When flag football quarterback Sam Rapoport made the move from her native Canada to the U.S. in 2003, she experienced some unexpected culture shock. And, no, we’re not talking about the scarcity of poutine and Nanaimo bars.
“When I moved here, I couldn't believe that women's flag football was kind of a joke,” says Sam, who played on a sanctioned high school team back home in Ottawa. “How does the country where the NFL exists not have a legitimate program for girls?”
Sam knew that needed to change, and she was in a position to make that happen, as an executive at the NFL. So she started the NFL Girls’ Flag Football Leadership program in 2009. Rather than approaching schools directly, the program put the power in girls’ hands, Sam tells editors Abigail Cuffey and Amanda Lucci on the latest episode of The Huddle, the Women’s Health podcast where we talk sports, sweat, and everything in between.
“The idea was not to pressure high schools to do it—it was to find six girls around the country who were as crazy as I was about football, and really loved the sport, and wanted to see it in her high school. We gave her all the tools she needed to pitch to her high school athletic director to get the sport in high schools.”
And it worked. Six states sanctioned the sport directly through the program, and now 21 states total (New Jersey just joined the bandwagon earlier this month!) have sanctioned girls’ flag football.
“I imagine it will be at all 50 states pretty soon,” Sam says. “It's catching on like wildfire, which is an amazing thing to see, as someone who's been involved in the sport since I was 12 years old. It's incredible to see the whole world take notice.”
Helping to legitimize girls’ flag football in the U.S. is just one of Sam’s many accomplishments over the course of her more than two-decade career in football. Watch the latest episode of The Huddle for more on her impressive career—including spearheading the NFL Women's Forum—and why she was named one of WH’s Game Changers.
Amy Wilkinson is a contributing entertainment editor at Women's Health, where she edits the magazine's celebrity cover stories and writes health features. She has previously held editor titles at Entertainment Weekly and MTV News. In 2021, Amy completed her 600-hour teacher-training at Core Pilates NYC to become a comprehensively trained Pilates instructor.
