One other Division I college is pursuing the addition of ladies’s flag soccer.
In a letter to the campus group printed on Friday, Cal Poly athletic director Don Oberhelman stated the varsity may add ladies’s flag soccer as a varsity sport as early as 2027.
Cal Poly is the sixth Division I college on the NCAA stage to announce its intentions of beginning a ladies’s flag soccer workforce. The members of the Large West comply with Alabama State, Lengthy Island, Mercyhurst, Mount St. Mary’s, and UT Arlington.
Again in February, flag soccer made a big stride in gaining floor within the school ranks when the NCAA advisable including it to its Rising Sports activities for Girls program. Ought to flag soccer be granted standing in this system on the 2026 NCAA conference, there may very well be a methods to go earlier than followers see one thing like an NCAA Event for the game.
Nonetheless, as flag soccer barrels towards its debut on the Olympics in 2028 in Los Angeles, curiosity in it appears to be rising on the collegiate stage.
Nebraska AD Troy Dannen stated people ought to maintain “a detailed eye” on ladies’s flag soccer after internet hosting an exhibition contest on the Husker Video games in April. Final month, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips instructed SB Nation the convention is “watching” what’s occurring in flag soccer and the convention has had “a number of preliminary conversations” concerning the sport.
On Could 9, 2024, in an e-mail obtained by SB Nation by an open information request, NCAA Senior Vice President Felicia Martin wrote to Division I athletic administrators: “The mixture of flag soccer’s Olympic recognition and its increasing recognition amongst youth and highschool gamers has elevated its significance as considered one of NCAA President Charlie Baker’s high priorities for the Affiliation.” The e-mail included stats concerning the sport’s progress and hyperlinks to movies and a studying portal.
In asserting the addition of flag soccer at Cal Poly, Oberhelman wrote that he hopes that being early on investing within the sport and constructing a program rapidly will enable it to “embark on a legacy of success” equally to how the Mustangs have carried out in seaside volleyball “which continues to pay dividends.” Seaside volleyball is a sport that additionally grew from the NCAA’s Rising Sports activities for Girls program and now has championship standing. The Mustangs have been to 5 NCAA Tournaments for seaside volleyball and have superior to the nationwide semifinals in every of the previous two years.
Cal Poly can be elevating its STUNT program from membership standing to a varsity sport.
“Each of those additions are a part of the college’s long-term planning to extend alternatives for feminine student-athletes,” Oberhelman wrote. “That is notably essential as Cal Poly’s feminine pupil inhabitants has elevated during the last 12 years from 42 p.c of enrollment to 51 p.c.”
Whereas only a handful of Division I faculties have added ladies’s soccer, many extra have on the Division II and III ranges.
This previous season, the Division III America East held a full varsity season of ladies’s flag soccer capped off with a convention championship, turning into the primary NCAA league to take action. Jacqie McWilliams-Parker — commissioner of the CIAA, the Division II HBCU convention — instructed SB Nation that she hopes to have flag soccer as a varsity sport within the league in the course of the 2026-27 educational yr.
