Girl’s flag football comes to Lake Park hoping to become one of the top growing sports this year.
“This past fall, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) implemented girls flag football as an IHSA sport for the first time including a regular season schedule and full IHSA playoffs. Fremd High School (Palatine) was crowned the first IHSA State Champion in this inaugural season,” Athletic Director Mr. Peter Schauer said. “Locally, the DuKane Conference recognizes Girls Flag Football as a conference sport and with Lake Park and St. Charles East and St. Charles adopting it for Fall 2025, all eight conference schools will play girl’s flag football.”
Girl’s flag football is a fast growing sport already. Some interesting news is that flag football will be making its debut as an Olympic Sport for both men and women in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
As Mr. Schauer shows his support for the sport and bringing it to the students here at Lake Park, he claims, “As the Athletic Director, I formally proposed adding Girls Flag Football as a fully recognized sport at Lake Park High School. This was done after tracking student interest over the past three years through survey results and in person meetings to gauge student interest. It was very apparent there is strong interest at Lake Park and that we will have enough participants to have a strong program.”
Why might this sport be brought to Lake Park at all? Girls flag football is a largely supported sport at many schools, and it has been found that many students here at Lake Park are interested in having it at their school. And thanks to the staff at LP, they listen to what their students want, and this was one thing that they could make happen.
“Lake Park has some incredible female student-athletes. Also, we have some talented, athletic students who may not have participated in sports previously, but have the right skill set to be successful in this sport,” Mr. Schauer said. “I think the Lancers can quickly become one of the top teams in our conference and area.”
Head Boy’s Tackle Football Coach and Social Studies Teacher Mr. Chris Kirkpatrick is eager to show his support and appreciation.
“Our athletic department offers so many sports and we have so many athletic students here at LP I think we have a chance to build a really strong flag program,” Coach Kirkpatrick said. “I would be excited about partnering up with that program in any way that I can to help them learn and grow in the game of football.”
Some of the ways Lake Park will be showing their support for girls flag football is through many social media platforms like X under the account LakeParkFootball and Instagram under the account name of LakeParkFB.
