-changin’.
“When Liz told me that I could get a scholarship to play in college — No. 1, I probably couldn't afford college without it; well, I know I couldn't — so when I had that opportunity, I was like, ‘Wow, it's not just my fun, free-time thing anymore.”'
Orsborn — who also plays for the USA Football Women’s Flag National Team, which won the IFAF World Cup last summer in Finland, and is eyeing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where flag football will debut — has been part of Ottawa’s last three championship teams.
She hopes to add a fourth Thursday as the NAIA Women’s Flag Finals conclude in Kansas City, which is also hosting the NJCAA Women’s Flag Football Finals.
“These young ladies don't know how big of trailblazers they're being,” Sowers said.
Flag football remains classified as an emerging sport at the college level, but it’s also growing in popularity at the high school level — spurred along by interest and investment from the NFL.
Fifteen state high school activities associations currently sanction girls flag football, while 18 other states have provisionally added it — including Missouri, whose membership voted to make it an emerging sport last month — or have NFL pilot programs, including Kansas.
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“We just get so excited just for the little girls, because that was us at some point,” Orsborn said.
She didn’t get to play flag football in high school, but her alma mater, Meridian World School, added a program earlier this year.
“I'm happy that the wheels are moving, but I would love for it to go faster,” Sowers said. “I was a small town Kansas girl — never got the opportunity — so when I start to see Kansas and Missouri in those early stages, it's cool to see that.”
As for Ottawa’s mission this week to win another title: “We get everyone's best game; we get everyone's Super Bowl. Everyone wants to take us down,” Sowers said.
So far, no one’s been able to as Ottawa stormed through pool play with a 63-0 win against the University of Saint Mary on Monday and a 40-0 win against Milligan (Tennessee) on Tuesday.
“Pressure makes diamonds and we’ve got a lot of those,” Orsborn said, pointing to her ring finger. “Going for another one.”
Ottawa plays Kansas Wesleyan in the quarterfinals at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. The semifinals are set for 3 p.m. with the NAIA championship game at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
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