Mia Jimenez is a versatile athlete.
Jimenez went to high school in Salem, where she did cheer and played basketball. But starting her junior year, she got the chance to try something different: flag football.
“I was like, ‘Oh, there’s something missing.’ So, I just joined, and then it just became a part of a routine and something I love doing,” she said.
The game gave her the chance to try something new, but it also opened the opportunity to become a part of a rapidly growing college sport.
Now, Jimenez is a wide receiver and linebacker for the Roxbury Community College Tigers, which is wrapping up its first season of play.
School officials say RCC is the first community college in New England to offer the sport for women at the varsity level. And as the game grows, they’re hoping to be at the forefront of the game among community colleges in the region.
“We’ve got players coming from Leominster, Fitchburg, Salem, Peabody, Lowell. So, we’ve got players coming from all over,” said RCC athletic director Albert Hayle. “And what it’s doing for us here, it’s diversifying and growing our campus. But it’s given our young ladies an opportunity to follow their dreams and chase the things that they love. Because this sport has grown so much on a national level as well.”
Flag football has seen a dramatic increase in interest in the past few years. In January, the NCAA added it to its Emerging Sports for Women program. The National Junior College Athletic Association, which RCC is a part of, added women’s flag as a sport four years ago.
And, crucially, flag football will make its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028.
While the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, which governs the majority of high school sports in the state, has not officially sanctioned flag football, the game has spiked at the local level.
The Patriots started their own flag league for high school girls in 2023 with just eight teams. Last year, there were more than 50. Hayle credits the growth of the game at the high school level locally — “specifically, around in the South Shore” — as a big factor in starting the program at RCC.
”Right here in Boston the last two years, it’s been big with the local high schools,” he said. “So, we want to put ourselves in a position where we can now use that to, one, bring in more students, and two, just create more opportunities.”
The school announced the launch of the program last year, which was helped along with a $5,000 grant from the NJCAA Foundation.
Jimenez jumped at the opportunity to play.
“Since we’re the only school in Massachusetts that has it, I think girls just look at this as an opportunity to also grow their path in flag football and to become stronger,” she said.
The first year of play wasn’t without its hurdles. Since there are few close competitors, most of the games the team played were on the road. And the players have had to adjust to new college rules and the speed of the game.
But Hayle hopes that RCC can show the excitement around the sport and encourage other local community colleges to start their own flag programs.
“I think this sport is going to continue to take off,” he said. “So, I would love to get to a place where our other community colleges start to adapt it, so we have more teams to play around here.”
On Thursday, the Tigers will play in the NJCAA nationals in the Chicago area at the College of DuPage.
And as far as the future, Jimenez wants to see flag football continue to grow at all levels.
“I feel like it has to become a sport in all 50 states, growing more,” she said. “And I hope it goes to the Olympics and just gets way huger. And the program gets bigger.”
