Wisconsin college forms first-of-its-kind women’s flag football team with help from Minnesota Vikings

Allison Letcher wanted to play football ever since she was a little girl. 

But opportunities for young girls to play the sport were limited, and she worried that the injury risk of tackle football could disrupt her other athletic goals.

So, she stuck with basketball through college, now as a senior point guard for the University of Wisconsin-Stout Blue Devils team that went all the way to the Division III national semifinals this spring. 

The sting of her postseason run coming to an end was quickly replaced by an excitement for the start of a new opportunity to fulfill that childhood dream.

Less than three weeks after losing in the final four on March 20, Letcher started a new season as a quarterback on UW-Stout’s first-ever women’s flag football team.

“Throughout the whole basketball season, I kept thinking about how exciting it’s going to be to roll into a new sport,” Letcher told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “It’s unlike any other sport that I’ve ever gotten to play.”

Thanks to a $140,000 contribution and partnership with the NFL and the Minnesota Vikings, the Blue Devils and five other D-III colleges in the Midwest formed a new women’s flag football league. 

UW-Stout is the first four-year college in Wisconsin to offer women’s flag football as a sponsored program in the athletic department and not just an intramural or club sport.

The Wauwatosa campus of Bryant & Stratton College was the first college in the state to field a women’s flag football team, playing at the junior college level starting in 2023.

Marian University, Beloit College and Ripon College are among other private colleges in Wisconsin that have announced plans to form women’s flag football teams in the future.

Duey Naatz, UW-Stout athletic director and head women’s flag football coach, told “Wisconsin Today” that if not for the contribution from the NFL, the school couldn’t have fielded a team this quickly.

“When you look at adding sports, there’s pieces of that puzzle that need to come together, and one of them is the financial piece,” Naatz said. “Because of their support, we were able to move right away and have a competitive season this year. So in the future, now, we will work on budgeting and planning to have this team continue to be part of our sports module and support it financially so we can continue to grow.”

Naatz said the Green Bay Packers were also involved in the discussions to form the league. Earlier this month, the team announced that it gave $100,000 in total donations to 20 different Wisconsin high schools to help them start girls flag football teams of their own.

In UW-Stout’s league, the schools play five-on-five, with teams needing to gain 25 yards to earn a first down. All players, including the center who snaps the ball, are eligible to catch passes, and there are no punts or live-ball fumbles.

“A lot of the rules are a little bit safety-based,” Naatz said. “But for the most part, it’s football without pads.”

With the team coming together quickly this spring, the Blue Devils pulled in some players who weren’t otherwise playing sports on campus.

That included graduate student Adalyn Lehman, who had participated in track and field while an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota-Duluth but hadn’t continued running at UW-Stout.

She told “Wisconsin Today” she was also drawn to football from a young age, with a brother and father who played at the college level. 

Lehman took to it quickly with the Blue Devils, rushing for 100 yards and two touchdowns across the four games UW-Stout hosted this past Saturday.

“This weekend, there was a really great environment,” Lehman said. “A lot of people showed up to support us. So, that’s been really cool.”

The players are experiencing the growth of the sport firsthand. The National Federation of State High School Associations says flag football is the nation’s fastest-growing emerging high school sport, and it has been added to the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Lehman hopes that the team at UW-Stout can pave the way for more young female athletes to get opportunities to play football and expand their athletic careers the way she is.

“It’s so fun. There’s really not another sport for women like it,” Lehman said. “I have a feeling a lot of people would fall in love with flag football.”

The 4-2 Blue Devils will compete in their league’s championship tournament on April 26, hosted by the Minnesota Vikings at their Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center headquarters.