St. Francis Catholic High School is proud to announce that flag football will be added to our champion athletics program this fall after the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) approved girls’ flag football as a sanctioned sport. 

CIF, which is the governing body for high school sports in California, unanimously voted to make flag football a girls’ high school sport in February.  Each section and the schools within them were left to determine when to implement the program.  This week, the administration of St. Francis Catholic High School approved adding the sport for the 2023-24 school year.

“Even prior to any official approval of the sport, we had more than 80 girls express interest in playing and a number of experienced coaches have come forward, ready to take it on,” said athletic director Ryan Chisolm.  “The Parochial Athletics League, which governs all of our Catholic feeder schools, has an incredibly popular and successful girls program in place.  Now those female athletes can continue the sport into high school, and specifically here at St. Francis,” said Chisolm.

“This is a huge win for female-student athletes and for St. Francis in particular,” said St. Francis president and CEO Fadia Desmond, Ph.D.  “As a school exclusively for girls, we want to offer our students programs they are passionate about along with the high academic standards and spiritual development we already offer. The passion surrounding the approval of girls’ flag football as a sanctioned sport is palpable,” said Desmond.

St. Francis is in the process of hiring a coach for the program, which will begin in August of 2023. Additional details regarding the season will be released when available.