HOUSTON \u2013 Scooting up the sideline, racing away from pursuit, the Heights\u2019 Emma Syphard displayed her skills Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
She led the way for her squad as they won the Houston ISD championship over Westbury in an event hosted by the Texans at their Houston Methodist training center, earning Most Valuable Player honors.<\/p>\n
The growth of girls flag football, under the Texans\u2019 leadership, is up to more than 80 high schools with every Houston ISD school in addition to schools in Fort Bend, Stafford, Alief and charter schools as well as multiple schools in El Paso and Austin.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an initiative supported by the National Football League, especially the Texans.<\/p>\n
Hannah McNair, the Texans\u2019 foundation vice president, is a huge fan of the sport, which she\u2019s played in the past and, currently, by her daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s such an excitement around girls flag football, flag football in general, the girls\u2019 flag taking off, just incredibly,\u201d McNair said. \u201cAnd to be watching that game and seeing the intensity with which the girls play, but the fans, the coaches, all of us watching, it\u2019s so incredible to see the growth that this game has done. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea there was going to be this much interest, not just locally, but all across the state, all across the nation. We\u2019ll be in El Paso and Austin this week for championships. We\u2019re here today with these championships. I came from my daughter\u2019s championship earlier, which she won. So, coming from that to here, I just feel like I\u2019m on Cloud Nine watching all this, it\u2018s incredible.”<\/p>\n
After the Heights\u2019 victory, Austin defeated Willowridge and Legacy School of Sport defeated Aristoi Classical Academy.<\/p>\n
Flag football is an officially sanctioned Olympic sport in 2028, with the Games set for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The Texans and Dallas Cowboys both want to make this an officially sanctioned sport at the high school level in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Olympics coming, the growth of the sport and the talk around girls flag football has grown exponentially over the last couple of years,\u201d McNair said. \u201cSo, I think that the sky\u2019s the limit. I think we can go much further than where we are and we know that based on the interest that we\u2019re getting with the need, the want and all these schools we really want to get it UIL sanctioned here in Texas. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo watch this and the intensity and the love that you see on their faces, the competition is so cool. To be able to bring this game to these girls, in this way and to bring it at a high level, it brings so many opportunities for them and for the growth of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor, a free agent signing this offseason, was extremely impressed with the level of play as he cheered the athletes on.<\/p>\n
\u201cMan, that\u2019s a lot of skill out there, man, from them breaking the coverage to them throwing the ball down the field,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIt was a lot of skill out there and it was pretty cool to see today.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Al-Shaair, there was a message he wanted to impart along with encouraging all of the participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s awesome, especially like I think just to see you know me growing up as a kid, just women playing sports in general specifically football like almost nonexistent to now how far along is this progress over the years and like seeing the excitement in their face, I\u2019m excited,\u201d Al-Shaair said. \u201cWe\u2019re watching the game and it felt like watching like us play It was dope, man. It was and awesome experience <\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky\u2019s the limit. You can go as far as you want to take it. When I was younger and like women didn\u2019t play football really much at all to now seeing like the skill that they have like I need to work with my hands because I saw some catches that I\u2019m like, \u2018Dang, I can\u2019t do that so honestly, women, you can be whoever you want to be. All those girls out there were working, so it was special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Scooting up the sideline, racing away from pursuit, the Heights\u2019 Emma Syphard displayed her skills Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[15930,7464,7,6791,12159,221,253,2368,6,222,12140],"class_list":{"0":"post-58793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-azeez-al-shaair","9":"tag-darrell-taylor","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-girls-flag-football","12":"tag-hannah-mcnair","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-houston-texans","15":"tag-houstontexans","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-texans","18":"tag-toro"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114526283674039160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}