GREAT FALLS — Flag football is a sport that is growing rapidly, and just this year an NFL Flag league got started in Great Falls.
The idea stemmed from one of the founders, Mitchell Morris, who was playing flag football in Eugene, Ore., before he moved back to Montana.
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"I fell in love, like it was an amazing program they run out there," Morris said last Wednesday at the Great Falls Multi-Sports Complex. "I decided to move home two years ago, and I thought, we don't have anything like that back home in Montana here. That's something I should look into doing."
From there, Morris met George Fontanez and current Great Falls High football assistant coach Zack Ringler as both signed their kids up to play.
"We were talking with Mitchell and then throughout the season we ended up talking with him enough that he trusted us," Ringler said. "He asked if we wanted to come on with the leadership of it and help grow it and expand beyond just the spring season, and try and make this something that's going to be nearly year round and a solid part of the community for years to come."
"Reached out to Mitchell one day and said, 'Look, this is getting bigger and faster you know, quicker than I guess everybody expected,'" Fontanez said. "Let's help out, we want to help out."
The three now run the NFL Flag league in the Electric City, with the goal in mind of making football more accessible for anyone.
"More opportunities for kids to play," Ringler said. "We really want to give kids an opportunity like how they have with soccer and basketball where there's multiple seasons in a year."
"Around the nation now it's growing huge, and some high schools actually have it as a girls sport in high school," Fontanez said. "So I think that's the biggest thing is getting the girls out there with the boys, and pairing them up, and making it equal."
"I want our kids to develop," Morris said. "Really for the girls too. This is really, really big for girls, because girls are going to be a high school sport soon, and we just need more opportunities for girls to play."
There will be an adult league which corresponds with the spring kids league as well starting in July, and Trent Jones is someone who has spearheaded that aspect of the initiative — especially since Jones is in the Air Force and is getting service members from the Malmstrom base to play.
"I look to fostering the relationship between military and civilians," Jones said. "We try and always breed a better relationship with the community that we're involved in. So that's what we're looking forward to."
To cap off the spring season for the kids, they'll have a chance to play for a championship on a bigger stage.
"Come out and check out the championship tournament that we're doing in Memorial Stadium on the 7th," Ringler said. "We got the kids ready, we got super bowl rings ready to go, memorial bowl rings ready to go for the winners, it's going to be a blast."
