PHOENIX — Catarina Maccagnano is working toward an Olympic-sized goal, not through her original love of softball, but via flag football.
“Honestly, (I) fell in love with it,†Maccagnano said of the sport that will make its Olympic debut in a five-on-five format at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. “Just the feeling on the football field was a different feeling than the softball field could bring me.
“It felt new and it felt like, ‘OK, I can start new here,’ and play myself, play how I want to play.â€
Maccagnano, a sophomore at Glendale’s Arizona Christian University who was raised in Chandler, experienced great success in the first season that girls flag football was a varsity sport in the Arizona Interscholastic Association. In 2023, with Maccagnano at quarterback, Hamilton High School made the 6A semifinals.
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To keep that Olympic flame alive, she wanted to pursue flag football in college but, at the time, that meant going out of state. Maccagnano made the journey to Lake Wales, Florida, and competed for NAIA Warner University.
But before she played a game as a freshman in the spring of 2025, Arizona Christian University announced in October it had added flag football as a varsity sport. In December, Michael Maccagnano, Catarina’s father, became the program’s first head coach.
The opportunity to return to the Valley and play local came knocking, and Catarina answered by committing to ACU on June 7.
“That’s part of my intention, is bringing the talent back to the West Coast because I know so many girls who traveled to Kansas, traveled to Florida and New Jersey and they just feel like they need to be home,†Catarina said.

Catarina Maccagnano, Warner University freshman flag football player, prepares to pass at the NAIA Women’s Flag Football Championship in Riverside, Missouri, on May 6, 2025.Â
Surprise’s Ottawa University Arizona and Benedictine University Mesa, also NAIA members, soon followed suit by adding women’s flag football in January and April, respectively.
The trio of Arizona-based schools made waves not just locally for high school hopefuls but also paved the way for the NAIA’s third flag football conference. They join California’s La Sierra University, Hope International University and Simpson University in the Great Southwest Athletic Conference, with Simpson as an associate conference member.
“It’s going to do nothing but obviously continue to grow and see more schools buy in and jump in,†Michael said.
As of April, the NCAA said there were more than 65 schools interested in adding the sport at the club or varsity level. If the management council continues to see interest grow at its current rate, the NCAA could conceivably host its first flag football championship in spring of 2028, said Stephanie Kwok, NFL’s Head of Flag Football.
“(That) would put us right before the (2028 Summer Olympics), so that’d be a pretty big year for flag,†Kwok said. “Nothing official yet, but if it were to happen at that pace, that would be the fastest sport to become an NCAA championship sport.â€
Female athletes haven’t had to wait long to reach flag football’s national stage, as the NAIA began hosting championships in spring of 2021. But from six states (Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska) and 16 schools represented in 2021 to 10 states (California, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee joined) and 23 schools in 2025, more and more are unlocking the opportunity to play.
Steve Wilson, NAIA director of athletics communications, said 35 schools will participate in the 2026 season. NAIA women’s flag football will move from an “emerging sport†classification to “invitational,†a transformative upgrade that was announced July 9. Once the sport meets the 40-school threshold, it will earn full championship status.
On the Arizona high school scene, the AIA approved the sport for varsity competition in the fall of 2023, tightening the increasingly crowded flag football timeline.
Fifty-four high schools adopted flag football in its first year, enough for 5A and 6A play. Following a sophomore season of 101 schools vying for 4A, 5A and 6A championships, year three will feature four conferences and 135 participating schools, said Tyler Cerimeli, AIA director of athletics and officials.
“Every single school that we talk to says when they hold tryouts, they just get so many girls out ready to participate,†Cerimeli said. “Some are multisport athletes. … But we’re seeing a lot of first-time athletes. … They’re coming out specifically because of the excitement of flag football.â€
Kwok never had the chance to play flag football in an organized way — she enjoyed her fair share of courtyard football in middle school — but has watched her athletic dreams come alive since filling the NFL’s self-created position in May 2024.
“We were in El Paso and heard about a girl who tried out for four different high school teams and didn’t make any of them,†Kwok said. “And flag football was that last opportunity she had to have that high school experience.â€
Though Kaila Yniguez had extensive athletic experience as a longtime softball player, she gravitated toward flag football when it was first offered her senior year at California’s Bellflower High School. She went from not being interested when her mother mentioned it as a possibility to earning a college scholarship at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.
“Dang, I really enjoy playing this sport knowing I had dropped the sport (softball) I’ve been playing since I was 3,†Yniguez said.
Home sweet home
Southwestern won a game in the NAIA national championship last season but success wasn’t enough to keep Yniguez more than 1,400 miles from home. Yniguez told her So Cal Reign club coaches about her intention to transfer and they messaged ACU’s Michael Maccagnano. Once Yniguez learned what the school was about and that she could study sports psychology, she announced her commitment May 8.
Not only do West Coast athletes want to develop their skills near their roots, coaches of these new programs want to keep them local.
Brian Winstead, who in April was named the women’s flag football coach at Benedictine University Mesa, spent the past three years at the helm of Gilbert High School’s girls flag football team and has more than 15 years of experience with the game of football.
“One of the reasons I love being here at Ben U is because I do think Arizona’s a hotbed for girls flag and I’m excited to try to keep these girls from going out of state,†Winstead said. “We can win with a lot of talent we have right here in our backyard.â€
Winstead also emphasized he is preaching “debt free†play for in-state prospects.
One of Winstead’s former Gilbert players, Jalyssa Guerrero, will continue to develop and refine her game under his watchful eye in Mesa. Flag football is not a singular passion in her family, as three of Guerrero’s younger sisters also play the sport.
Even with the built-in camaraderie, Guerrero said it took a powder puff football game at Gilbert to ignite the possibility of taking flag to the next level. She was originally set on only playing soccer in college.
Because NAIA flag competes in spring, Guerrero will be able to maintain her multisport athlete lifestyle in the fall as a midfielder for the Redhawks women’s soccer team.
“I think soccer helped me gain a lot of my movement for football, like my speed, my footwork, my burst,†Guerrero said. “When I’m (a) running back and I get the ball, I’m jogging and then I sprint, so I think soccer helped me a lot.â€

Gilbert High School senior Jalyssa Guerrero receives a handoff from sophomore Lilah Barton during a girls flag football game against Casteel in Queen Creek on Sept. 17, 2024.Â
Guerrero’s incoming teammate, Emily Williams, has been around football her whole life as her father, Alphonso, played professionally for the NFL, USFL and CFL. To her disbelief, she made a boys flag football team in middle school at Summit Academy Junior High in Chandler.
At Chandler High School, however, Williams could not play the sport until her senior year in 2023. She tried her hand at basketball and tennis, with the latter her main sport her junior year.
“It was really a roller coaster because I didn’t expect to go back to the flag world,†said Williams, who played alongside Yniguez at Southwestern College during her freshman season.
Williams said her participation in the Arizona Cardinals’ NFL Flag College Showcase in March 2024 was critical in making her current collegiate track a possibility.
Guerrero’s father, JD, a Gilbert High flag football assistant coach, was at the showcase, and Williams said his local roots helped make it easier to keep pursuing flag football.
“Just knowing that Coach G was on the staff … and just being able to see how much he’s a part of the community, not even just in Arizona but also in California,†Williams said. “It’s so beneficial, especially when you know somebody is a part of the community, you know where their heart is, you know where their heart is set and you know how they are going to be as a coach.â€
Marino Lee, Ottawa University Arizona flag football coach, echoed Winstead in that securing Arizona talent and keeping them home is of utmost importance in his early and future recruiting efforts. A Saguaro High School and Arizona Christian alumnus, Lee said he first applied for the ACU head coach opening before pivoting to the opportunity in Surprise.
Just the beginning
The international reach is resonating at the Arizona collegiate startups, as ACU’s Maccagnano said he has had interest from a few female athletes in Panama and New Zealand, while Benedictine Mesa’s Winstead said Germany and Switzerland will be represented on his squad, as well as the soccer team.
“Even with so many top players, there’s still pretty low awareness among girls and among their families that there is an opportunity to play in college,†Kwok said.

The center on the William Woods flag football team prepares to hike the ball in a game against Cottey College at the NAIA Women’s Flag Football Championship in Riverside, Missouri, on May 6, 2025.Â
Besides the major difference in high school and international gameplay — seven-on-seven compared to five-on-five — rule standardization was a major step in streamlining the sport.
Flag football has had biannual men's and women's world championships since 2002 under the International Federation of American Football, but June marked the first time the game’s rules have been standardized at the high school level. The National Federation of State High School Associations published the first flag football rules book June 16.
In addition to Cerimeli’s role with AIA, he is also the chair of the 11-member NFHS Flag Football Rules Committee.
“We took all of those rule books and brought it together,†Cerimeli said of pulling from youth, college intramural, international, NFL Flag and individual state rule books. “(We said), ‘OK, what’s the best for high school athletes to make this the legitimate sport that it is?’ And we’re really happy with the result.â€
Consistent rules, positive momentum in the NCAA, NAIA and on the state level, along with inclusion in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, has set up flag football for unprecedented growth. Yet the sport still has the ability to develop its talent at an even younger level.
Winstead said the Gilbert Youth Football League has doubled its girls participation over the past year and added that within the next five years people will be talking about girls flag on a club level like they do with basketball.
“You’re going to have girls that are not new to the sport,†Winstead said. “They’re going to be doing it for three or four years when they hit high school. That amount of talent is going to be incredible to watch.â€
As for the present generation, the Olympics may be three years away, but they aren’t seen as unattainable.
For Catarina Maccagnano, who could represent the U.S. or Italy as a dual citizen, she answered for the majority when asked if she wants to be an Olympian.
“Yes sir, definitely,†Maccagnano said.